TruthVid's 100 Proofs that the Israelites were White, Part 44: 56, Israel to be ruled by kings of Judah, which relates to the nobility and monarchy of Europe; 57, Parallels between the Druids of Europe and the Levitical Priests

TruthVid's 100 Proofs that the Israelites were White, Part 44

In our last presentation in this series, we discussed the blessings of Jacob and Moses upon the twelve tribes of Israel. Now we shall explain further how many of these blessings had evidently been fulfilled in the history of the development of European culture and civilization. When the promises were made to Abraham, that his seed would become many nations, there were only scattered tribes of Japhethites in Europe, and perhaps some other Shemites, such as the Lydians. There was no Germany or England as we know them, and most of the tribes which ultimately became the nations of modern Europe were not yet in Europe. That is because they mostly descended from the ancient Israelites of our Bibles, but usually by the time they arrived in Europe they had assumed other names.

Before we begin, I must admit that last week, discussing the blessing of Moses for the tribe of Levi, I missed a reference, which I caught preparing for today’s program. Where in Deuteronomy 33:9 Moses said of Levi “for they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant”, he must have been referring to what is recorded at Exodus 32:25-29, in the aftermath of the incident with the golden calf: “ 25 And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:) 26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the LORD'S side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. 27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. 28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. 29 For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves to day to the LORD, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day.”

56) Israel to be ruled by kings of Judah, which relates to the nobility and monarchy of Europe

The following paragraphs are condensed from Classical Records of Trojan-Roman-Judah, an essay I wrote in 2006 and which Clifton Emahiser published that year.

In 1 Kings 4:31 the wisdom of Solomon was said to exceed that of several other men: “For he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite (Zerahite), and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in all nations round about.” In 1 Chronicles chapter 6 a similar record informs us that these men are descendants of Zerah, the son of Judah. But in spite of their wisdom, most of them are never mentioned anywhere else in Scripture. So who were they? Since the passage in 1 Kings chapter 4 is speaking of these men in relation to the “nations round about”, that may be our first clue to further identifying some of them.

In Greek literature, Dardanos is the founder of the settlement which later became known as Troy. Its principle city was known by two names, Ilios (or Ilium) after Ilos, and Troy after Tros, both said to be descendants of Dardanos (cf. Strabo, Geography,13.1.25). Homer confidently gives a genealogy from Dardanos down through Ilos and Tros and several other generations unto Priam, king of Troy when the city was destroyed by the Greeks. The larger district around Troy became known as the Troad, and the Greeks claimed that the walls of the city were built by the sea god Poseidon (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History,4.42.1-3). Dardanos was said to have first come to the land which became known as the Troad by sea. Traditions concerning his religion connect the Trojans to Samothrace, an island not afar off, and also to Crete. Some notable geographical names are similar to names found in Crete.

Throughout Homer and later Greek literature the Trojans are called Dardans (or Dardanians), after Dardanos, but sometimes Homer mentions Trojans and Dardans together, distinguishing the Dardans of Troy from those who dwelt elsewhere. We are told that the Lycians are Dardans (i.e. Strabo 10.2.10 where the geographer cites Homer), and that Dardans are also found among the Illyrians (Strabo 7.5.1, 6, 7). From Homer’s Iliad, Book 2, it is clear that Dardans dwelt in other towns throughout the Troad. Both Herodotus (7.91), and Strabo who quotes him (14.4.3) tell us that Pamphylia, the district on the southern coast of Anatolia, was a colony founded by Kalchas, who was a Trojan. Kalchas was also considered to be a wise man and a prophet by the Greeks (Strabo 14.1.27).

So if Dardanos is not Darda, and if Kalchas is not Chalcol, then why does the Bible mention these men as if they were men of renown, without telling us who they were? And where did Dardanos the Trojan come from when he founded the colony which became Troy? How are these names belonging to the founders of these Anatolian nations so similar to the names of notable men of Judah who lived in the same period and in close geographical proximity to Anatolia? And if these are not the men to whom Solomon was compared in wisdom, then why was Solomon compared to men who amounted to nothing, who were unknown, even though they were from “nations round about”? So they must be the same men.

Then, concerning the nobility of the Trojans, the Greek geographer Strabo of Cappadocia wrote of them that they “waxed so strong from a small beginning that they became Kings of Kings” (Geography 12.8.7), and he described Trojan dynasties which ruled over all the related peoples, including the Carians, Lycians, Mysians, Leleges and Cilicians (Geography 13.1.7), all of whom came from the islands of the sea and were descended from the Phoenicians. Even in the defeat of Troy, the Trojans were considered a noble race and Trojan princes true royalty. The Milesians, from Miletus in ancient Caria, were Phoenicians who had colonies along the Danube River Valley, on the Black Sea, and as far away as Iberia and Ireland, all by the end of the 8th century BC. In Ireland, Milesian princes were considered the legitimate kings of the island for many centuries, but it is evident that those princes had descended from the Trojans, as we have just cited Strabo in relation to the Carians.

Here we must ask: Why would Phoenician tribes which settled in Caria, Cilicia and elsewhere be voluntarily ruled over by Trojan princes, even after Troy was destroyed by the Greeks? This only makes sense if the Phoenicians were Israel, which they were, and the Trojans were of Judah, which we would also assert.

The Roman poet Virgil’s Aeneid tells a story of how the Trojan prince Aeneas, after Troy’s fall, led a large colony of Trojans to what is now Italy, founding a settlement called Alba Longa. These people later became known by the name of that settlement's most famous city, Rome. Strabo tells us that the migration of Aeneas is “a traditional fact”, along with the diaspora of other Trojans (3.2.13), and discusses such at length in several places in his Geography (6.1.12, 14; 13.1.52, 53 et al.). He also relates the descent of Julius Caesar from Aeneas, as Virgil had also done, and how Alexander the Great also claimed descent from Trojan princes, although Strabo implied that Alexander’s claim is not as well supported (13.1.27). Having a pedigree from Trojan princes one could make a legitimate claim to rulership. The connection of Darda to Judah, regardless of the fact that it is only mentioned in Scripture, cannot be taken lightly.

Although much of Diodorus Siculus’ Book 7 is lost, chapter 5 (in the Loeb Classical Library edition) was preserved in Eusebius’ Chronicle, where Eusebius repeated Diodorus’ account of the Trojan migration and settlement in Italy under Aeneas, and the descent of the family of Julius Caesar from that Trojan prince. Eusebius certainly accepted the account by Diodorus, who he says “gathered in summary form all libraries into one and the same clearinghouse of knowledge” (Diodorus Siculus, “Fragments of Book VII”, Loeb Classical Library, 7.5). The Romans legitimized their rule over the οἰκουμένη by their descent from the noble Trojans, claims which were recognized even in the Middle Ages.

Later, the 6th century historian Procopius informs us that the Byzantine emperor Justinian was originally from Illyria, and that he was of the tribe of the Dardanians, so Justinian was also a Trojan. In fulfillment of the blessing for Judah which said that of him there would come lawmakers as well as kings, the old Roman legal code was revised and additions were made by Justinian which would be the basis for European law until modern times, and it still affects western law today. Justinian’s own laws, called the Novels, also established the primacy of the bishop of Rome over all other Christian bishops in the empire, which is the establishment of the Papacy.

In Medieval times the Trojan princes were considered to be legitimate, rightful kings, and noblemen sought to connect themselves to the houses of those princes in order to legitimize their own positions. So in the reign of the Merovingian kings: “Frankish pride in their own achievement bore fruit in Dagobert’s reign in the emergence of the tradition that the Franks were descended from the Trojan royal family, and were thus equal to the Romans” (The Oxford History Of Medieval Europe, pp. 88-89).

Yet while Roman claims had the full support of history, such Frankish claims do not. More credible are the claims concerning the kings of the Britons, and Virgil relates that they too were a colony from the Trojans of Italy, although the Greek historians do not state as much. While there are connections between early Britain and the Phoenicians, and possibly also the Trojans, we do consider Virgil’s account of Brutus in Britain, which is not recorded elsewhere, to have been a fabrication made for political purposes. But Diodorus Siculus does tell us of the British that “they use chariots ... even as tradition tells us the old Greek heroes did in the Trojan War” (5.21.5), and Strabo says “for the purposes of war they use chariots for the most part, just as some of the Celti do” (4.5.2). This was learned when Caesar invaded Britain, an event to which both Diodorus and Strabo were referring.

57) Parallels between the Druids of Europe and the Levitical Priests

The following is summarized from my notes for Druids and Early Christianity in Britain, a January, 2015 podcast with Sven Longshanks.

There is a voluminous reference called The Annals of Ireland translated from The Original Irish of The Four Masters, who were medieval Irish scholars, and the edition which I have is a reprint of a translation by Owen Connellan published in 1846. The Annals cover the years 1171 to 1616 AD, but the notes of the four masters contain information from many old Irish myths and legends and older writers. The so-called four masters, as well as other contributors to the work, were mostly Irish historians in the employ of various Irish kings and working in castles and monasteries. The annals were compiled from records which had been collected from all over Ireland. The notes, many of them quite lengthy, were composed by scholars and primarily drawn from a large body of ancient Irish literature. The work is comprised of two large volumes of around 350 pages each, but I have not yet had time to read it completely although I had acquired my copy over six years ago.

Before we examine some these Irish legends, I should start with that of Heremon, who is said to have been the first Milesian king of Ireland. In my opinion, the date given for his rule is far too early, at least 500 years too early, but the records for the period are only from word-of-mouth for many centuries and no surviving attempt to set them in writing predates the 11th century AD. In my opinion, these legends which were recorded at that late time confound Biblical accounts and the mythical accounts from Irish antiquity as the medieval monks attempted to reconcile them all.

This Heremon is said to have had a brother named Heber, and their father was Míl Espáne, the king of Spain, and their mother is said to have been named Scota Tephi. Heremon and Heber, which are very clearly both Hebrew names, had conquered Ireland and for a short time had ruled together as kings, until Heber is said to have been slain by his brother Heremon, who then ruled alone. In the Book of Invasions, parts of which date to as early as the 8th century AD, the Milesians were said to have been the last people to invade Ireland, after the Formorians, who were described as one-legged giants, the Firbolgs and the Tuatha De Danaan. During the rule of Heremon the Picts were said to have come to the island, which is also a significant historical anachronism, whereupon Heremon had given them both the wives of the conquered Danaans, and the land which became known as Scotland. While this is a rough summary, I do not accept these myths as being historically accurate, but I do accept the fact that they represent various aspects of actual history in a fanciful manner. With them, we can piece together a rough history of the settlement of Ireland from the more accurate and better recorded perspective of Classical history.

So in my opinion, the Firbolgs may have been early Japhethite settlers, or perhaps Galatae – Gauls or Gaels – from the mainland who contended for possession of the island with the Tuatha De Danaan, which is a portion of the tribe of Dan. So therefore some writers connect the names Firbolg and Belgae. Then Milesians from Spain, who were Phoenicians of Miletus that previously settled in Spain, extended their presence in western Europe to inhabit Ireland, so the ancient names of these places are Iberia and Hibernia. The Phoenicians also having settled in Britain, as well as later Galatae known as Cymry, after the Kimmerians, Strabo had called the Irish the “Britons of Iris”, as he had called Ireland Iris.

From The Annals of Ireland, from a footnote on the Druids found on page 75:

About nine centuries before the Christian era, according to our ancient annalists, Tigearnmas, monarch of Ireland, of the race of Heremon, was the first who introduced Druidism and the worship of idols into Ireland; and it is stated, that while worshipping the idol Crom Cruach, the chief deity of the Irish Druids, along with a vast assemblage of his subjects at Magh Sleacht in Breifne, on the feast of Samhuin, (one of their deities, the day dedicated to whose rites was the same as the last day of October), he himself, with three-fourths of his people, were struck dead by lightning, as a punishment from heaven for his introduction of idolatry into the kingdom. Magh Sleachta signifies either the Plain of Adoration, or the Plain of Slaughter, and obtained its name from the Druidical rites performed there, or from the human sacrifices which the Pagan Irish offered up to the deities of Druidism, as the Canaanites offered up their’s to Moloch. In this place stood a famous temple of the Druids, with the great idol Crom Cruach surrounded by twelve minor idols, composed of pillar stones, and decorated with heads of gold. This temple and its idols were destroyed by St. Patrick, who erected a church on its site. Of these events accounts are given in the Life of St. Patrick by Jocelyn the monk, in Cambrensis Eversus [13th century], O’Flaherty’s Ogygia [1685], and Vallancy’s Collectanea [1770-1804]. Magh Sleacht was situated in the present barony of Mohill, county of Leitrim, and afterwards received the name of Fiodhnach, which may signify a wild or woody district. Fenagh in after ages had a celebrated monastery and college, and was long famous as a seat of learning and religion. Cromleacs of huge stones and other Druidical remains are to be seen at Fenagh to this day. Brefney was inhabited in the early ages by the Fir-Bolgs, who are called Belgae or Belgians by various writers, afterwards by the Milesians of the race of Ir, or the Clanna Rory, and lastly by the Milesians of the race of Heremon. The Fir-Bolgs who possessed Brefney, are mentioned by the ancient writers under the names of Ernaidhe, Ernaians, and Ernaechs, which names are stated to have been given them from their inhabiting the territories about Lough Erne. Ptolemy, the great Greek geographer of the second century, denominates them Ernidi, Ernidoi, or Erdinoi, as given in his Map of Ireland by Ware, O’Conor, and others. These Erneans possessed the entire of Brefney, and make a remarkable figure in the history of the early ages, from the various great-battles fought between them and the Milesian kings.

So here we have child sacrifice and stone circles among a certain class of priests in Ireland, which are said to have been 900 years before Christ. This reflects the same practices which the Scriptures attribute to the ancient Israelites at the very same time. The number of idols, which are twelve in addition to a chief idol, cannot be overlooked. We see references of a monument of twelve stones set up by Joshua, in Joshua chapter 4, and an altar of the same number set up by Elijah, in 1 Kings chapter 18. Now it may be said that these connections are tenuous, but there is more:

From The Annals of Ireland, from a footnote on the Druids found on pages 271-272

Cromleacs.—The name Cromleac, signifies the stone of Crom; and they were so called from being used in the worship of Crom, one of the deities of the Irish Druids, said to represent Fate, or, according to Lanigan and others the god of fire or the sun and sometimes called Crom Dubh, or, Black Crom, and Crom Cruach, signifying Crom of the Heaps of stones or Cairns, as quoted by Lanigan from the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick; and the Idol of Crom Cruach, as stated in Lanigan and O'Flaherty's Ogygia, quoting from the Four Masters, and also in the Book of Invasions, by the O’Clerys [three of the four masters are from this family], was destroyed by St. Patrick at the temple of the Druids, on Magh Sleacht in Brefney, now Fenagh in Leitrim, and the last Sunday of summer is still hailed Domhnach Chroim Duibh, or the Sunday of Black Crom, being sacred to St. Patrick as the anniversary commemorating the destruction of the idol. This is the real origin of the name Cromleac, and not from the stones being in a sloping position, as absurdly stated by some writers, and derived from the opinions of the common people. The chief deities of the Druids were the sun, moon, stars, and winds; and woods, wells, fountains, and rivers, were also objects of adoration. The sun was worshipped under the designation of Bel, Beal, or Baal, as by the Phoenicians and other eastern nations, and also under the name of Grian. The time dedicated to the worship of the moon was called Samhuin, which was one of their deities; and the wind was worshipped under the name of Gaoth. The sacred fire of Beal was lighted on the evening of the first day of summer, or May eve, at the temple of the Druids on the hill of Usneagh, situated a few miles from Mullingar in Westmeath; hence that day is still named in the Irish La Beal-Teinne, that is, the day of Beal’s fire [today it is called Beltane]. The sacred fire of Samhuin was lighted on the eve of the first day of winter, at Tiachtga, in Meath, another chief seat of Druidism, situated at a place now called the Hill of Ward, between Trim and Athboy; and in the Irish La Samhna, or Samhuin’s day, is the name applied to the first of November. No fires were permitted to be lighted in Ireland, but those obtained from the Druids at May and November, who delivered their sacred fire to the people with great incantations, and for obtaining it a payment of one screapal, a silver coin equivalent to three pence of modern money was levied on every house or head of a family. [This is reminiscent of the Biblical accounts prohibiting “strange fire”.] Some remnants of the custom originating from the celebration of the sacred fire of the Druids, is still preserved in the May fires lighted in Ireland. The oak was a sacred tree to the Druids, and the rites of Druidism were chiefly celebrated in the oak groves; and the name Druid, in Irish Draoi or Drui, is supposed to be derived from the Irish Dair or Duir, which signifies the oak; or, according to others, it was derived from the Greek word Drus, which also signifies an oak tree, as the ancient Gauls are said to have taken the derivation of Druid from the Greek language, which their learned men spoke in Caesar’s time. According to the Dictionaire Historique de Cultes Religieuse, the word Druid was derived from Derw, or Deru, which in the Gaulish language signified an oak; and it may be observed, that Drus is the Greek for an oak, a word which resembles the Celtic. By Cesar, Pliny, and other Roman writers, the Gaulish word for Druids was rendered to Druidae and Druides, and by modern Latin writers the word Druids has been often translated into Magi. Three of the Tuath De Danan kings of Ireland were named from their peculiar deities; one was called Mac Coill, or the Son of the Wood, as he worshipped the woods, another Mac Ceacht, or the Son of the Plough, his god being that chief emblem of husbandry; and the third Mac Greine, as Grian, or the sun, was the great object of his adoration. Accounts of Irish Druidism will be found in Ware, Toland, Keating, O’Halloran, and Vallancey, and interesting descriptions of the Druids of Gaul and Britain are given in Caesar’s Commentaries.

There are several noted oak trees in the Hebrew scriptures, for example in Joshua chapter 24: “26 And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the LORD.” But here we also see a direct reference to Baal worship, the keeping of the title Baal as a name for their idol, and the worship in groves that is also seen in Scripture and related to Baal worship. Then there is the worship of the hosts of heaven, and the concept of sacred fire maintained by the priests, all of which are found in Scripture.

When we return, we shall continue this discussion, but from the perspective of Greek and Roman historians.