Customer Reviews

The Lost Tribes of Israel: The History of a Myth

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This is the newest manifestation in writing on the Lost Tribes of Israel. When the ten northern tribes of Israel were gobbled up they became `Lost' and for more then 2000 years people have been speculating as to their whereabouts. This book traces the development of the `myth' of the Lost tribes, trying to show the various claims and hoaxes that have struggled to `discover' the tribes. Tracing this history from the New World to China, India, Africa and beyond the author shows expertly how missionaries and later Jewish researchers came to regard certain tribal peoples as descendants of the ancient Hebrews. The major flaw here is that this is a fascinating subject which this book actually makes boring. Here is a subject encompassing all the world and hundreds of interesting tribes with varying customs and traditions, many of which have been manufactured to appear Jewish in origin. Some of these tribes are practicing circumcision whereas some were shown to have merely `Jewish countenance'. This book immediately disregards that the Ten Tribes even exist, which obviously ethnically they probably do, although they probably are no longer Jewish. Who is to say the Bedouin or the Kurds are not some ethnic remnant of the Tribes of Israel? This book also makes dull a subject by focusing inordanently on the claims of various Baptist missionaries rather then going out and researching and describing the actual tribes themselves. SO while this is a great new addition to the last tribes literature it is by no means an enjoyable read.

Seth J. Frantzman

Mr. Parfitt obviously did a lot of research to write this book - and it IS a fine one, well worth a read... but his agenda is clear from the start: he doesn't believe in the tales. Period.

The problems with his work are that some of the 'best' claims - the Pathans of Afghanistan, and the modern Peruvian and Bolivian tribes, are glossed over or mentioned only in passing. He also rather sneeringly glosses off any suggestion that the Falashas could possibly be of Jewish descent - though the Rabbinical Authorities in Israel, who are NOT known to be liberal in any way, shape, or form clearly accepted their claim. Falashas don't claim to be a 'lost tribe' - yet Mr. Parfitt devotes an entire chapter to an attack on their Jewishness. Even his quotations from other sources - so rich in other parts of his book - are glaringly missing from this chapter.

Another problem is that in the chapters, his date jumping is jarring; one sentence he'll be speaking of some event which happened in the 20th century, zoom back to the 1700s, then back to the 1800s... and give conflicting stories which take place in the same era.

As I said, this book is well worth a read - but he DOES have an agenda, and the book is clearly slanted to fit it.

Riveting history! This book peels off the layers of accumulated myth and reveals an amazing story. The link between colonialism and Lost Tribe mythology was not something I would have thought of. The evidence for this - as in his chapter on Africa - is utterly compelling. The chapter on the evolution of these fantasies in Japan is scary - it shows the power of the human imagination. Great book, well written, well researched. Deserves a place in any half serious Judaica collection.

Tudor Parfitt, a professor at the University of London, believes the 8th century BCE marked the end of lost tribe history and the start of their myth.1 But Parfitt's myth theory focuses on quack scholars and religious speculations. Unfortunately his research ignores comparative ethnographic analysis. Parfitt's conclusion seems more like a negative gut response to his interviewees' religious sentiments. Additionally, he mentions secondhand accounts of similarities between Solomon's temple and Shinto shrines, but makes no firsthand observations about the shrines. He references scholars who found Israeli-Japanese links, but discredits them because they were Christian or "alienated" locals educated in the West. Parfitt did not bear in mind that such people might be among the few who knew both local and biblical traditions well enough to make a serious analysis. In one comical section Parfitt recognized research linking old Japanese songs to Hebrew, but he rejected all parallels because he could not understand the Hebrew of one traditional Japanese singer. I also cannot understand some Japanese who speak English, even though they are speaking English.

Parfitt never lets his readers glimpse the original research linking Japanese songs to Hebrew. He also completely avoided Arimasa Kubo's fantastic analysis and Joseph Eildeberg's lingusitic research on Japanese and Hebrew. Scholars like Parfitt tragically conclude that theories about Israel's lost tribes are nothing more than religious conjecture. A less biased and more anthropological approach to these spectacular reports is needed to further our understanding of Asia's past.

This book clearly does not address any current factual information regarding the lost tribes of Ysrael. He merely states a propostion and spends the entire book justifying his conclusion. Poorly written and disconnected writing style with little or know facts support by any scientific or historical evidence. Certainly not worth reading for those interested in finding plausible and documented information regarding the lost tribes of Ysrael. I suggest reading Babylon to Timbuktu, and current Genetic test results of the East African Lemba tribe.

Poorly written book. There's a mountain of evidence that shows the account of the ten lost tribes is no myth. The author simply ignores the data that he doesn't like, rather than at least explore it and present a nuetral view. The lost tribes have turned up in India, Yemen, Central Asia,Ethiopia, on the border of Mynamar, the Caucuses,and even intermarried with the Celts. I would reccomend the A and E DVD "Quest for the Lost Tribes" by Simcha Jacobovici instead.