How Classical dispensational views confused race, lineage, and covenant in their treatment of Jewish identity

This article addresses older Darby-Scofield-style claims that spoke of the Jews in racial or bloodline terms and often treated lineage as though it settled covenant identity. Although not as common today, there remains some dispensational Christian Zionist who view the Jews as either the exclusive heirs of Abraham by race or by having a closer relation to Abraham via genealogy than other groups on the planet. However, both of these ideas are historically difficult to sustain and cannot be established by science or genetics alone. The only remaining scenario would be that Judaism is a seperate covenant people distinct from the Church. This is perhaps the most common modern argument that we will address at the end of this post.

Note: due to the fact that this is a sensitive topic, we want to stress that it is important to emphasize that ancient Israel was in some small way a genealogy via blood family ties, but keeping with Biblical definitions of what made one part of Israel, ancient Israel was predominately  a covenant family of many people. Old Testament Israel was never uniethnic and was welcoming of the stranger who wanted to join themselves to or become part of Israel and join the covenant promises. Contemporary Judaism is likewise welcoming of those who wish to become Jewish.

In light of this, we have compiled a selection of quotations from Jewish sources, encyclopedias, DNA research, and genealogical studies to address and refute the misconceptions propagated by these types of Christian Zionist narratives regarding race and lineage since these myths, although not as popular, still exist today.

Races do not Exist:

“The findings of physical anthropology show that, contrary to the popular view, there is no Jewish race” (Patai, R., Director of Research, Theodor Herzl Institute, New York. “Encyclopedia Britannica”, 12: 1054, 1969).

“A common error and persistent modern myth is the designation of the Jews as a ‘race’” (Roth, C., Oxford University Reader in Jewish Studies, 1939- 1964, in: “Jews”, “Collier’s Encyclopedia”, 13: 574, 1991).

Proselytism

Historically,  individuals could become Jewish by becoming part of Judaism as their religion, which challenges the notion that Jewish identity is solely tied to race or genealogy. Proselytizing was also common in Ancient Israel. Even modern Judaism allows one to become Jewish if they take on the religion and cultural practices tied to it:

“There can be little doubt that the scattered Phoenicians in Spain and Africa and throughout the Mediterranean, speaking as they did a language closely akin to Hebrew and being deprived of their authentic political rights, became proselytes to Judaism. For phases of vigorous proselytism alternated with phases of exclusive jealousy in Jewish history. On one occasion the Idumeans, being conquered, were all forcibly made Jews. There were Arab tribes who were Jews in the time of Muhammad, and a Turkish people who were mainly Jews in South Russia in the ninth century. Judaism is indeed the reconstructed political ideal of many shattered peoples – mainly Semitic…. The main part of Jewry never was in Judea and had never come out of Judea” – H.G. Wells (The Outline of History, p. 505).

“It is a common assumption, and one that sometimes seems ineradicable even in the face of evidence to the contrary, that the Jews of today constitute a race, a homogeneous entity easily recognizable. From the preceding discussion of the origin and early history of the Jews, it should be clear that in the course of their formation as a people and a nation they had already assimilated a variety of racial strains from people moving into the general area they occupied. This had taken place by interbreeding and then by conversion to Judaism of a considerable number of communities…Thus, the diversity of the racial and genetic attributes of various Jewish colonies of today renders any unified racial classification of them a contradiction in terms. (Encyclopedia Judaica Jerusalem, 1971, vol. 3, p. 50).

Ashkenazi Jews are predominately the Jews in Israel today. However, their lineage includes Europeans who at one time converted to Judaism:

“The origin of the Ashkenazi Jews, who come most recently from Europe, has largely been shrouded in mystery. But a new study suggests that at least their maternal lineage may derive largely from Europe….Though the finding may seem intuitive, it contradicts the notion that European Jews mostly descend from people who left Israel and the Middle East around 2,000 years ago. Instead, a substantial proportion of the population originates from local Europeans who converted to Judaism, said study co-author Martin Richards, an archaeogeneticist at the University of Huddersfield in England.” -https://www.livescience.com/40247-ashkenazi-jews-have-european-genes.html

Curiously, a 2013 study of the maternal origins of Ashkenazi Jews suggests that their ancestors were prehistoric European women from the Northern Mediterranean—and not the Middle East or the Caucasus, as other research has posited. The study analyzed mitochondrial DNA (loops of genetic material passed down from mother to child in tiny organelles carried by their eggs)…..Led by Martin B. Richards of the University of Leeds in the UK, the research suggests that 40 percent of the variation in Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA can be traced to prehistoric Europe, indicating that the maternal ancestors of most modern Ashkenazi Jews converted to Judaism some 2,000 years ago. – https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/07/09/are-jews-a-genetic-race-or-population-12-examples-of-jewish-genetic-distinctiveness/

As a trained geneticist, he became convinced that there are not and never were human races. In the last twenty years, an increasing number of anthropologists and biologists have reached the same conclusion. They argue that there is no way to genetically characterize race, because no human population has ever been isolated long enough from other populations to avoid “crossbreeding.” The history of the Jews, in particular, supports this thesis. From Day One they had children with non-Jews. Hence, biologically, Jews are not different from non-Jews. – https://lupress.cas2.lehigh.edu/content/myth-jewish-race

We show that all bio-localization analyses have localized AJs to Turkey and that the non-Levantine origins of AJs are supported by ancient genome analyses. Overall, these findings are compatible with the hypothesis of an Irano-Turko-Slavic origin for AJs and a Slavic origin for Yiddish-frontiers

The concept of racial categorization has been associated by some with Darwinism and Nazi Propaganda:

The perception of Jews as a distinct race is said to be linked to Darwinian theory. And this concept of Darwinism, or evolution, was utilized in Nazi propaganda to assert that other ethnic groups were inferior to the so-called “Aryan race.”

“Humans differentiate, classify, and discriminate: social interaction is a basic property of human Darwinian evolution. Presumably inherent differential physical as well as behavioral properties have always been criteria for identifying friend or foe. Yet, biological determinism is a relatively modern term, and scientific racism is, oddly enough, largely a consequence or a product of the Age of Enlightenment and the establishment of the notion of human equality. In recent decades ever-increasing efforts and ingenuity were invested in identifying Biblical Israelite genotypic common denominators by analysing an assortment of phenotypes, like facial patterns, blood types, diseases, DNA-sequences, and more. It becomes overwhelmingly clear that although Jews maintained detectable vertical genetic continuity along generations of socio-religious-cultural relationship, also intensive horizontal genetic relations were maintained both between Jewish communities and with the gentile surrounding. Thus, in spite of considerable consanguinity, there is no Jewish genotype to identify.” – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4301023/

Race and genetics form their own double helix, twisting together through history. The Nazis, as everyone knows, justified the death camps on the grounds that Jews and Gypsies were genetically inferior—but what is less known is that the Nazis took their cue from eugenics legislation passed in the United States. Here, race is defined primarily by skin color. Since that’s a genetic trait, the logic goes, race itself must be genetic, and there must be differences that are more than skin deep…..But that’s not what modern genetics reveals. Quite the contrary, it shows that race is truly skin deep. Indeed, genetics undermines the whole concept that humanity is composed of ”races”—pure and static groups that are significantly different from one another. Genetics has proven otherwise by tracing human ancestry, as it is inscribed on DNA……Mitochondrial DNA indicates that all living humans descend from one maternal source—christened Mitochondrial Eve—who lived in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. Similarly, the Y chromosome shows that all men have a common ancestor, Y-chromosome Adam, who lived at the same time. (Actually, both analyses indicate that modern humans descend from a small founding population of about 5000 men and an equal number of women.) The time estimates are based on assumptions on how frequently genetic mutations occur. The mutation clocks of mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome tick at different speeds, so the fact that they both indicate humans emerged at the same historical moment makes this evidence much more convincing……http://web.mit.edu/racescience/in_media/what_dna_says_about_human/

Past research was conducted with a bias towards promoting a Christian Zionist and Political Nationalist narrative to promote a false idea of lineage or race:

…a comparison of articles about human population genetics written and published by Israeli scientists between 1951 and 1963 with similar articles written by non-Israelis. The comparison reveals that during this period the Israeli human geneticists and physicians emphasized the sociological and historical aspects of their research and used their work, among other things, as a vehicle for establishing a national identity and confirming the Zionist narrative. – Population genetics in Israel in the 1950s. The unconscious internalization of ideology

This is why Jews typically and rightfully do not appreciate being classified as a race since this classification was one aspect of Nazi persecution against them.

Instead, Judaism can be sometimes defined as a religion or people bound by a covenant with God; thus, an individual is considered Jewish by virtue of practicing Judaism or through familial ties to the faith. Thus, one could be an atheist – familial ties, but still remain Jewish. This does not work with how the Scriptures defined who was and was not a member of the tribe of Judah.

Modern Judaism also moved from lineage through the father and included ties through the Mother, even if she converted to Judaism, the next generations would be considered Jewish. The latter part is in line with Scripture since a convert in the Scriptures was considered a full member of Israel:

If you convert to Judaism under the auspices of a bona fide Orthodox beit din (ecclesiastical court), you are 100% Jewish, and so are all offspring born to you after your conversion (if you are female).- chabad.org.

So conversion counts one as Jewish,  just as conversion counted one as an Israelite in the Old Testament.  Similarly, a person could potentially identify as Catholic either through conversion or having been born into Roman Catholicism and baptized as an infant. The main difference however is that once a Roman Catholic denounces faith, they are not longer Roman Catholic. However, in modern Judaism a person can denounce the faith and remain a Jew.

Ethnicity is cited as another aspect of being Jewish. However, work in Scholarship has shown that ethnicity in the ancient tribal sense was tied to the god you worshipped, not modern concepts of ethnicity. This is why ancient Israel was not uniethnic, but included people who attached themselves to Israel.

So what does all of this mean for those dispensational Christian Zionist who believe that modern Jews are descendants of ancient Israel?

Well for one, it means these Christian Zionist hold ideas of who is a Jew that is not as straight forward as they think. Jews are not a race as we have shown. So let’s look at genetic factors and DNA.

Keep in mind that in Modern Judaism, genealogical ancestry is traced through the Mother. However, Patrilineal descent was the method used by the ancient Israelites in tracing family lineages. This method is biblical and is still practiced by the Samaritans and Karaite Jews who are often at times discriminated against by Israelis. Matrilineal lineage was adopted just after Jesus’ time during what is known as the Tannaitic period  – 70–250 A.D:

Historical evidence marshalled by Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen indicates that a change from a patrilineal to a matrilineal-based principle for the offspring of mixed unions of Jew and gentile took place in the 1st century (c. 10–70 CE) times – Wikipedia and ProQuest

The mtDNA genealogy may even be considered to have particular relevance due to the matrilineal inheritance found in Judaism since at least ~200 CE and possibly several centuries earlier, helping to ‘fix’ incoming lineages from converts within the Ashkenazi community after this time. – A substantial prehistoric European ancestry amongst Ashkenazi maternal lineages

The four founding mothers in Judaism are Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel. However, Maternal lines of Ashkenazi Jews have been studied, revealing that the maternal line or four founding mothers were mostly European women who lived about 1,000 years ago:

A 2013 study at the University of Huddersfield, led by Professor Martin B. Richards, concluded that 65%-81% of Ashkenazi Mt-DNA is European in origin, including all four founding mothers, and that most of the remaining lineages are also European. The results were published in Nature Communications in October 2013. The team analyzed about 2,500 complete and 28,000 partial Mt-DNA genomes of mostly non-Jews, and 836 partial Mt-DNA genomes of Ashkenazi Jews. The study claims that only 8% of Ashkenazi Mt-DNA could be identified as Middle Eastern in origin, with the origin of the rest being unclear. – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3806353/

If we allow for the possibility that K1a9 and N1b2 might have a Near Eastern source, then we can estimate the overall fraction of European maternal ancestry at ~65%. Given the strength of the case for even these founders having a European source, however, our best estimate is to assign ~81% of Ashkenazi lineages to a European source, ~8% to the Near East and ~1% further to the east in Asia, with ~10% remaining ambiguous… Thus at least two-thirds and most likely more than four-fifths of Ashkenazi maternal lineages have a European ancestry.[64] – Wikipedia, and NY Times

Thus the great majority of Ashkenazi maternal lineages were not brought from the Levant, as commonly supposed, nor recruited in the Caucasus, as sometimes suggested, but assimilated within Europe. These results point to a significant role for the conversion of women in the formation of Ashkenazi communities, and provide the foundation for a detailed reconstruction of Ashkenazi genealogical history.- A substantial prehistoric European ancestry amongst Ashkenazi maternal lineages

There is surprisingly little evidence for any significant founder event from the Near East. Fewer than 10% of the Ashkenazi mtDNAs can be assigned to a Near Eastern source with any confidence, and these are found at very low frequencies – IBID

The age estimates for the European founders might suggest (very tentatively, given the imprecision with present data) that these ancestral Jewish populations harboring haplogroup K and especially N1b2 may have had an origin in the first millennium BCE, rather than in the wake of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. In fact, some scholars have argued from historical evidence that the large-scale expansion of Judaism throughout the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period was primarily the result of proselytism and mass-conversion, especially amongst women – IBID

To complicate matters more, according to recent studies, if male ancestry is taken into account, modern Palestinians have been shown to share ancient or middle eastern DNA with the Jews from paternal DNA.  This complicates matters,  because If there is a remnant of Israel to be found in these groups, many Palestinians could potentially be included as those who descended from ancient Israel:

The results match historical accounts that some Moslem Arabs are descended from Christians and Jews who lived in the southern Levant, a region that includes Israel and the Sinai. They were descendants of a core population that lived in the area since prehistoric times. And in a recent study of 1371 men from around the world, geneticist Michael Hammer of the University of Arizona in Tucson found that the Y chromosome in Middle Eastern Arabs was almost indistinguishable from that of Jews.-science.org

The comparison with other Mediterranean populations by using neighbor-joining dendrograms and correspondence analyses reveal that Palestinians are genetically very close to Jews and other Middle East populations, including Turks (Anatolians), Lebanese, Egyptians, Armenians, and Iranians. Archaeologic and genetic data support that both Jews and Palestinians came from the ancient Canaanites, who extensively mixed with Egyptians, Mesopotamian, and Anatolian peoples in ancient times. Thus, Palestinian-Jewish rivalry is based in cultural and religious, but not in genetic, differences. – pubmed

If this is true, and there is still a remnant of Israel to be brought into the Church, it could explain why many Muslims, especially Palestinians, have mass converted to Christianity. Many also report dreaming of Jesus which leads to their conversion. This is not to say that Jews do not convert or that they will not continue coming into the Church. However, it does show that our idea of what makes one connected to the ancient Israelites is more diverse and complicated than we think. We can not literally identify an Ancient Israelite connection based on ones participation in Judaism alone. Using the label in other words, does not mean they are of the ancient tribe of Judah.

The Northern Tribes of the House of Israel were lost among the Nations:

Since it is apparent that Israel, in particular the Jews, are not a race and are better described as a people, is that peoplehood defined by ancestry? And if so, can we trace who are kin to Abraham? If not, then this creates another issue for some of the older forms of Darby/Scofield Christian Zionist.

First of all, the Tribe of Judah constituted only a portion of Israel, representing only one of the twelve tribes. If the principles Christian Zionism in general are accurate, the land currently recognized as modern Israel would belong to all of Israel, rather than one tribe. But who exists to represent the other tribes? They were not all called Jews of the tribe of Judah in the Old Testament.

The Northern Tribes were exiled and assimilated with the surrounding Nations or “gentiles” and were subsequently lost.  Some believe that a remnant remained among the Jews. However, scholars such as Dr. Jason Staples, has shown that Second Temple and later Judaism was specifically looking for a regathering of the Northern Tribes and retained a distinction between themselves as the tribe of Judah and the lost house of Israel.

From a Christian perspective however, this reintegrated would have began through evangelization efforts beginning with Jesus’ ministry in the first century and potentially this is still happening to this day. However, we would not see this happening in a way to know who is or is not still part of a remnant of the Northern Tribes since as Dr. Jason Staples states the Northern House of Israel had become “gentilfied” and perhaps lost their identity as Israelites due to their assimilation among  the Nations.  The Jews were never lost and so they would not constitute the remnant Paul speaks of in the New Testament. Thus, the regathering of Israel as a whole was to happen in the Church, not outside of it.

Add to this the fact that the first Christians were Jews, this regathering of Israel would include gentiles, which would be better worded as nations,  of whom many were at that time potentially still closer in kinship to Abraham, since they were once – although unknown to them at the time as they had lost their identity – part of the lost tribes of Israel. By necessity, this would have to include others from the nations to be included, and this is what Paul meant when he said that in this way, all Israel is would be saved.

This could  explain genealogy and why no one today can claim ancestry exclusively back to Abraham since we are so far removed from the 1st century to the point that all humans share many common ancient ancestors today.

If we could trace our lineage back just a few thousand years, we would likely come to a common set of ancestors.

Ralph and Coop identified 1.9 million shared segments of DNA that were millions of base pairs long, proving their owners were related. They were then able to estimate how long ago their common ancestor lived from the length of the segment…..”The length of a shared DNA sequence shows how closely, or distantly, two people are related,” Ralph said. “Thus DNA sequences shared with parents are the longest, those shared with grandparents are half as long and those shared with great-grandparents half as long again and so on….”So the longer ago an ancestor is, the shorter the chunk is likely to be.”…”Our research confirmed what Chang suspected—that everybody who was alive in Europe a thousand years ago and who had children, is an ancestor of everyone alive today who has some European ancestry,” Ralph said….Ralph and Coop calculated that these shared segments showed ancestors stretching back some 3,000 years, or 100 generations. This lends support to Chang’s calculation that by expanding his model from living Europeans to everyone alive on Earth, an all-ancestor generation would have occurred some 3,400 years ago. – phys.org

At seven generations back, less than 1% of your DNA is likely to come from any given ancestor. – ancestry.com

Abraham lived roughly 3,900 years ago. At only 3,400 years ago, we share the same few common ancestors. Given how genealogical ancestry overlaps over time, exclusive claims of biological proximity to Abraham become much more difficult to sustain.

A British computational biologist recently confirmed that everyone living on earth today is related to everyone else on the planet, much more closely than previously thought…..Twenty generations ago, approximately 1400 AD, it is estimated that the world population was about 10,000,000 people. Going back another four generations, we find each person alive today has 16,777,216 direct line ancestors, or over ½ million more ancestors than there were people in the world. – gvnews.com

All humans can trace their family tree back to a surprisingly small group of common ancestors. Every person on Earth’s most recent common ancestor might have died less than 2000 years ago….-i09.Gizmodo.com

In fact about 80% of the people at that time in the past will be the ancestors of everyone in the present. The remaining 20% are those who have had no children, or whose children have had no children, and so on – in other words, people who were genetic dead-ends….Apply that to the case of King David. According to this model, he would be a common ancestor of the whole population of the Holy Land somewhere between 20 and 35 generations after his life. That’s even without Solomon sowing his seed so widely….That’s why everyone alive in the Holy Land at the time of Jesus would have been able to claim David for an ancestor.-bbc.com

How far do we have to go back to find the most recent common ancestor of all humans alive today? Again, estimates are remarkably short. Even taking account of distant isolation and local inbreeding, the quoted figures are 100 or so generations in the past: a mere 3,000 years ago..IBID

A new DNA study shows that everyone alive on the earth today shares common ancestors only 1,000 to 2,000 years ago…..genealogybank.com

Thus, genealogical descent alone cannot establish exclusive covenantal or territorial rights today.

Our position is that the Church is the fulfillment of God’s purposes with setting Old Testament Israel apart from the other Nations. Israel was never meant to be exclusive or to be a strict ancestry or bloodline to Abraham. Israel’s purpose was to be a light to the other Nations and to draw them into their tribes. Thus, Israel always allowed for the inclusion of “gentiles” to become part of Israel. Once a person or family took on the common practices and worship of the one true God, they were equal citizens of Israel. And Judah’s purpose was to retain the prophets, the history and he message of God’s plan for the salvation of all mankind until the time of the Messiah’s arrival.

Abraham’s kin according to the flesh, literally meant those who were circumcised. We see proof for this wording in the early church fathers writings and ancient Jewish text. The difference now lies in the fact that the Messiah has arrived and we are under His Kingdom where there is no longer “Greek” or “Jew” and all are one in the Messiah and share together in the fulfilled people of God”

Conclusion

In summary, the position of Christianity over the past two millennia has been that there exists only one Israel, which is the body of Christ. This concept transcends issues of race or lineage. For Christians, the decisive question is not, “Who can prove the purest genealogical line to Abraham?” The decisive question is how the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ.

Thus, Christianity does not serve as a replacement for Old Testament Israel; rather, it embodies the fulfillment of what Israel was intended to be. It encompasses both the Israelites of the Old Testament who anticipated the arrival of the Messiah and those who came to believe in Him after His earthly ministry. According to the Scriptures, Jesus is the exclusive heir to the promises made by God to Abraham. We become heirs when we place our faith in Jesus and commit to following Him. That does not mean we do not have room for more Christians. Our duty is to evangelize to the Nations and the modern Israeli Nation is included in that duty.

Other Links for Further Study:

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/are-jews-a-nation-or-a-religion

https://www.truetorahjews.org/

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3854897/jewish/What-Is-a-Jew.htm

https://creation.com/en/articles/israelite-genetic-mixing