Are Israelis modern descendants of the Israelites and Abraham?

[EccentricM]

As the title says. I had wondered about modern day Israel and if the modern peoples and genealogy there is directly linked to the ancient Israelites? 

[Motherhen]

1 hour ago, EccentricM said:

I had wondered about modern day Israel and if the modern peoples and genealogy there is directly linked to the ancient Israelites? 

I've also wondered if the modern day Palestinians are linked to the ancient Israelites. A quick search on Wikipedia indicates they are descendants of both Jews and Samaritans.

[carlos]

2 hours ago, EccentricM said:

As the title says. I had wondered about modern day Israel and if the modern peoples and genealogy there is directly linked to the ancient Israelites? 

More or less yes.

 

After Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, there continued to be Jewish revolts until the year 135, when the Romans were fed up and expelled all Jews from Palestine. They spread throughout the world. Many of them settled in Europe, Turkey or Northern Africa. Along the centuries, the Jews were hated, harassed and persecuted almost everywhere, with antisemitism reaching its climax during the Nazi Holocaust.

 

After WWII was over, the UN established a Jewish state in the traditional territory of  Israel so that Jews no longer had to suffer persecution. In 1948 the modern state of Israel was created and Jews from all the world moved there. During the next decades, many more thousands of Jews were welcomed in Israel.

 

So basically yes, modern day Israelites are the descendants of Abraham (as are Arabs on the other hand, but by means of Ismael). Although they mixed to some degree with other peoples along so many thousands of years, they mostly preserved their Jewish heritage. However, all genealogical records were burned, so no Jew today can demonstrate what their tribe is.

 

One interesting detail is that the Jews stopped speaking Hebrew at some point shortly after the Temple was destroyed. Diaspora Jews spoke the language of the country they settled in. Their language was preserved just as a liturgic language, to read the Bible and celebrate their religious services. Hebrew language was revived in the 19th century, and when the state of Israel was proclaimed, it adopted Hebrew as its official language, although not many Jews spoke Hebrew at the time.

 

 

[rbrown1205]

I got the idea that some of the orthodox Jews have been keeping up with the priesthood geneology.  I remember the songwriter Leonard Cohen saying that he was told by his relatives that he was among them.

 

There is another group that claims ancestry with King Solomon, called Cochin Jews.  The history of this and other geneology based groups of Jews is fascinating, because they apparently wanted to continue some connection with the Messianic prophecies, with the idea of finding their Messiah among them.

[vern]

Its interesting thinking about the messiah prophecies.
 

I think the watchtower has pointed out that there's upwards to  430 or so messianic prophecies.

One has marked the year of his birth;  one has marked the year of his death;  one has marked the town he was born in; one has marked the country he would grow up in and come from to be anointed as the messiah.
He would qualify to be a descendant and fullfill being a "seed"  to the covenant promises.

No other person can fullfill those unique  set of circumstances.  Wonder what kind of mathmatical statistics someone can come up with the chances or odds of that happening. (hopefully saying chances and odds doesn't get into a "lucky"  debate....  )

 

 

 

[EccentricM]

14 hours ago, vern said:

Its interesting thinking about the messiah prophecies.
 

I think the watchtower has pointed out that there's upwards to  430 or so messianic prophecies.

One has marked the year of his birth;  one has marked the year of his death;  one has marked the town he was born in; one has marked the country he would grow up in and come from to be anointed as the messiah.
He would qualify to be a descendant and fullfill being a "seed"  to the covenant promises.

No other person can fullfill those unique  set of circumstances.  Wonder what kind of mathmatical statistics someone can come up with the chances or odds of that happening. (hopefully saying chances and odds doesn't get into a "lucky"  debate....  )

 

 

 

Google sent me here. See what you think of it. I myself am not a mathematical person at all so I can't comment. 

 

http://christinprophecy.org/articles/applying-the-science-of-probability-to-the-scriptures/