The WildFire Campaign

Lore & Background

The exile of Israel's population, known as the Assyrian captivity, was an instance of the long-standing resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire implemented in many subjugated territories. The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that 'there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers.' In the 7th and 8th centuries CE, the return of the Ten Lost Tribes was associated with the concept of the coming of the Hebrew Messiah. Claims of descent from the 'lost tribes' have been proposed in relation to many groups, and some Abrahamic religions espouse a messianic view that Israel's tribes will return. According to contemporary research, Transjordan and Galilee did witness large-scale deportations, and entire tribes were lost. Historians have generally concluded that the deported tribes assimilated into their new local populations. In Samaria many Israelites survived the Assyrian onslaught and remained in the land, eventually coming to be known as the Samaritan people. Persistent claims have been made that some of the lost tribes survived as distinct entities. Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, a professor of Middle Eastern history at New York University, states: 'The fascination with the tribes has generated, alongside ostensibly nonfictional scholarly studies, a massive body of fictional literature and folktale.' Anthropologist Shalva Weil has documented various differing tribes and peoples claiming affiliation to the Ten Lost Tribes throughout the world.

Reader's Guide

The scriptural basis for the idea of lost tribes is 2 Kings 17:6: 'In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away unto Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and in Habor, on the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.' According to the Bible, the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were the successor states to the older United Monarchy of Israel. The Kingdom of Israel came into existence c. 930 BCE after the northern tribes of Israel rejected Solomon's son Rehoboam as their king. Ten tribes formed the Kingdom of Israel: The bible does mention that the Kingdom of Judah consisted of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The bible does not specifically name the ten tribes but there are commentaries that say that they consisted of the tribes of Reuben, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Ephraim, Simeon and Manasseh. However it is not clear how Simeon, whose territory was within the Judean territory, could ever have been a part of the northern kingdom. Additionally the territory of Asher was basically Phoenician, and that of Reuben was mostly overlapping with Moabite territory. Members of the Tribe of Levi were located in cities in both kingdoms. According to 2 Chronicles 15:9, members of the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon fled to Judah during the reign of Asa of Judah (c. 911–870 BCE). In c. 732 BCE, the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III captured Damascus and conquered and annexed Aram-Damascus, as well as the northern part of the Kingdom of Israel, while leaving a reduced Israelite kingdom centered on Samaria. Israel Finkelstein estimated that only a fifth of the population (about 40,000) were actually resettled out of the area during the two deportation periods under Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, and Sargon II. Many also fled south to Jerusalem, which appears to have expanded in size fivefold during this period, requiring a new wall to be built, and a new source of water (Siloam) to be provided by King Hezekiah. Furthermore, 2 Chronicles 30 explicitly mentions northern Israelites who had been spared by the Assyrians—in particular, members of Dan, Ephraim, Manasseh, Asher, and Zebulun—and how members of the latter three returned to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem at that time.

Did You Know?

• The Talmud debates whether or not the ten lost tribes will eventually be reunited with the Tribe of Judah.
• An Ashkenazi Jewish legend speaks of these tribes as 'the red Jews', who were cut off from the rest of Jewry by the legendary river Sambation.
• In 1649, Menasseh ben Israel published his book, The Hope of Israel, arguing that the native inhabitants of America were descendants of the lost Ten Tribes.
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes in the literal gathering of Israel and that the Ten Tribes will be restored.