The Ten Tribes

Where are the lost 10 tribes? I hope no one is disappointed to find the answer is simply
apparent.

First the facts: 1) They are not exactly 10 tribes, but remnants of 12 of the 13 tribes,
Judah excluded. 2) They are lost to our knowledge, but not necessarily out of sight. 3) At
least a remnant will yet be reclaimed spiritually and lead home as a group.

Now some history: The northern Kingdom of Israel, lead by the tribe of prideful
Ephraim, was taken to Assyria in 729. They were resettled within Assyria over a
possibly wide area roughly centering in northern Iraq. Their quarrel with Judah included
the fact that the center of worship, the temple in Jerusalem, was under Judah’s control.
Clearly, returning to Palestine was not their priority. In fact, if they did choose to move,
they might well have chosen to go north, away from Jerusalem. The apocrypha says
this is exactly what happened*. It is clear that at least the tribe of Ephraim ended up
in northern Europe and the British Isles, where they were found by missionaries in the
latter-days. Clearly this rebellious yet gifted group, still possessing Jacob’s birth right,
decided to throw off their oppressive yoke and strike out on their own. But what of the
other tribes? Obviously individuals and perhaps clans are likely to have scattered all over
the earth; but we are looking for a core group still hidden yet reclaimable as prophesied.

Hidden where? So we are looking for the 10-11 tribes left of the original 11-12 after
Ephraim took off north. Where did they go and how do they remain hidden? People
have speculated they were hidden on a land mass at the North Pole, or on the North Star-
- Come on, they never went anywhere. Like many other conquered nations of that time
they basically became assimilated and stayed. They heard the original apostles and
many were presumably converted to the gospel and may have come to understand their
heritage. Who knows what spiritual revivals they might have had before being conquered
by Moslem nations and becoming enclosed behind the most spiritually impenetrable
barrier ever known to man-Islam.

The future: So the 10 tribes are most likely lost behind the curtain of Islamic law, which
forbids preaching of or conversion to Christianity. It will be interesting to see how the
Lord breaks down that barrier to allow missionaries to gather the final 10 tribes. This
explains the Lord’s proclamation that the first will be last and the last first. The 10 tribes
of Israel and Judah, chosen first, will be reclaimed only after the gentiles have had ample
chance to receive the truth.

*http://www.gatheringofisrael.com/12tribes.html

History of the Tribes

The apocryphal second book of Esdras, regarded as genuine by many early Christians, gives the following
account of the ten tribes:

'"and whereas thou sawest that he gathered another peaceable people unto him. These are the Ten Tribes
which were carried away captives out of their own land in the time of Oseas, the king, whom Salmanaser,
the king of the Assyrians, took captive and crossed them beyond the river; so were they brought into
another land, but they took this council to themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen
and go forth onto a further country, where never man dwelt, that they might keep the statutes, which
they never kept in their own land. And they entered in at the narrow passages of the river Euphrates, for

the most High then showed them signs and stayed the springs of the flood till they were passed over;
for through the country there was great journey, even of a year and a half, and the same region is called
Arsareth." (2 Esdras 13:39-45.)

See also: Lands of the Dispersion: Britains from Armenia; Picts from Scythia By David Stewart
www.gatheringofisrael.com/12tribes.html