Who Are The Hunters?


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Who Are The Hunters?

Here we are going to present what I always thought was one of Clifton Emahiser’s more important papers, because it helps to provide a Scriptural foundation for our Christian Identity profession. It helps to answer the challenges as to why Christian Identity does not reflect the traditional Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox views of Christianity. Of course, we would assert that those views were never correct in the first place, and according to Scripture itself, they were never supposed to be correct. In order to prove that assertion, I would need to present a long dissertation on the prophets, or I could simply discuss Clifton’s essay, based on a prophecy in Jeremiah chapter 16, and ask the question which Clifton asks here: Who are the Hunters?

To begin, some time after I originally posted this article at Christogenea, Clifton had me preface it with a notice concerning plagiarism. So this evening, in order to avoid beginning with a long digression, we will move that notice and an accompanying discussion to the end of this presentation. This is one of the first of the essays that Clifton had called brochures, or pamphlets, after the format in which he distributed them to his readers. The earliest date for this essay in his computer files is December 19th, 2000, and it is also one of the first papers which I had proofread for him, a task which I began some time in late 1999. Now I will present Clifton’s article, and add some of my own comments to it, without further introduction:

Who Are The Hunters? Why Doesn’t Your Pastor Ever Speak Of Them?

By Clifton Emahiser

Did you know while the Holy Bible speaks of “fishers” it also speaks of “hunters” in the very same verse? If you are unfamiliar with this pregnant fact, I will quote it from Jeremiah 16:16:

“Behold I will send for many fishers, saith Yahweh, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.”

So if we accept that the apostles were the fishers, we must anticipate the need for hunters, and even contemplate why the hunters would be necessary. Clifton did not cite the verses leading up to this passage, and they do explain why hunters would be necessary! He only later informed his readers that they should read the rest of the chapter to find out why the hunters would be needed. But here we shall cite the important verses, which set the context for verse 16, from Jeremiah 16:13-15:

13 Therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that ye know not, neither ye nor your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; where I will not shew you favour. [So in their captivities the children of Israel would be pagans, and certainly not Jews, and they were indeed pagans!] 14 Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be said, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; 15 But, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.

The very next verse is the verse which Clifton does cite here, concerning the fishers and the hunters. So first we would see fishers of men, the apostles of Christ, but then someone would have to identify the children of Israel so that they could be gathered to Him! So Clifton responds to Jeremiah 16:16:

Have you ever wondered why your pastor emphasizes with very much intensity and vigor the subject of the “fishers”, and never so much as mentions the “hunters”? It’s as though the Bible had never mentioned the topics of the “fishers” and “hunters” in the same verse! Have you ever asked your pastor why he never mentions the “hunters” in all his lengthy and seemingly detailed sermons? After all, your pastor graduated from seminary and knows all of this, right? Of course, it is probably just a slight oversight on his part that he has never taken the time to explain this to you, right? Or, maybe, he has so many other more important things to dwell on, he simply does not have time for the insignificant “hunters.” Has your pastor ever used Jeremiah 16:16 for his text?

Clifton is being sarcastic, as he knows that the pastors cannot possibly comment on the characteristics of the prophesied hunters, having no idea why they might be needed in the original context of this prophecy in Jeremiah. Clearly, it is the hunters who would have to identify the children of Israel that were carried off into captivity in the north! So he continues to reproach them:

The pastors are seemingly very quick and prepared to expound that Christ (whose real Hebrew name was Yahshua), when He called his disciples, had stated to them, Matthew 4:19:

“And he said unto them, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”

Whenever your pastor has quoted this passage, has he ever made reference to Jeremiah 16:16 and expounded on the relationship of the two verses? If he hasn’t, it would seem quite strange, for The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, edited by Jerome H. Smith takes you to this verse. [Clifton added a parenthetical remark here that this book is “a special book of cross-references”.] If then, the calling by Christ (Yahshua) of His disciples was the fulfillment of Jeremiah 16:16, just when is the fulfillment of the “hunters” supposed to take place? Has your pastor ever addressed the question of the “hunters”? If the calling of the “fishers” is all that important, it would seem the calling of the “hunters” would be equally significant. Maybe, if your pastor doesn’t want to explain to you who the “hunters” are supposed to be, with a little ingenuity on your own part, you can figure who these “hunters” might be, and just what they are to be hunting for. Remember that Jeremiah 16:16 said, “out of the holes of the rocks?” Who in the world would go “hunting” in “the holes of the rocks”? Do you suppose it is talking about archaeologists as being these “hunters”? If so, who would be the “them”, for whom these archaeologists would be looking? If your pastor wishes to remain mute on this topic, maybe I can help answer this question of who these “hunters” are. Do you suppose the “hunters” were to hunt for the same people the “fishers” were to fish for? Maybe, if one were to read the rest of Jeremiah chapter 16, one might find who these people are, to whom Yahweh through Jeremiah referred.

As we have stated, the hunters would need to locate the children of Israel, because it is they who were the so-called “lost sheep” for whom Christ had come, and it is they who were carried off into captivity in the north before and up to the time of Jeremiah.

Clifton posits that the early archaeologists were the hunters of Jeremiah. They certainly did dig the children of Israel out of the holes of the rocks, in a very literal sense, because they were exploring the ancient mounds and heaps and uncovering the ancient cities and inscriptions which would lead to the discoveries of the connections between the so-called “lost” Israelites of the captivities and the Scythian and Germanic tribes of later history. But I do not think that the reference to the hunters ends with the archaeologists. Rather, that is where it begins, as it would take students of the Bible and the Classics in order to finish putting the pieces together. That study is what we call Christian Identity. Since the results of the hunters are absolutely contrary to the doctrines of the churches, who never had this information, the churches have always resisted this development.

So Clifton continues with a discussion of the archaeologists, and here it should become quite clear, that the period of European expansion and colonialism made possible the fulfillment of the prophecy of the hunters. Before that, nobody who dwelt in the lands of the Bible even cared for what might be in the holes of the rocks, or under the ancient mounds and heaps, unless they thought that they could find gold or other treasures that they might loot for themselves. Only Europeans had this desire for knowledge which led to the rise of the hunters.

IF THE ARCHAEOLOGISTS ARE THE “HUNTERS” IN QUESTION, THEY HAVE BEEN QUITE BUSY!

In 1717, the Society of Antiquaries was set up in London. It received a royal charter in 1751 and issued its first Archeologia in 1770. In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte occupied Egypt, which resulted partially in archaeological investigation. In 1799, the Rosetta Stone (a trilingual inscription) was found which provided the key to unlocking Egyptian hieroglyphics. In 1805, Ulrich Jasper Seetzen discovered Caesarea Philippi, Ammon and Gerasa. In 1811, C. S. Rich, the first British consul at Baghdad, excavated and partially mapped the ruins of Babylon.

Here we see the first people in Biblical lands with a thirst for knowledge about those lands in connection with Scripture. The Byzantines, and the bastards which followed them, had often speculated about the locations of Biblical landmarks, and built churches or mosques commemorating some of them, but often they did not even have the correct locations, and they never organized any large-scale and scientifically based excavations to find the ancient places and the correct locations or any other discoveries which could be made. Continuing with Clifton:

In 1812, Johan Ludwig Burckhardt discovered Petra. In 1815, Lady Hester Stanhope made an attempt to unearth statuary at Ashkelon. In 1817, Giovanni Battista Belzoni began the search of tombs and temples of the pharaohs. In 1821-2, Jean Francois Champollion finally broke the code of the Rosetta Stone. In 1833, Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson went to Persia as a young officer to organize the Shah’s army; became interested in cuneiform; deciphered and later published the trilingual inscriptions of Darius I on the Behistun. [The famous Behistun Rock inscriptions.]

In 1838, Edward Robinson and Eli Smith traveled throughout Palestine identifying and describing Biblical cites. In 1842, Paul Emile Botta began investigation of the mound of Kuyunjik, discovered Khorsabad and the palace of Sargon II, which opened the way to Assyriology. In 1845, Sir Austen Henry Layard began excavations at Nimrud, discovering the palaces of Ashurnasirpal, Shalmaneser II, finding the famous Black Obelisk and later making other important discoveries.

The Black Obelisk contains a depiction of the Israelite King Jehu, where he is depicted wearing a pointed cap which was later identified with the Scythians. The king is associated with the Bit Omri, or Khumri, the House of Omri in our Bibles, from which the Assyrian word Khumri is derived, and later, the Greek word Kimmerians. I first discussed this in my essay Herodotus, Scythians, Persians & Prophecy, which Clifton first published in his Watchman's Teaching Letter #76 dated for August 2004. I think it may have been the second of my papers which he did publish, the first being The Race of Genesis 10 in Watchman's Teaching Letter #65, dated September 2003. [When I add notes such as this into my presentations of Clifton’s work, it is usually to show my accusers the proofs that I did not just suddenly appear out of nowhere in 2009, as they so often claim.]

Continuing with Clifton:

In 1848, F. de Saulcy cleared a site at Jerusalem. In 1849, Karl Richard Lepsius published the results of Prussian expeditions to Egypt. In 1850 Auguste Ferdinand Francois Mariette began investigating Egypt. In 30 years he excavated and found 15,000 monuments from Memphis to Karnak in 37 sites. In 1850, W. K. Loftus succeeded Rassam at Nineveh, visited Erech and other sites in the Euphrates. In 1859 Konstantin von Tischendorf discovered the Codex Sinaiticus.

The Codex Sinaiticus was actually discovered in a monastery, the Saint Catherine's Monastery at Sinai in Egypt. The 19th century staff at the monastery had no concept of its value to western scholars until Tischendorf found it there, and European Bible scholars had no idea that it existed, except that a century before Tischendorf, an Italian traveler named Vitaliano Donati had visited the same monastery and described the manuscripts and other things which were there in his diary. But Tischendorf made his first visit there in 1844, while the diary of Donati’s 1761 visit was evidently not published until 1879. The Codex Sinaiticus is considered to be one of the oldest and most significant complete manuscripts of the New Testament, and with it much of the Septuagint also survived, along with the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. It is esteemed to date from the middle of the 4th century, and it is ranked alongside the Codex Vaticanus in antiquity and importance. Continuing with Clifton:

In 1863, J. T. Wood explored Ephesus for the British Museum and came upon the temple Artemis. In 1864, Giovanni Battista De Rosse began study of the Roman catacombs. In 1865 the foundation of the Palestine Exploration Fund promoted archeological research in, and later publication of, Jerusalem and western Palestine. In 1867, Charles Warren, a British artillery officer, was financed by the fund to investigate Jerusalem. In 1870, Charles Clermont-Ganneau came to the French consular service in Palestine, later sent the Mesha Stele to the Louvre; discovered the famous notice prohibiting aliens from intrusion into the Temple Court and identified the site of Gezer.

As I discussed in my commentary on Acts chapter 21, now all or part of at least such two inscriptions warning aliens against entering the temple have been found, which stated in Greek that “No foreigner may enter within the railing and enclosure that surround the Temple. Anyone apprehended shall have himself to blame for his consequent death!” There is a photograph and reproduction of one of the specimens of this temple warning posted at Christogenea.org. Again continuing with Clifton:

This same year [1870], the American Palestine Exploration Society was founded. Also, Heinrich Schliemann discovered Troy, and, with his successor Dörpfeld, first understood the importance of a tell [a mound or heap, which is often the result of a destroyed settlement, town or city being covered with soil in the proverbial sands of time]. In 1872, the Palestine Exploration Fund sent a party to Palestine to make an inch-to-mile survey of Western Palestine, headed by Claude Regnier Conder and Horatio Herbert Kitchener. This survey was indispensable, basic work for later archeologists and geographers.

In 1873, The Daily Telegraph financed an expedition and George Smith began work at Nimrud; later to Kuyunjik. In 1877, Ernest de Sarzec worked Lagash, finding statues of early governors and the Victory Stele of Eannatum, awakening the world to Sumerian archaeology. In 1878, Rassam resumed work for the British Museum at Nineveh finding a haul of tablets, a clay prism and accounts of the campaigns of Sennacherib.

These findings not only helped to verify the historicity of Scripture, but to help later Bible scholars trace the dispersions of the ancient Israelites, paving the way for the fulfillment of the prophecy concerning the hunters. Clifton is not yet done with his exhibition:

In 1879, Hormuzd Rassam investigated the ruins of Babylon. In 1881, Sir Gaston Camille Charles Maspero discovered many royal sarcophagi at Deir-el-Bahri and continued clearing work on the temple of Karnak, later publishing his findings. In 1882, Elouard Naville investigated Egypt. This year also saw W. Dörpfeld join Schliemann at Troy. In 1884, M. Dieulafoy continued excavations of the royal buildings of Susa.

In 1887, a peasant woman, grubbing for compost in the ruins of Akhenaton’s town at Tell el-Amarna unearthed the priceless Tell el-Amarna Letters. In 1888, John P. Peters, directing an American dig along with Haynes and Hilprecht, discovered 20,000 tablets at Nippur. In 1890, Flinders Petrie spent six weeks on the mound of Tell-el-Hesi, in southwest Palestine. He succeeded in setting a standard in the principles of stratigraphy and the utilization of pottery to establish dating.

In 1894, Sir Arthur Evans began work in Crete probing the Minoan civilization. In 1895, Bernard Pyne Grenfell, with colleague A. S. Hunt, began searching for Greek papyri, developing the science of papyrology. In 1895, Sir William Mitchell Ramsey, Professor of Humanity at Aberdeen, did archaeological work in Asia Minor and established the reputation of Luke as a true historian. In 1896, G. M. Legrain initiated work at Karnak temple. In 1897, J. de Morgan saw work at Susa.

In 1898, M. Loret discovered the tomb of Amenhotep II in the Valley of the Kings. 1899 saw Robert Koldewey at Babylon. 1900 saw George L. Robinson at Petra. 1901 saw Gaston Cros at Telloh (Lagash). 1902 saw R. A. S. Macalister begin his excavation of Gezer, which lasted seven years, and, also, Ernst Sellin begin a three-year survey of Tell Taanach. In 1903, G. Schumacher, trained by Sellin, oversaw investigation of Megiddo, the well-known Jeroboam seal being discovered.

In this same period, the American Schools of Oriental Research was founded, in 1900. That organization was instrumental in translating and publishing countless Assyrian, Sumerian, and other inscriptions, translations of which are now available freely on the Internet, even if many of the historical and Biblical implications of the discoveries are ignored, or often purposely misinterpreted to fit into the Jewish worldview and propaganda concerning the Bible. Again Clifton continues:

1904 saw David G. Hogarth at Ephesus. In 1905, James Henry Breasted contributed his Ancient Records of Egypt and 2nd ed. History of Egypt, showing striking advances in Egyptology. 1906 found Hugo Winkler working at Boghazkoy, a Hittite site. 1907 saw Herman Thiersch, Herman Kohl, Carl Watzinger and Ernst Sellin surveying the synagogue of Galilee, with Watzinger and Sellin overseeing a dig at Jericho.

1908 saw D. G. Lyon, C. S. Fisher and G. A. Reisner at Samaria. 1909 saw Duncan Mackenzie at Bethshemesh. 1910 saw Howard C. Butler at Sardis. In 1913, Watzinger and Sellin investigated Shechem. 1917 saw The Palestine Department of Antiquities founded, headed by John Garstang. 1919, with WW I over, saw Albright, Woolley, Fisher, R. L. Hall, Wace, Montet, and Dunand at various digs. 1922 saw Albright working at Gibeah, Howard Carter discovering Tutankhamen’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, A. Schmidt and H. Kaer working at Shiloh and Sir Charles Leonard Woolley digging at Ur.

1923 saw W. J. Phythian-Adams and John Garstang at Ashkelon. 1924 saw David M. Robinson on the Pisidian Antioch. 1925 saw Dr. Edward Chiera at Nuzi discovering the Patriarchs were true historical people. 1926 saw W. F. Badè at the Biblical Mizpah. In 1928, Elihu Grant began a series of five campaigns at Beth-Shemesh. 1929 saw Dorothy Garrod investigating Palestinian caves. 1930 saw Theodore D. McCown with C. S. Fisher continue work at Gerasa, G. L. Robinson discovering Petra’s “high place” and John Garstang working at Jericho.

In 1931, Ernst Herzfeld was at work at Persepolis and A. Maiui at Pompeii and Herculaneum. O. R. Sellers with W. F. Albright was working at Bethzur. Also, J. W. Crowfoot continued the project at Samaria where Reisner left off. Then M. E. L. Mallowan appeared on the scene with work at Nineveh. In 1932, G. E. Ederkin explored the site of Syrian Antioch. J. L. Starkey began a dig at Lachish. R. W. Hamilton investigated a site at the foot of Carmel.

In 1933, Roman Ghirshman began work at Tepe Siyalk. P. Dikaias was working at Cyprus, Charles Morey continued work at Syrian Antioch, aided by Richard Stillwell. In 1934, excavations at Bethel were conducted by J. L. Kelso and W. F. Albright. 1935 saw J. P. Black working at Samaria, Erich Schmidt at Persepolis, and Gordon Loud at Megiddo. 1937 saw Nelson Glueck excavating a cemetery at Jebel-et-Tannur. In 1938, J. L. Starkey was murdered while Lankaster Harding and Charles H. Inge continued briefly at Lachish.

1947 brought to light the Dead Sea Scrolls, of which W. F. Albright later commented. In 1948, Robert Braidwood worked at Qalat Jarmo, in NE Iraq. 1950 saw William Morton at Dibon in Moab. 1953 saw Joseph P. Free at Dothan. 1954 saw Kurt Bittel at Boghazkoy investigating the Hittite Empire, Zakarie Goneiun busy at Saqqara, Richard Haines at Nippur, Philip Hammond at Petra, Kamal el Mallakh at Giza and Jean Perrot at Tell Abu Matar, near Beersheba, etc.

This list of Clifton’s is quite comprehensive, but much more could probably be said about each of the archaeologists listed here and their many discoveries. Yet Jewish propaganda continues to dominate the entire field, and the knowledge of Christian Identity lies hidden in the pages of thick and dusty tomes. Hardly read by either clergy or laity, the books themselves serve as tombs into which we must dig rather deeply and with an already-developed understanding to find the truth of antiquity and the origination of our European ancestors in the Israelites and other peoples of ancient Mesopotamia.

This is a digression, but for one example, the Dead Sea Scrolls were first housed in a facility funded by the Rockefellers, located on the infamous West Bank. In the 1967 war, the Jews seized that facility with their takeover of the West Bank, and closed off access to the scrolls to all but a few approved scholars, a situation which lasted until 1993. One scholar who worked on the scrolls throughout the period since their discovery, John Strugnell, a Harvard professor, who eventually became Professor Emeritus at the Harvard Divinity School, had later complained of certain scrolls which were missing, including a complete copy of the Book of Enoch. Strugnell made other “antisemitic” remarks, properly calling Judaism a “Christian heresy”, and even denying the legitimacy of the word “antisemitic”, and he ended up being dismissed from his position at Harvard and spending considerable time in a mental hospital before he died, a rather typical end for all of those in privileged places who ultimately turn on Jewry. Today an article on Strugnell at Wikipedia blames him for the twenty-five year quarantine of the scrolls.

So in response to his list of archaeologists and their discoveries, Clifton asks another question:

WHAT DID THESE HUNTERS FIND ?

While all of these archaeologists found many things verifying Biblical places, times and events, probably the most important of these were the cuneiform clay tablets found in the excavations of the Assyrian royal library at Nineveh. It might appear today, after a lapse of 2500 years, [that] all hope of tracing the Israelites has been lost in the midst of antiquity. Archaeologists have, though, during the last 100 years, unearthed and published the original contemporary records of the Assyrians who took the Israelites captive. From these records, in recent years, vital clues have come to light. These records consist of cuneiform clay tablets which can be found today in the British Museum. These tablets serve today as archaeological evidence of Israel’s migrations. These clay tablets were frontier post reports of Assyrian spies, to the Assyrian king, keeping watch over the captive peoples. Among these tablets were over 1,400 different texts, including reports of how the captive peoples (Israelites) were breaking away in small groups and heading northwest in the general direction of Europe. The texts of these Assyrian clay tablets were not deciphered until about 1930. These Assyrian reports were saying in effect: “The last time we saw those sons of Omri (as the Israelites were called by the Assyrians), they were breaking away and heading in a northwesterly direction toward Europe.”

When I was first introduced to Christian Identity, in 1997, I quickly rather decided that I wanted to read all of the Classical histories which I saw cited in just a few books which I had read from various Identity authors. I thought that they would either make or break the assertions, but if they were true, I had to be able to prove them to myself. After two years of reading, Josephus, Herodotus, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and others, I was certain that they were true, but I did not stop there. Around 2003 I decided to write a series of my own essays, the Classical Records series of historical essays which have been found at Christogenea these past ten years. I had very little access to archaeological data when I wrote them, but I had some research done by friends and family who had internet access, and mailed me the results.

What cemented them together, however, was the data from the Assyrian inscriptions. Here Clifton has basically repeated what he had learned from E. Raymond Capt, which is not incorrect but which is in part based on the work of Assyriologist Daniel D. Luckenbill, and Luckenbill’s books are long out-of-print and difficult to obtain. Capt cited him often, particularly his Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia. Another source employed by Capt was Professor Leroy Waterman’s Royal Correspondence of the Assyrian Empire, which was published in twenty volumes, and so far as I can find, it is not generally available today. So when I wrote my essays, I did not have access to any of these sources.

Rather, all I had was a general narrative which I had stitched together from the Classics, a handful of articles from archaeological journals, and the language of the Assyrian inscriptions which were reproduced in the more popular volume titled Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, which was first published in 1950 at Princeton University Press, edited by James B. Pritchard, and last updated in a 3rd edition in 1978. I have presented many of these inscriptions at length in the exegetical Biblical commentaries which are also available at Christogenea, and I am confident that the missing links, as Capt had called them, which the inscriptions provide to connect the Germanic tribes to the ancient Israelites are absolutely certain. But none of this would have been possible without those 19th century archaeologists.

If we did not have archaeology, a rather young science which was chiefly in British, French and German hands for its first 150 years, with a little help from Americans and other Europeans, then we would not have Christian Identity. But with archaeology, hand-in-hand with Scripture and the Classics, we can indeed assert that Christian Identity is the truth, and it is the only truth that correctly harmonizes the words of both the apostles and the prophets with the historical records which may be gleaned from antiquity.

Something else which I had little access to when I wrote my essays was pictures. While I had some archaeology journals, I had no way to insert pictures into my writing, so I declined to write about pictures. But the ancient monuments fully support our Christian Identity assertions about history. For example, there were mosaics discovered in 1993 in an ancient synagogue at Sepphoris in Galilee, only 6 kilometers north-northwest of the Biblical Nazareth. In the 1st century AD, Sepphoris never joined the rebellion against the Romans, and resisted the Judaeans which did. But it was one of the places to which Jews resorted after the destruction of Jerusalem and their subsequent expulsion from Judaea in the later revolts of the 2nd century. These mosaics depict fair-skinned and fair-haired, often blond Judaeans, or Jews, from as early as the 4th century AD. Other synagogue mosaics were discovered quite recently in Hukkok, or Hukok or in modern times, Huqoq, an ancient town near the Sea of Galilee near the site of the Biblical Capernaum. The town was mentioned in Joshua 19:34 and 1 Chronicles 6:75. One mosaic which was found there clearly depicts White and blond-looking Hebrews standing in opposition to the armies of Alexander the Great, an encounter which had concluded peacefully as it was described by Josephus in his Antiquities. These discoveries destroy all claims that the early Judaeans were anything but White, and prove that the early Judaeans were indeed ethnically indistinguishable from Greeks and Romans of the same period. We would certainly expect that of the Israelites, and not even the apostles themselves could distinguish the Edomites and other Canaanites of that time by their appearance, as we learn in places such as John chapter 2. So even though Jews now dominate the archaeology of Palestine, the original task of the hunters is still being vindicated.

Clifton now begins a long, multi-part conclusion:

Not to inquire about this evidence, found by the prophesied “hunters”, would therefore be foolhardy; for there is nothing imprudent in Scripture! After all, who are we to condemn, repudiate, disavow or scoff at Jeremiah’s inspired written prophecy? If Jeremiah predicted “hunters”, you can be assured there would come a time for “hunting.” To accept the “fishers” without the “hunters” is to embrace only half of Yahweh’s Word!

Clifton meant this in a sense much wider than this one verse, as there are many prophecies in the Old Testament that Israel would be both scattered and then would become many nations. The Jews were scattered, but they only infiltrated already-existing nations, and never established independent nations of their own. Then there are many prophecies that Israel would be gathered to a Savior, which is Christ, and of course the Jews never accepted Him. The task of the hunters identifies who the true Israelites are, contrary to the claims of the Jews, since the historical scattering of Israel in the Old Testament happened many centuries before the so-called diaspora of the Jews. It was those anciently scattered Israelites whom the hunters were to hunt “out of the holes of the rocks”. History has never lost track of Jews. Clifton now continues with a portion of the apocryphal 2 Esdras, which itself really seems to be at least a couple of different books. However this portion is purely historical in its basic premise, as he wrote:

Besides, all this is substantiated by the ‘apocryphal’ book that used to be in the original King James version of the Bible before they removed it, 2 Esdras 13:39-45. I have a 1611 edition of the King James Version, and it’s there:

“39 And whereas thou sawest that he gathered another peaceable multitude unto him; 40 Those are the ten tribes which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Osea the king, whom Salmanasar the king of Assyria led away captive, and he carried them over the waters and so came they into another land. 41 But they took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a further country, where never mankind dwelt. 42 That they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land. 43 And they entered into Euphrates by the narrow passages of the river. 44 For the most High then shewed signs for them, and held still the flood, till they were passed over. 45 For through that country there was a great way to go, namely, of a year and a half: and the same region is called Arsareth.” (Also check Josephus, Antiquities, 8:11:1; 10:9:7 and 11:5:2)

At this juncture, we can no longer say [that] no one ever told us who the “hunters” are, or the people for whom they were “hunting”!

As we have said, Jews never needed to be hunted, since we have always been able to identify them. In fact, it is the Jews who always claim that they are hunted, mostly because they have acted as criminals rather consistently throughout the centuries. So even when they were hunted, it was certainly not for the reasons given in Scripture. Clifton continues with a brief survey of Scripture:

As a matter of fact, our Redeemer made it quite clear who the people were to whom He was sent when He instructed His disciples, Matthew 10:5-6:

“5 These twelve Jesus (Yahshua) sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles (heathen), and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: 6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the HOUSE of Israel.”

This passage is reinforced by Yahshua the Messiah Himself when He said, Matthew 15:24:

“... I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

This coincides perfectly with Amos 3:2 where Yahweh speaks of Israel:

“You only (Israel) have I known of all the families of the earth...”

These passages also accord with Deuteronomy 7:6 where [we read]:

“For thou art an holy (set apart) people unto Yahweh thy Mighty One: Yahweh thy Mighty One hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.”

This is the same idea brought forth in, and conveys the same meaning as 1st Peter 2:9 which says:

“But ye are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar (set apart) people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” (check Exodus 19:5-6)

The same concept is expressed in Psalm 147:19-20:

“19 He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. 20 He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they (the non-Israelites) have not known them.”

Again, the same thought is advanced in Deuteronomy 14:2 which says:

“For thou art a people set apart unto Yahweh thy Mighty One, and Yahweh hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the (other) nations that are upon the earth.”

For another rendering of the same basic precept, Isaiah 41:8 says the following:

“But thou Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.”

Contrary to what some advance, Yahweh does not promote the doctrine of universalism.

With all of this, we may begin to explain why Christian Identity is only a hundred and fifty years old, but it is not a new innovation. The following explanation, titled Why Christian Identity is such a "new" denomination, began as a post I had made in an argument on Facebook, which I had hoped would be read by certain so-called Orthodox Christians who somehow trumpet their own 5th-century version of Christianity as being the “original” and “oldest” form of Christianity, a claim which is patently and demonstrably false. Then I reproduced it for my presentation of Clifton’s paper Identifying the Biblical “Beast of the Field”, Part 5. After that, I added it as a comment to my paper Christian Identity: What Difference Does it Make? Now I will repeat it again here, with some minor additions, as it needs to be repeated within the context of this particular paper by Clifton:

Why Christian Identity is such a "new" denomination, and of course we know that it is not really a denomination, but sometimes they call it that. We know that it is The Way. Here are five simple reasons why it is so new:

1) Throughout the Middle Ages the question of race in Europe was not an issue, as most folks kept to their own kind and race-mixing was very rare. When it did happen, it was largely a result of prostitution or defeat in war.

2) The Roman Catholic Church often had restrictions on copying Scripture for general dissemination, and even tried to hold the line once the printing press was invented, but the printing press ultimately defeated the policy by brute force.

3) Once men got their hands on copies of the Bible, they began reading and realizing how far the so-called "orthodox" and “catholic” churches had wandered from the Gospel of Christ. This was the chief reason for the Reformation and the cause of a multiplicity of denominations which followed. The Reformation made the scholarly inquiry of the hunters and their interpreters possible.

4) The colonial period led British, German and French academics to treasure troves of information previously unavailable, through exploration and archaeology.

5) Once archaeological records of ancient population migrations became available and certain Protestants realized the implications, British Israel and then Christian Identity began to develop, starting from around the second quarter of the 19th century.

Conclusion: If you cannot revise your thinking based on new information, or at least on information which is new to you, then you are a slave and a fool. In the end, we will ALL be Christian Identity whether you like it or not.

Of course, I stand by those words today. Archaeologists may have dug our Israelite roots out of the holes of the rocks, but those of us who take that information and correctly identify the people of Scripture are also in company with the hunters. The time for fishers is long past, and today is the time of the hunters, ever since the first realizations of true Israelite Identity began to be made, evidently by British scholars and clerics, perhaps a hundred and eighty years ago. Clifton now continues under a subtitle:

MORE ON THE FISHERS AND HUNTERS

For this phase of this presentation, I will quote from Howard Rand’s Study in Jeremiah, pages 81-82 entitled “Fishers And Hunters” (I will use Yahweh ([the] Tetragrammaton) instead of God):

Here we see that Clifton got the idea for this essay from Howard Rand, but he is admitting that by including this citation into his writing on the subject.

“Yahweh sets forth the method by which He will bring Israel back to Himself. This is a most important prophecy for in sending for fishers and hunters the way in which Israel is to be awakened to spiritual values and to the need of obeying His Covenant is revealed to Jeremiah:

“Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith Yahweh, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. (Jeremiah 16:16)

Rand is correct, that the purpose of all this is to return ancient Israel to obedience, as we see in verses which immediately follow the prophesy of the hunters, in Jeremiah 16:17-18: “17 For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes. 18 And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; because they have defiled my land, they have filled mine inheritance with the carcases of their detestable and abominable things.” Now Clifton continues with Rand:

“Who are these fishers and hunters and what is the particular task each is to perform in the respective fishing and hunting periods? The sending of these two groups designated as fishers and hunters indicates that there are two entirely different methods by which an appeal would be made to Israel. A fisherman patiently waits as he undertakes to snare the fish in a net or catch it on a line, but the hunter tramps through the woods and over the hills and mountains exerting energy and strength as he travels in search of his especially selected prey. Actually Jeremiah prophetically referred to the two distinct phases of the Gospel in their respective appeals to Israel for the purpose of bringing them back to covenant relationship with Yahweh. The first would require fishers and the period of their fishing is clearly defined by the events of the Gospel Age. The second would require hunters and the period of their activity would be at the end of the Gospel Age. This is demonstrated by the activities of those who have sought to establish the identity of Israel in these last days, hunting out the evidence and tracing Israel from Palestine, throughout her years of wanderings, to the present time. History reveals how faithfully the predicted fishing and hunting missions have been carried out by those chosen of Yahweh for each purpose.”

So Rand’s initial interpretation of the hunters was slightly different than Clifton’s, but Clifton’s is more faithful to the literal meaning of Jeremiah, and, I believe, also to the prophetic meaning. We cannot actually hunt Israelites and subdue them to truth ourselves, as a hunter subdues his prey by trapping and killing it. But we can hunt out who the Israelites actually are by examining the evidence found in the holes of the rocks and appealing to them based on that evidence. As Clifton continues he will cite Rand further:

Now for some excerpts from this same book from pages 85, 86 & 87 on this same subject of the fishers and hunters:

Page 85: “The fishers were to be followed by many hunters according to Jeremiah, thus indicating a change in method and message. The task of the hunters was to search for Israel. The fisherman blindly casts his net and gathers into it all kinds of fish, some good and some bad. [Some Israelite which are to be kept, and some non-Israelite which are to be ‘cast away’ at the end of the world, Matthew 13:47-49.] That is not so with the hunter who seeks to find the particular object of his search. All this points to the modern endeavor to identify the House of Israel in the world today ...”

And here Clifton and Rand come to agreement, but that endeavor had to start with the advent of archaeology and the study of the ancient monuments and documents which resulted from the discoveries made by the archaeologists. The early archaeologists were predominantly Christians who had a passion for Scripture and sought to find evidences of the world in which the Scriptures were written, so that they could know that the Scriptures were true. To a great degree, that is what they accomplished. However they were not aware that their discoveries would further enable others who interpreted their findings and were in turn able to identify the true Israelites of history. That would require another sort of hunter, a hunter who believed the words of the prophets, and could sift through those discoveries and realize from the ancient historical writings as well as from Scripture the correct identity of the ancient Israelites. Clifton continues to cite Rand:

Page 86: “‘Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.’ (Matthew 10:23)... But the Gospel of the Kingdom was to be proclaimed exclusively to the Israel peoples. All the cities and towns in the Israel lands have not yet heard this message which the hunters have been commissioned to proclaim...”

There Christ was talking to fishers, and not necessarily to hunters, and the record is clear that the fishers themselves did not yet know the extent to which the ancient children of Israel had settled in the lands to the north. Again continuing with Clifton’s citations of Rand:

Page 87: “Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek Yahweh: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you. (Isaiah 51:1-2)”

These words were written by Isaiah to Israel in dispersion. They were speaking prophetically to a people who were destined to be blind and to forget who they were, of a future time when they would have to consider their origins. So they also presage what we call Christian Identity. Now Clifton continues under another subtitle:

THE NEW JERUSALEM

In the Book of Revelation, chapter 21, we are told of a city four-square having twelve gates in all. The city is described as having a great, high wall. There are three gates on each of its four sides, east, north, south and west, with the names of the twelve sons of Jacob-Israel. In order to enter this city, one is required to be able to enter the gate according to their tribe. Because nothing abominable will be allowed to enter, each one entering will have to be a racially pure Israelite with his father’s line going through one of the twelve Patriarchs. Unless one can enter through one of the gates named after the twelve Patriarchs, there simply is no other way into that city. If you are a racially pure Israelite, it was your father and mother who made it possible in [you] qualifying for entering into that city. When we consider all of these things, it becomes quite evident why we must understand just who are the “hunters” of Jeremiah 16:16!

Once we understand the phenomenon of the hunters, and we can identify the “lost sheep” of the House of Israel, then we may stop trying to make sheep out of goats, or even devils. So Clifton continues in that regard:

“JEWS” ARE NOT HIS SHEEP (John 10:26)

It may come as a surprise to many, but the “Jews” are not Israelites. I know that this is the message echoed throughout the Church-world and among the “Jews” themselves, but it simply is not true. And, wishful thinking is not going to make it so. Not one single “Jew” on the face of the world is an Israelite. Therefore, the biggest lie in the world is: “the ‘Jews’ are God’s chosen people.” The second biggest lie is: “Jesus was a ‘Jew.’” Anyone making these statements is a liar, or is repeating another person’s falsehood. Yahshua told the “Jews”, John 10:26: “... ye are not of my sheep.” The Interpreter’s Bible, volume 8, page 632: “In that case evidently you have no manner of kinship with me.”

Clifton often cited this Interpreter’s Bible in his papers, and while we cannot endorse everything it contains, some of the quotes are surprising, that denominational Christians could sometimes be so close to the truth, yet not realize the full implications of their own realizations. Continuing with Clifton:

Again, Yahshua told the “Jews”, John 8:47: “He that is of Yahweh heareth Yahweh’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of Yahweh.” Yahshua further disassociated Himself from the “Jews” by saying to them, John 8:23: “... Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.” In Revelation 2:9 and 3:9, Yahshua said of the false Jews: “... I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews (sic of Judah), and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.” From this, you can plainly see the “Jews” will not be able to enter the gate of the city mentioned in Revelation 21:12 which is inscribed “Judah.”

William MacDonald’s Believer’s Bible Commentary, pages 2356 & 2359 remarks thusly on Revelation 2:9 and 3:9:

“As Jews, they claimed to be God’s chosen people, but by their blasphemous behavior they showed that they were a synagogue of Satan... Those who claimed to be God’s chosen people, though actually a synagogue of Satan, would be forced to admit that the despised Christians were actually the chosen flock.”

Here MacDonald seems on the surface to have it right, but he has it all wrong. Revelations 2:9 and 3:9 are not a challenge to Judaeans on the basis of whether or not they are the “chosen people”. Rather, these passages are a challenge to Judaeans on the basis of whether they are true Judaeans, which is, whether they are actually Israelites in the first place. So MacDonald’s argument actually perpetuates the lie for which the Jews were actually accused of blasphemy by Christ. The truth is that Israel shall always be God’s chosen people, but the Jews were not Israel. Perhaps Clifton, including this quote without criticizing it, did not realize the bait-and-switch tactic which MacDonald employed in his false argument. Clifton continues:

Matthew Poole’s Commentary On The Holy Bible, volume 3, page 954, goes one step further in identifying the “Jews” as being the descendants of Cain the murderer:

“But are the synagogue of Satan: but are indeed a collection of devils, or children of the devil, whose works they do, continually reviling true Christians, and murdering the saints, after the manner of their father, who was a murderer from the beginning.”

[Now Clifton responds:] Cain was the murderer from the beginning who was fathered by Satan himself in the seduction of Eve. The “Jews” are actually genetic descendants of Satan himself walking about in shoe-leather. What does the future hold for Israel then? Jeremiah 46:28 says to our people:

“Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith Yahweh: for I am with thee; for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure: yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished.”

Again, I ask the question: Who are the hunters? Don’t you think it is about time the pastors in the churches of our Israel lands are asked this question? Why is it that they refuse comment? After all, the subject of the “hunters” is in the Bible and it is not going to go away, and the Almighty is going to demand an answer to this question! In Isaiah 56:10-11, it speaks of “shepherds that cannot understand.” If our “shepherds” won’t inform us, in the end, it becomes the responsibility of each one of us to:

“Study to shew thyself approved unto Yahweh, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

Now Clifton concludes in response to that:

Bibles are available today, and we are without excuse!

This is the end of Clifton’s original essay, Who are the Hunters? Later, when I first posted this article on Clifton’s website, he asked me to add a paragraph as a preface to the article, which I shall now read and then make some comments upon myself. I do these things so that people interested in the development of Christian Identity in recent times better understand the course of Clifton’s ministry, and even my own.

[A notice to the reader: You will find this article posted on several websites crediting it Willie Martin as the author. That is not true, for I am the author. Willie used to be on my mailing list before he died and he could type about 107 words a minute, and when he received my mailing he would type out my brochures and parts of my Watchman Teaching Letters and attach them to E-mails. Willie Martin was a plagiarizer and passed on my and many other writer’s works as his own. I checked the date on my computer when I first formatted this document into brochure form, and it is registered as December 19, 2000. Since that time I have circulated hundreds, if not over a thousand, of these brochures to people on my mailing list. How then, can Willie Martin write any article under the same title that I gave to it? To do so is highly unethical! The childrenofyahweh website has been very honest with me by posting my material the way I wrote it. I have given permission for people to copy my material freely or order it from me at a cost lower than they could copy it themselves. There is one place that I draw the line though. I do not give permission to anyone to add to my articles nor to subtract from them, but to reproduce them word for word exactly as I wrote them. I insist that anyone who wants to post any of my articles on the Net, post them word for word as I have written them or not post them at all! Let’s now continue.]

Well, for this evening’s presentation I moved this comment to the end of the document, but before we conclude, a few comments may be appropriate. First, the childrenofyahweh website was started by a man named Bill White, in July 2002, according to information which can be obtained from Internet domain history records. It fell into disuse and was parked in January of 2007. Today there is a different owner for that domain name, which was re-registered in April of 2014, and of which we have no knowledge or connection. Of Bill White I never knew anything, except that he was a trucker, and I have no knowledge of him since apparently even Clifton did not know him very well and lost contact with him around that same time. I do know that he is also the one who purchased the license for the copy of the Libronix Digital Library that both Clifton and I have used for many years, mostly for research into the so-called Ante-Nicene Fathers and other early church materials. I still use it, and I will until my last Windows 8 computer dies, since it won’t run on Windows 10.

After it was folded, the entire original childrenofyahweh website was incorporated into the israelect.com website, which, before I founded Christogenea in January of 2009, was the most popular Christian Identity website, and continued to publish Clifton's work until his own website was founded in 2009. In 2012, thanks to Jerel Mosley, I came to own the israelect website and have mostly left it intact, except that for the writings of Emahiser, Comparet, Swift, and myself, I redirect traffic to better and more current pages at Christogenea. Clifton’s essay was published at childrenofyahweh before the site folded, and can still be seen listed on its menus.

Clifton was on the internet before I left prison, but he was never really an expert at it. Bill White had offered to post his material at childrenofyahweh, and Clifton was elated at the idea that his writings would be made available on the internet. Later, he became proficient enough to do basic research that helped with his papers, and then even later he became involved with email lists. So when I got home, where I could finally access the internet for the first time since 1996, I found that a few items were circulating which I knew without doubt that Clifton had written, since I had proofread for Clifton for about ten years while I was in prison, but they were being credited to Willie Martin. By that time Willie had already passed on. I also remember our friend Don Brown complaining that Martin had been plagiarizing Clifton and others at that early time.

But there is to this day at israelect a section titled the Watchman Willie Martin archive, and under that, a Book, Study & Essay Archive where one of the first items listed is a plagiarism of a Bertrand Comparet sermon, A Faith For These Days. At the very bottom, the page says “Taken, in part, from a study entitled ‘A Faith For These Days,’ by Bertrand L. Comparet”. Clifton’s Who Are the Hunters essay is also in the list, and the date at israelect is May 1st, 2002. But not all of Martin’s plagiarisms give credit to their original authors, and since when they do, the credit is all the way at the bottom of the page, many people who do not read that far down copy portions out and give Martin credit where he does not deserve any. I am not even certain if Martin added the credits, or if they were added by the young man who created israelect, since I know that he was quite familiar with all of these writings. The dates that he provided in the Willie Martin archive were from word processor files, so evidently Willie must have sent him a collection of his compiled documents. But for these reasons, I would not trust any of Willie Martin’s work to actually belong to Willie Martin, but I will probably leave it all intact at israelect for as long as Yahweh allows me to have that site.

As for our original subject, we may revisit this once again at some point in the future, as in February of 2013 Clifton had expanded on his original essay with a two-part series under a similar title, Who Are Jeremiah's Prophesied Hunters, and sooner or later I will evaluate those for presentation here.

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