"Just for starters, sabath, the source of your 13th tribe, the subject with which you began this thread, is not the Bible. It is from the book, "The 13th Tribe," by the author, Arthur Koestler.
Christian people who claim to believe in God the Father, Jesus Christ-our Savior, and the Holy Spirit, the Triune God of the Bible, should not take the word of a novel named "The 13th Tribe," believing it, instead of God's Holy Word.
There are 12 tribes, corresponding to the 12 sons of Jacob, the tribe of Joseph was given a double portion, consisting of the two "half-tribes" (Joshua 13:29, 21:6, 25, etc.) of Ephraim and Manasseh, as they are each receiving 1/2 of the tribe of Joseph's allotment. The Bible in its various listings of the 12 tribes always has them numbered as 12, never 13, although the list names vary depending on the purpose of the list.
Quote:
Numbers 1:44 "These are those who were listed, whom Moses and Aaron listed with the help of the chiefs of Israel, twelve men, each representing his fathers' house.
1. The people of Reuben,
2. Of the people of Simeon,
3. Of the people of Gad,
4. Of the people of Judah,
5. Of the people of Issachar,
6. Of the people of Zebulun,
7. Of the people of Joseph/Ephraim[Vs.32]
8. Of the people of Manasseh,
9. Of the people of Benjamin
10.Of the people of Dan
11.Of the people of Asher
12.Of the people of Naphtali
Quote:
47 But the Levites were not listed along with them by their ancestral tribe.
48 For the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
49 “Only the tribe of Levi you shall not list, and you shall not take a census of them among the people of Israel.
50 But appoint the Levites over the tabernacle"...
Levi inherited the priesthood (not Judah). Ex 40:15. The high priest had to be from the tribe of Levi. This meant that the tribe of Levi did not inherit and were not allocated any land in Israel (Deuteronomy 18:1, 2).
Compare ancient Israel to the United States of America today. There are 50 states but the District of Columbia where the capital is located is not a state. Likewise ancient Israel had 12 states named according to tribes, but the Levites served in the Temple at the capital and they did not have a tribal (state) territory. Instead, they lived in many cities spread out throughout the land.
Your 1st phrase was "The incredible relationship between the 13th Tribe and the 13 Colonies that became America!"
Born in Budapest in 1905, educated in Vienna, Arthur Koestler was a Hungarian British Jewish author and journalist who wrote The 13th Tribe. He was an athiest... never believing in God. He immersed himself in the major ideological and social conflicts of his time. A communist during the 1930s, and visitor for a time in the Soviet Union, he became disillusioned with the Party of Stalin, and left it in 1938.
Later that year in Spain, he was captured by the Fascist forces under Franco, and sentenced to death. Released through the last-minute intervention of the British government, he went to France where, the following year, he again was arrested for his political views. Released in 1940, he went to England, where he made his home. His novels, reportage, autobiographical works, and political and cultural writings established him as a commentator on the dilemmas of the 20th century. He and his wife committed suicide together in 1983.
Born: Artúr Kösztler, September 5, 1905, Budapest, Austria-Hungary
Died: March 1, 1983, London, England, United Kingdom
Occupation: Novelist, Essayist, Journalist
The Thirteenth Tribe is a 1976 book by Arthur Koestler, in which the author advances the theory that Ashkenazi Jews are not descended from the historical Hebrews/Israelites/Jews of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but from Khazars, a mythic Turkic people from one thousand years ago. Koestler imagined in his book that the Khazars had migrated westwards into Eastern Europe in the middle ages becoming the ancestors of the Jews who are living today.
Arthur Koestler's official biography, written by Michael Scammell, specifically quotes him on why he wrote "The Thirteenth Tribe."
"He believed that if he could persuade people that a non-Jewish 'Khazar' heritage was actually the ancestry of the modern Jews, then this would stop the European racially based anti-Semitism. "Should this theory be confirmed, the term 'anti-Semitism' would become void of any meaning," he said.
Koestler told French biologist Pierre Debray-Ritzen that Koestler "was convinced that if he could convince the public that the bulk of Eastern European Jews were descended from the Turkish Khazars, instead of the Biblical patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then the racial basis for anti-Semitism would be removed and anti-Semitism itself would disappear."
The non-religious/non-observant Jewish author who made up and wrote the fictitious “The Thirteenth Tribe,” the novel which more than any other source, has advanced the "Khazar theory of history," wrote it because he thought it could stop the hatred and attacks against his fellow Jews, not realizing he was denying the truth of the Bible, because it was God who allowed the Jewish people to survive for 1,900 years without a homeland in order that the prophecies in the Bible would all be fulfilled.
No Christian should believe anything that contradicts the Bible, but that is your choice.
"Just for starters, sabath, the source of you... (