TruthVid's 100 Proofs that the Israelites were White, Part 46: 58, The Paths of Dan; 59, The Israelite Phoenicians

TruthVid's 100 Proofs that the Israelites were White, Part 46

Here we shall continue our explanation of how many of the blessings of Jacob and Moses upon the twelve tribes of Israel had evidently been fulfilled in the history of the development of European culture and civilization. So far we have presented a review of the outcomes of the blessings of Judah and Levi, and now we shall move on to discuss the blessings bestowed upon the tribe of Dan, and then of some of the other northern tribes of Israel, those which can be associated with the Phoenicians. Because the false claims of the Jews to be Israelites has generally been accepted for many centuries, and the false perception that Canaan was always a land of dark-skinned arabs, there is much confusion in modern academia concerning the identity of both Danaans and Phoenicians.

58) The Paths of Dan

For more information see Classical Records of the Dorian & Danaan Israelite-Greeks

Because they seem to have very often retained the name of their tribe in their travels, the migrations of the tribe of Dan are more evident in ancient history than those of any other tribe of Israel. They are so evident, that Jewish so-called scholars have even claimed that Dan was not truly an Israelite tribe, but a European tribe which came to Palestine and which was adopted by the Jews! So they would imagine that the Jews wrote a White European tribe into the Bible for some political reason, which is contrary to the entire Biblical narrative. So it is evident that Jews would throw the heritage of ancient Israel under the bus in order to maintain their own lies claiming to be Israel.

The first century BC Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus, gave an account of the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt, where he was quoting from the earlier historian Hecataeus of Abdera, who was a Greek historian and skeptic philosopher of the 4th century BC. Hecataeus had given a strange account of the Israelite Exodus from an Egyptian point of view. Citing him, Diodorus wrote in reference to the Hebrews that “the aliens were driven from the country, and the most outstanding and active among them banded together and, as some say, were cast ashore in Greece and certain other regions; their leaders were notable men, chief among them being Danaus and Cadmus. But the greater number were driven into what is now called Judaea ... The colony was headed by a man called Moses, outstanding both for his wisdom and for his courage” (Library of History, 40.3.1-3). Diodorus accounted Moses as a law-giver (Library of History, 1.94.2) as well as a founder of cities (Library of History, 40.3.3-8).

This Cadmus was called “the Phoenician” throughout Classical Greek literature, and he was the legendary founder of Thebes in Greece. Danaus, who was usually called “the Egyptian”, was the legendary leader of the Danaans (Danai) who came to Greece from Egypt, which could only have been a portion of the Israelite tribe of Dan, as Hecataeus by way of Diodorus had indirectly attested. This event was parodied in later Classical literature as the flight of the “daughters of Danaus” from the “sons of Aegyptus”, an example being the play by the Tragic Poet Aeschylus which was titled Suppliant Maidens.

So what is known to scholars as the Mycenaean civilization was Danaan Greek, and in 2002 a paper was published titled Dan II: A Chronicle of the Excavations and the Late Bronze Age “Mycenaean” Tomb. This paper described a so-called “Mycenaean” tomb found at Tel Dan, which is Laish to the north of Israel. This should be no surprise, as the Israelites at Tel Dan were of the tribe of Dan just as the Mycenaeans were of the tribe of Dan. An archaeological study of the tomb was first published in 2002, however it is evident that the authors of this study of the findings at Tel Dan in Palestine are quite oblivious to the fact that the Mycenaean (Danae) Greeks and the Israelite tribe of Dan were indeed one and the same people. It would not suit the Jews to discover that this branch of the “Indo-European”, Aryan Greeks were indeed Hebrews, although on occasion such a discussion has not been avoided. That is where Jews claim that the tribe of Dan was “adopted”, which is contrary to Scripture. Of course, all of the archaeologists mentioned in connection with the study of this tomb are Jews. [See pages 4 and 5 of this PDF excerpt form the Journal of Near Eastern Studies for April, 2007.]

The Israelite tribe of Dan certainly were a sea-going tribe at an early time. In Judges chapter 5, in the Song of Deborah, we read a lamentation where she professes having missed certain tribes that did not take part in the conquest of the Canaanites in northern Israel, and she said “17 Gilead abode beyond Jordan: and why did Dan remain in ships? Asher continued on the sea shore, and abode in his breaches.” We shall discuss this mention of Asher later, in relation to the Phoenicians. While Deborah celebrated her victory approximately 166 years after the death of Joshua the son of Nun, according to the narrative in the Book of Judges, which would be at least 200 years after the Exodus, another 650 years later the prophet Ezekiel (27:19) would connect the tribe of Dan with the Greeks where he wrote in his lamentation of Tyre that “19 Dan also and Javan going to and fro occupied in thy fairs: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were in thy market.” Javan in Hebrew is Yavan or Yavana, and it is the name which was used by both Hebrews and Persians to describe the Ionian Greeks.

Now going back in history once again, from the time of the Pharaoh Merneptah in the last decades of the 13th century BC, only a few years before the traditional date for the beginning of the Trojan War and only a few years or so after the Song of Deborah, Egypt began to record the invasions of the so-called Sea Peoples. While the identification of some of these tribes is arguable, others can certainly be identified. Among them are Peleset, or Philistines, the Denyen and Sherden, which are Danaans, and the Tjeker, which seems to be a reference to Teucer, a prince of Salamis and a hero of the Trojan War who was also ostensibly a Danaan. Of the other Sea Peoples, the Lukka may be associated with the Lycians, who had also taken their kings from the Trojan princes, then there are the Teresh, Ekwesh, Weshesh and Shekelesh, some of which may be conjectured to have been Achaeans and Greeks of Sicily or Italy. We will not offer our own conjectures here, as we are focusing on Dan.

The Sherden settled on Sardinia, and the name of the island is connected to them. Sometimes transliterations from ancient inscriptions bearing the name are spelled Shardana. In Hebrew, the word sha’ar, Strong’s # 7604, is a remnant, remainder, or something left behind. The Shardana, were associated with the land of Canaan as well as the island of Sardinia, and they are certainly the remnant of Dan that was left behind in Palestine after other portions of Dan migrated to Greece or northwards to Laish. An ancient Egyptian document called the Onomasticon of Amenope and believed to have been written in the 20th Dynasty, around 1100 BC, explicitly mentions the presence of the Sherden in Palestine. Various anthropomorphic figurines discovered on Sardinia also attest to the links between the Shardana and the Sea Peoples, the Philistines and Palestine.

So it seems that the Danaans had settled Sardinia not long after other portions of the tribe of Dan had departed from Egypt for Greece, but that their path was different from that of their brethren. From there, in the ensuing centuries, elements of the same tribe of Dan settled in Ireland and also in modern Denmark. Some Irish histories, such as the History of Ireland by Geoffrey Keating first published in 1634, state that the Tuatha de Danaan had been expelled from Ireland by the Milesians, although even in the context of that work the expulsion could not have been complete, there is no evidence of where the expelled Danaans may have gone. In that same history the Tuatha de Danaan of Ireland are also connected to the Boeotians, who were a portion of the Danaans of Greece.

The important point to note is that according to all ancient records, the Danaans came to Greece from Egypt by sea, and both and the earliest Sardinians are connected to the Sea Peoples called Denyen and Sherden, as the names are transliterated into English from the Egyptian records. But in Greek the Denyen are Danoi, or Danaans, and there are inscriptions linking the early Sardinians to the name Shardana, and they also to the coast of Palestine, so the names are all equivalents. At the same time, the Bible attests that the tribe of Dan were a sea-going tribe.

The connection of the Danes to the tribe of Dan might seem fanciful, but while various other Germanic tribes, such as the Angles, Cimbri, and Jutes, had inhabited parts of the Danish peninsula at diverse times, Danes were first mentioned in history by the Greek historian Procopius in the early 6th century, and then by Jordanes in his history of the Goths. Unfortunately, the Danes have no notable early writing of their own. In the 8th and 9th centuries, the Danes established a significant presence in both Ireland and in Britain, where in Danish-dominated districts Danelaw took precedence over Anglo-Saxon law for several centuries. This circumstance of the Danes insisting on abiding by their own laws alongside Anglo-Saxon laws seems to me to be one fulfillment of the blessing that “Dan shall judge his people”, which indicates that Dan would have his own laws and judge his own people distinctly from the other tribes over which Judah would be lawgiver and judge.

River names with Dan- and Dn-

From the Online Etymology Dictionary entry for DANUBE: major river of Europe flowing into the Black Sea (German Donau, Hungarian Duna, Russian Dunaj), from Latin Danuvius (Late Latin Danubius), from Celtic *danu(w)-yo-, from Proto-Indo-European *danu- "river" (compare Don, Dnieper, Dniester). Related: Danubian.

I think the assertion that “danu” is a Proto-Indo-European word for river is only conjectural assumption, because I do not see words in modern Indo-European languages which supports it, although I could be wrong. If there were such words, the dictionaries do not supply them, whereas they usually do supply them for other such words. I would like to give this subject further study.

59) The Israelite Phoenicians

For more information see Classical & Biblical Records Identifying the Phoenicians

Jewish interpretations of Scripture insist that the Israelites had never really inhabited the coastal cities of the land which was inherited by the northern tribes, but rather they insist that those areas remained in the hands of the Canaanites, who were the Phoenicians. This is a lie disproved by Scripture. The truth is that the coasts of Manasseh and Asher were indeed inhabited by the Israelites, even in the places where Canaanite populations had remained. In the Scriptural narrative, Tyre, Accho and Sidon were indeed inhabited by Asher, although the children of Asher had initially failed to drive out the Canaanites from Accho and Sidon (Judges 1:31). But when you get to Judges chapter 5, these are the same Canaanites who were defeated by Deborah and Barak. Dor was indeed inhabited by the tribe of Manasseh, and the city was their significant port city, although Manasseh also initially failed to drive all of the Canaanites out of Dor. Later, according to Scripture, the Canaanites who remained in Sidon, Accho and Dor were put in bondage. The next port city to the South, Joppa, was in the territory of Dan. So once again, where Deborah said in Judges chapter 5 that “17 Gilead abode beyond Jordan: and why did Dan remain in ships? Asher continued on the sea shore, and abode in his breaches”, we see that Asher did indeed dwell on the coasts of the Mediterranean, as the Hebrew word translated as breaches means ports in such a context.

In the Judges period, before Israel had a national king from Judah, in diverse times prominent men became the rulers, or kings, of certain cities. So in Judges chapter 9 we see that the men of Shechem made Abimelech their king, who was a wicked man. But another such king, who was ostensibly a much more noble man than Abimelech, was Hiram, king of Tyre. According to Scripture, there was no mention of any Canaanites remaining in Tyre.

According to 2 Samuel chapter 5, after the death of Saul and when David had become king, it was some time before he was accepted as king by the rest of the tribes of Israel. So we read: “4 David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years. 5 In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months: and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years over all Israel and Judah.” Then during that earlier period, once David assured control of Jerusalem from the Jebusites, we read a little further on in the chapter: “10 And David went on, and grew great, and the LORD God of hosts was with him. 11 And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and carpenters, and masons: and they built David an house. [The house was in the City of David on Mount Zion in the recently captured Jerusalem.] 12 And David perceived that the LORD had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for his people Israel's sake.”

So according to 2 Samuel, when Hiram the king of Tyre sent messengers to David, that is the moment when “David perceived that the LORD had established him king over Israel”, since until then he ruled only over Judah, and therefore Hiram must have been an Israelite. A non-Israelite or Canaanite king could not have made this decision for the chiefs of the tribes of Israel. David would not have made such a realization on the approach of a Canaanite king. Only a notable and powerful Israelite king could do make David realize that, and Hiram was the king of the most powerful city in northern Israel. So Hiram was actually submitting to David, and then David made the realization that he ruled over all Israel.

The city of Tyre is mentioned in the account of Joshua as part of the inheritance of Asher in chapter 19. But it is not mentioned again in Scripture until the time of David and Hiram. Ostensibly, the children of Israel did not have to drive the Canaanites from Tyre because at the time of the conquest the city was desolate, and there is archaeological evidence that it had been destroyed at an earlier time, for some unknown cause. So in relation to the Trojan Wars and his own description of the world of that time, the Greek poet Homer mentions Sidon quite often, but he never mentions Tyre. In agreement with that circumstance is the Judaean historian Flavius Josephus, who tells us in Book 8 of his Antiquities, in relation to the time of Solomon, that “62… Now that year on which the temple began to be built was already the eleventh year of the reign of Hiram; but from the building of Tyre to the building of the temple, there had passed two hundred and forty years.”

So even though there seems to be an anomaly, as Hiram seems to have ruled Tyre for longer than eleven years when Solomon became king, if indeed the same Hiram was meant, we see that nevertheless, Tyre was built anew by the Israelites, and Josephus dated that building to precede the temple by 240 years. So if Solomon started building the temple in 950 BC, for example, then Tyre was built by the children of Israel around 1190 BC, in the middle of the Judges period but after the start of the Trojan War, and therefore it was never mentioned by Homer. But soon after it was built, Tyre quickly became the foremost “Phoenician” city, and the city out of which came the Phoenician colonies of the west, and it was indeed an Israelite city during this period.

Later, speaking of the Phoenician colonies spread throughout the Mediterranean coasts and their founding, the Greek geographer and historian Strabo of Cappadocia wrote: “Now although the poets have referred more repeatedly to Sidon than to Tyre (Homer does not even mention Tyre), yet the colonies sent into Libya [i.e. Carthage] and Iberia, as far even as outside the Pillars, hymn rather the praises of Tyre” (16.2.22). Strabo also knew that the Phoenicians had colonies outside of the Mediterranean, in what we know as the Atlantic Ocean. The Greeks knew that Phoenician tin came from outside the pillars of Hercules, in the Atlantic Ocean, and also the amber which they traded, which came from the shores of the Baltic. But Strabo may not have known, as Josephus did, that Tyre was only starting to be built in the period of which Homer had written. So Tyre, as Herodotus also implied, was the mother of the Phoenician colonies, and, at least for the most part because people are prone to moving about, there were no Canaanites in Tyre at that time. Herodotus specifically called Cadmus “the Tyrian” rather than merely “the Phoenician” (Histories 2.49). At that same time, the Canaanites elsewhere in Israel were in bondage, and not free to move about as they pleased.

In another place, in Against Apion, Book 1, Josephus cites the ancient annals of Tyre which are now lost to history, and from them he dates the building of Carthage, where he wrote: “108 Therein it was recorded that the temple was built by King Solomon at Jerusalem, one hundred forty-three years and eight months before the Tyrians built Carthage; 109 and in their annals the building of our temple is related: for Hirom, the king of Tyre, was the friend of Solomon our king, and had such friendship transmitted down to him from his forefathers.” So the building of the temple in Jerusalem was also a significant moment for the Israelites of Tyre. That also indicates that perhaps the Hiram who dealt with Solomon, whom Josephus said was king only 11 years when the temple was built, was actually the son of the Hiram who had earlier dealt with David.

But the tribe of Asher was evidently not alone in Tyre. There is a workman whom Hiram had sent to assist Solomon in the building of the temple, and in Scripture we see that his mother was of the tribe of Naphtali, but it says nothing specific of his father. From 1 Kings chapter 7: “13 And king Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre. 14 He was a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass: and he was filled with wisdom, and understanding, and cunning to work all works in brass. And he came to king Solomon, and wrought all his work.” However Flavius Josephus, whose copies of Scripture seem to have been more complete in many respects, wrote of this in Antiquities Book 8 and said: “ 76 Now Solomon sent for a craftsman out of Tyre, whose name was Hiram; he was by birth of the tribe of Naphtali, on the mother's side (for she was of that tribe;) but his father was Ur, of the family of the Israelites.” Josephus did not know the father’s tribe, but he knew that he was an Israelite.

Another passage concerning the tribe of Naphtali which is wanting in the Masoretic Text is found in the Septuagint in Joshua chapter 19, where the inheritance of Naphtali is described. While the inheritance of Naphtali borders Asher on the west, Zebulun and Issachar in parts on the south and sea of Chinnereth, or Galilee and the land of Manasseh east of Jordan on the east, it does not border the Mediterranean Sea. Yet we read in the Septuagint, in Joshua 19:35, in part: “ 35 And the walled cities of the Tyrians, Tyre, and Omathadaketh, and Kenereth…” where it is evident the city of Tyre in the territory of Asher was given to Naphtali instead. However later, the presence of Anna, a woman of the tribe of Asher (Luke 2:36), at the birth of Christ can best be explained in the knowledge that her ancestors were Tyrians, as the island city was not taken by either the Assyrians or the Babylonians.

But that is not all. In the blessing which Jacob had for Zebulun we read in Genesis chapter 49: “13 Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships; and his border shall be unto Zidon.” Yet the territory of Zebulun in northern Israel was entirely land-locked, and only the tribe of Asher bordered on Sidon. In 1 Kings chapter 9 there is a strange episode where we read “10 And it came to pass at the end of twenty years, when Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the LORD, and the king's house, 11 (Now Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedar trees and fir trees, and with gold, according to all his desire,) that then king Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. 12 And Hiram came out from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him; and they pleased him not. 13 And he said, What cities are these which thou hast given me, my brother? And he called them the land of Cabul unto this day.” The land of Galilee was primarily within the lands of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, and if Hiram was displeased with the cities which Solomon had given him in Galilee, it may well be because those were idle.

After the conquest of Canaan, and once the Israelites strengthened in their possession of the land of Canaan, as the Biblical records suggest, and Canaanites had remained their slaves (cf. Antiquities 8.6.3). When David had his census of Israel, Tyre and Sidon were among the places where it was conducted, and here both of these cities are distinguished from “the cities of the Hivites, and of the Canaanites”, and so they must have become Israelite cities (2 Sam 24:6-7), which Yahshua Christ also attests at Matthew 11:21-22 & Luke 10:13-14. The lamentation of Tyre by Ezekiel (chapter 27) shows that it was an Israelite city. At Ezekiel 27:6 we see the tribe of Asher (“Ashurites”, #843) in Cyprus (“Chittim”), an island of famous Phoenician colonies which was subject to Tyre before the Assyrian conquest (Antiquities 9.14.2). At Ezekiel 27:12 we see that the tribes of Dan (Danaan Greeks) and Javan (Japhethite Ionian Greeks) brought trade to Tyre. The Septuagint adds a line to Ezekiel 27:18 which is not found in the King James Version which says: “... and wool from Miletus; and they brought wine into thy market”. Miletus was an ancient Carian-Phoenician settlement in southwest Anatolia. Thales of Miletus, an early famous “Greek” philosopher, was said to be “of Phoenician descent” (Herodotus, Histories 1:170).

Concerning the prophecies which forecast the destruction of Israel and the Assyrian deportations, we find two mentions of Tyre in the Septuagint which are wanting in the King James Version. At Amos 3:11 where the King James Version states “An adversary there shall be even round about the land”, the Septuagint has a less ambiguous “O Tyre, thy land shall be made desolate round about thee”, the rest of the verse agreeing except that the Septuagint has “countries” where the King James Version has “palaces”. Speaking to the children of Israel, Micah 7:12 in the Septuagint reads: “And thy cities shall be leveled, and parted among the Assyrians; and thy strong cities shall be parted from Tyre to the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain.”

Surely Tyre was an Israelite city, and the historian Josephus acknowledges that fact in his Against Apion Book 1 (1:22), where he quotes a Greek writer Theophrastus and his writings concerning laws: “the laws of the Tyrians forbid men to swear foreign oaths”, and Josephus tells us that he was speaking of Israelites, and then goes on to cite Herodotus (from Histories 2:104), who stated that the Phoenicians and the “Syrians of Palestine” (which is what Herodotus called the Judaeans - cf. Histories 2:159, 3:5 and 7:89) were circumcised, and Josephus points out that “there are no inhabitants of Palestine that are circumcised excepting the Judaeans [meaning Israelites]; and therefore it must be his knowledge of them that enabled him to speak so much concerning them”. That the Tyrians had such laws, and brought them to their colonies, is evident in a statement of Strabo’s in his Geography at 3.1.6: “The Turdetanians are ranked as the wisest of the Iberians; and they make use of an alphabet, and possess records of their ancient history, poems and laws written in verse that are six thousand years old, as they assert”, and a footnote in the Loeb Library edition states that “Some think the text should be emended to read ‘six thousand verses in length’.” In either case, it is apparent that these Iberians, “Phoenician” Hebrews, surely had copies of the Scriptures.

Once we understand that the Phoenicians truly were Israelites, and all of the trade and agrarian undertakings which they had throughout the Mediterranean basin and into the Atlantic for many centuries, we can see how the blessings to the northern tribes of Israel may have been fulfilled. Asher did dip his foot in oil, but at the first it was primarily olive oil. It was the Phoenicians who are known to have spread the olive tree everywhere that they went. In that manner also, many of the Phoenicians were of Naphtali who was to possess the West and the South, and Zebulun did indeed dwell in a haven by the sea, in the cities on the coast of Asher and abroad.