Ten Lost Tribes

As part of my "History of Israel" course, we spent time today looking at the Jewish understanding of the "Ten Lost Tribes" of Israel. My only previous contact with this topic was part of a study of Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God. A search of my collection using the terms ["lost tribes" ANDNOT "ten lost tribes"] and ["ten lost tribes"] (that is two separate searches) on the text of my entire library found an interesting article in the Apologetics Study Bible. Most other references were brief references to the lost tribes being assimilated into the surrounding cultures.

I was surprised that the Jewish faith made the survival and discovery of the lost tribes a significant part of their future history. I own the gold scholar's package - are there resources available (either in or out of the gold package) that can help me understand the Jewish beliefs and/or how Christians have viewed the existence or non-existence of the lost tribes. Are there other terms that I should be searching for?

Thank you for any help.

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Vincent Setterholm

I searched the Mishnah for 'ten tribes' and found differing opinions from the Rabbis in Sanhedrin 10:3. I'm looking forward to being able to read the commentary in the Talmuds.

Legends of the Jews is also an interesting synthesis of material from a lot of sources, with decent bibliographic information for tracking down further reading. Page 1089 note 56 summarizes some of the treatment of Sanhedrin 10 from the Talmuds and quotes other documents as well.

Allen Browne

Can I suggest some other searches to help study this topic?

As you found, the 10 tribes weren't "lost" somewhere, but were subsumed following the Assyrian invasion. Studying Samaritan might put you in touch with these people, and could provide some interesting insights for NT studies.

The phrase all Israel is also pretty significant in Chronicles (as well as some OT prophets.) Particularly after the divided kingdom, it contains seeds of a future hope, most clearly expressed in Hezekiah's letter (2 Chr 30.) Again, that phrase does appear in the NT (Acts & Rom.)

Then there is the whole account of how Jesus has reconstituted Israel (the people of God, the kingdom) around himself. Best resource I can suggest on that is the entire contents of N T Wright's Christian Origins and the Question of God Series (3 vols.) Searching for reconstituted in NTPG and JVG will take you to the relevant sections.

777

Go read the Declaration of Arbroath and see who the Scottish people are.

While you're at it read Genesis chapter 49 verse 1 and onward to see what is happening to the various tribes in the last days. God knows who they are even if they themselves do not know who they are.

777

While you're at it, go read who the book of James is addressed to.

Praiser

Added this topic to the Wiki at http://topics.logos.com/Lost_Tribes

Everyone can add additional links.

Rosie Perera

Added this topic to the Wiki at http://topics.logos.com/Lost_Tribes

Everyone can add additional links.

Thanks, Praiser. I've added some links.

Rosie Perera

I know this is many months since the question was first asked, but I just poked around through one of the new books I picked up as part of the Christmas 2010 Master Collection, Jacob's Dozen: A Prophetic Look at the Tribes of Israel, and it has a whole chapter on "Will The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel Ever Be Found?" It also comes to the conclusion that they were never lost. It is written from a Messianic Jewish perspective.

Alex Scott

God knows who they are even if they themselves do not know who they are.

One thing has always puzzled me. If the ten tribes in question intermarried with the surrounding people, which is my understanding, then what constitutes a tribal member? Someone whose ancestors have unwittingly married only within that tribe for many generations? Or do they have to be 50%, 25%, 10%, 1% tribal to qualify as a member of that tribe? To say that God knows who they are is to suppose that somehow there are purebreds out there somewhere.