The Testimony of Josephus
by Marie King, courtesy The Covenant Message

Flavius Josephus, the learned Jewish historian and military leader, lived about AD 37-95. He was born in the first year of Caligula (37-38). His father belonged to one of the noblest priestly families and through his mother, he claimed descent from the Asmonaean high priest Jonathan.

Josephus wrote about the year AD 70. His "Antiquities of the Jews" and "Wars of the Jews" give detailed accounts of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and shed light on the history of the ancient Israelites and of the nation of the Jews.. The information which he records with regard to the so-called "lost ten tribes" is valuable, for it disproves completely the theory of British-Israel critics, who declare the whole, or the majority, of the descendants of the Israel people are contained in the people now known as the Jews.

Turning to the Sacred Scriptures,. we read in I Kings 12 that, after the death of Solomon, God divided the Israel nation into the Northern Kingdom of Israel (ten tribes) and the Southern Kingdom of Judah (two tribes). Later, through disobedience and failure to keep God's Laws, the ten-tribed kingdom of Israel was taken into captivity by the Assyrians, and placed "in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan and in the cities of the-Medes" (2 Kings 17:6)

More than a century later the Southern Kingdom of Judah was carried away captive by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon , a country separated from the Assyrian possessions in Media by several hundred miles.

The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah show clearly that all the tribes did not return to Palestine, but only a remnant from the Babylonian captivity, consisting of members of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi.

With regard to the ten tribes, important evidence is furnished by the Second Book of Esdras in the Apocrypha, chapter 13, verses 40-46. We are told they escaped from Assyria, from beyond the Euphrates to Arsweth (thought by some to be a region in the south of Russia) "Those are the ten tribes, which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Osea the King, when Salamanasar the king of Assyria led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, and so came they into another land. 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, that they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land. And they entered into Euphrates by the narrow passages of the river. For the Most High then showed signs for them, and held still the flood, till they were passed over. 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, Then dwelt they there until the latter time. . . ."

Returning to the writings of Josephus we find he supports the Bible and the Apocrypha. He states that in his day "the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now." With regard to the Babylonian captivity, he shows that only members of the tribes of Judah , Benjamin and the Levites returned to Jerusalem .

Referring to the liberating proclamation of Cyrus, Josephus says: "When Cyrus had said this to the Israelites, the rulers of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with the Levites, and priests, went in haste to Jerusalem, yet did many of them stay in Babylon, as not willing to leave their possessions. . ," (Antq, Book 11, Chap. 1, par. 3)

In reference to the opposition which the captives encountered when they began to build the temple at Jerusalem, Josephus says, in Book 2, chap. 4, par. 3: "But when the Samaritans, who were still enemies of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, heard the sound of the trumpets, they came running together, and desired to know what was the occasion of this tumalt; and when they perceived that it was from the Jews who had been carried captive to Babylon."

In Book II, chap. 5, par. 2 we read: "The entire body of the people of Israel remained in that country, wherefore, 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 not to be estimated by numbers."

Josephus also gives valuable information of the Lacedaemonian Greeks (Spartans), who discovered they were of Abrahamic stock (Antq. Book 12, chap, 4, par. 10, and Book 13, chap. 5 par. 8). Support for this record is again found in the Apocrypha ( I Maccabees 12).

Space will not permit further evidence by this great Jewish historian but, in the presence of his statements, together with the evidence of Esdras and the Sacred Scriptures, with regard to the two tribes who returned from Babylon and the immense multitude of the ten tribes beyond Euphrates who did not return to Palestine with the Jews, the theory of the critics of Identity Truth is completely and definitely refuted.