I’ll take truth without the dressing please… and without the extra words…
Who are the Semites? Where did the term Antisemitic come from and when did it begin to mean just Jews?
These two questions have been answered in many ridiculous ways from theologians, scholars, archeologists with PhD’s and repeated from pulpits of pastors and news headlines. Most just take what they are told as truth and fact. Today, there are so many mis-truths and so called facts that it’s easy for a person to simply throw their hands up in the air and stick their head in the sand rather than do some deep research that few will even read, let alone believe. But there is a truth to the two questions if you will have it.
Origin of the name “Semite”…
The name Semite comes from Shem, who was the oldest son of Noah. In the Greek and Latin versions of the Bible, the name Shem becomes Sem, since neither Greek nor Latin has any way of representing the initial sound of the Hebrew name. Semites are the sons of Shem.
The Bible tells us that God brought a flood upon the earth and spared Noah and his family and everyone else was drowned or destroyed in this event and that all mankind are descended from his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The time came and the land was divided between the sons of Noah and they drew lots as to what they would inherit. In short Shem drew the middle of the earth, Japheth the north, and Ham the south. The lines of division are found in the book of Jubilees.
The sons of Shem are found in Genesis 10:22 and listed as Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud and Aram. Elam is historically known as the nation in the highlands East of the Tigris, between Media and Persia; Asshur as the Assyrians; Lud as the Lydians of Asia Minor; and Aram as the Syrians both East and West of the Euphrates. The identification of Arpachshad, is the most followed ancestor of the Semites, because of his Biblical importance for from his line were the Hebrews descended and so were the Arab tribes, and it is also said some East African colonies see Genesis 10:24-30 and Genesis 11:12-16. Arpachshad is also said to be identified with the Chaldeans as identified as such in the Historian Josephus in his book of Antiquities I, Vi, 4. But the most historic identification of descendents of Arpachshad is Northeast of Assyria at the headwaters of the Upper Zab in the Armenian highlands according to Ptolemy, the Greek historian and his classical geographers, Gesenius, Delitzsch.
At the time of Shem and his sons, there were no Jews and there were no Hebrews yet. They were known as Semites. And there was no such term as antisemite. That all came later.
So what we have are sons of Shem and called Semites that place their beginnings in Arabia and are also found in Elam, Babylonia, Assyria, Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Palestine. Of which it is historically said that the sons of Arpachshad who settled Arabia sent further migrations into Africa, as well as rebounding into the desert west of the Euphrates, Syria and Palestine. Thus, Western Asia became the region of Semitic life, whose influences also reached Egypt and, through Phoenicia, the far-away West-Mediterranean.
The term anti-semetic and the definition of anti-semitism as being anti-Jewish came about in the 19th century and was used a lot by those beginning the Zionist movement.
Israel is a people that make up many nations in fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham. Israel includes people from all nations. Not just one tribe of the twelve sons of Jacob. The inheritance of the birthright of Israel went to the sons of Joseph Ephraim and Manasseh who were gentiles.
Ezekiel 37:15-19
15 The word of the Lord came to me: 16 “Son of man, take a stick of wood and write on it, ‘Belonging to Judah and the Israelites associated with him.’ Then take another stick of wood, and write on it, ‘Belonging to Joseph (that is, to Ephraim) and all the Israelites associated with him.’ 17 Join them together into one stick so that they will become one in your hand.
18 “When your people ask you, ‘Won’t you tell us what you mean by this?’ 19 say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am going to take the stick of Joseph—which is in Ephraim’s hand—and of the Israelite tribes associated with him, and join it to Judah’s stick. I will make them into a single stick of wood, and they will become one in my hand.’
In an article written by Richard Levy titled, “Where the Word ‘Anti-Semitism’ Comes From”, he states that, “Hatred of Jews has been around for centuries, but only in the 1800s did it begin to be referred to as ‘anti-Semitism.'”
“What prompted the coining of the neologism “anti-Semitism” was the perception of an altered relationship between Jews and the peoples among whom they lived that could not accurately be described as mere “Judeophobia” or “Jew-hatred.” The felt need for a new word affected not just self-identified anti-Semites. It was recognized by Jews and non-Jews throughout Europe and wherever Europeans settled in the world.
“The term anti-Semitism emerged to describe these efforts. In Germany, Wilhelm Marr, if not the coiner of the word then certainly one of its major early popularizers, thought of himself as a modern man, a student of history and science. Anti-Semitism allowed him to distinguish the party he launched in late 1879 — the Antisemites’ League — from the religious bigotry of medieval Jew-hatred.”
“Like many (but not all) who shared his goals, Marr defined the Jewish Question as one of race, not religious deviance.” Read: Where the Word ‘Anti-Semitism’ Comes From | My Jewish Learning
The new “German” term of anti-semitic gained momentum in 1879 with the forming of the Antisemites League. Which empowered the Zionist movement. And soon became a sound weapon against anyone questioning the banking system of Rothschild, and any Jewish funded endeavors that monopolized areas of commerce and lending practices. Look at history… it shows that this was clearly a fact then as it yet is still this day.
Richard Levy’s article also stated, “Anti-Semitism rejected these errors of the past. What was needed was disciplined and systematic struggle, nothing less than the institutionalization of anti-Semitism in political parties, grassroots organizations, lobbying agencies, newspapers, learned journals, and a variety of voluntary associations Action would be buttressed by modern mass media and new technologies, by unceasing agitation. Anti-Semites had to be prepared for the long struggle which was to continue for as long as it took to solve the Jewish Question. Whether Marr’s contemporaries wished to admit it or not, the modern world was engaged in a race war, a war that could not have a peaceful end.
“While many agreed with Marr’s goals and methods, the term anti-Semitism itself was never wholly embraced. Some found it too evasive, others too pseudo-scientific. The German philosopher Eugen Duhring (1833-1921) objected to its avoidance of naming the enemy directly. It was also seen as too imprecise. Not all Semites were deemed inimical. For example, when Nazis sought Arab allies before and during World War II, they found it advisable to disavow use of the term in propaganda directed at the Middle East, reassuring potential allies that Arabs were a noble race. Even today, Arabs — Semites themselves — object to being associated with the Jewish Question. Others, quite hostile toward Jews, claim that because they are Semites, they cannot be accused of anti-Semitism.
Quite simply the term has been abused and used as a shield to shut anyone up who questions anything done by those of that ethnic origin. The same as the word “Racism” has been abused and attached to anyone who questions anything relating to the black community. Today all of this has taken broader steps forward and included all sorts of anti’s to anything being questioned as “hate speech”.
Questioning and showing proof of ones truth is not hate speech.
We also have been flooded with new pronouns, and common words now being pushed as “forbidden” words and terms relating to gender and other known realities as hate speech.
All of this is moreso classified as part of a war on words and used as weapons moreso than any minority rights or causes, for it takes away rights in the process. It also allows lawlessness to thrive with no questions allowed to be asked.
This is simply legalized confusion and lawlessness. It can be said, with this type of reasoning that Jesus the Messiah also suffered from Antisemitism. And duly many Christians as well suffer from Antisemitism. So what will ever end the persecution of those who follow the way of the Lord Jesus the Christ?
The bigger question I have always wondered about is why do Evangelical Zionists of Christian Faith relish and entertain the encouragement of the coming of a new messiah and the building of a new Temple to sacrifice within, and choose to bow to that instead of witnessing to their brothers in Zion who know not who Jesus is? Do they not know that Jesus fulfilled the scriptures and now there is no Greek, nor Jew, nor male, nor female but all are one in Christ?
Christ Redeemed Us and fulfilled the promises made to Abraham.
Galations 3: 1-9
1 O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? 2This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? 4Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. 5He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
6Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. 7Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 8And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. 9So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.
So as was taught by Jesus and all of the faith to the Jews and to the gentiles and Semites at the time of the Apostles and first followers of the way, and because of the truth in fulfillment of the prophets of which many were taught and by that came to have faith… the Holy Spirit entered into the people and moved their hearts then the same as today.
Galations 3:23-29
23But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 24Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
26For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
But there is an answer to that question for God still had to have a remnant of Jews to fulfill prophecy of the old testament, not the new. For in addition to the two sticks coming together as one in God’s hand… it says in the book of Zechariah that they will look upon me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son…. many eyes shall be opened in all faiths.
Zechariah 12:10
“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”
So, for what it’s worth… that is the way that it actually is. Where this goes from here depends on how big the system will be allowed to grow before it implodes on itself. Which it looks like that may come quickly.
KEEP ON PRESSING INTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD. PRESS, PRESS, PRESS!
DIANNE
