The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History | Date: 28 April 2011, 04:31
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The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History
By Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
* Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
* Number Of Pages: 320
* Publication Date: 2009-09-04
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 019530733X
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780195307337
Product Description:
The legendary story of the ten lost tribes of Israel has resonated among both Jews and Christians down through the centuries: the compelling idea that some core group of humanity was "lost" and exiled to a secret place, perhaps someday to return triumphant. In this fascinating book, Zvi Ben-Dor Benite shows for the first time the extent to which the search for the lost tribes of Israel became, over two millennia, an engine for global exploration and a key mechanism for understanding the world.
As the book reveals, the quest for the missing tribes and the fervent belief that their restitution marked a necessary step toward global redemption have been threaded through countless historical moments--from the formation of the first "world" empires to the age of discovery, and from the spread of European imperialism to the rise of modern-day evangelical apocalypticism. Drawing on a wealth of sources and presenting a vast array of historical players--explorers, politicians, scientists, geographers, and theologians--the author traces the myth from its biblical formation up through the present day. We see how the lost tribes, long thought to lurk at the world's "edges," became a means for expanding those edges: as new oceans, islands, or continents were discovered, the ten tribes were used as an interpretive device that made the unknown seem known and the new, old. Thus, virtually every spot on earth, whether Argentina or Zululand, the American Southwest or Southeast Asia, has at some point been claimed as the true home of the missing peoples.
More than a historical survey of an enduring myth, The Ten Lost Tribes offers a unique prism through which to view the many facets of encounters between cultures, the processes of colonization, and the growth of geographical knowledge.
Summary: A Fascinating Work of Accessible Erudition
Rating: 5
Brewer's indispensable "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" begins its article on the Lost Tribes in the following way: "The term used for that portion of the Hebrew race that disappeared from North Palestine about 140 years before the dispersion of the Jews. This disappearance has caused much speculation, especially among those who look forward to a restoration of the Hebrews as foretold in the Old Testament." There is hardly a nation or people on the earth which has not at some time or another been identified, by themselves or by others, as the descendants of the Lost Tribes. Englishmen, Abyssinian nomads, North American Indians, and Utah Mormons are but a few of the candidates.
Though sober-sided theologians have often investigated the topic, it is not inherently without an amusing potential:
How odd of God to choose the Jews!
How odder still to lose them!
Ben-Dor is particularly brilliant in drawing out a double valence in the story of the Missing Tribes. On the one hand there is the sense of loss and desolation, often poignantly related to the terrible record of the persecution of the European Jews throughout history. On the other there is the sense of hope, promise, or expectation attendant upon the prophetic theories of eventual restoration and renewal.
It is the nearly universal implication of the myth of a large, lost population that has truly made the topic itself part of the recurrent repertory of World History. What is perhaps most remarkable about Zvi Ben-Dor's treatment is its combination of erudition and accessibility. Only a learned scholar could have written this book. Command of the primary sources for the subject demands expertise in the ancient Semitic tongues and the principal scholarly languages of modern Europe. The relevant scholarly bibliography is vast and often eccentric, to use a mild world, requiring both courage and judgment on the part of anyone bold enough to approach it. Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, a Professor of World History at New York University, is one of what must surely be a relatively small band capable of undertaking the task. That would be impressive in itself. But what is even more remarkable is that such a man would have also the ability to make his results accessible to the intelligent general reader, and to point to their implications for such a wide variety of disciplines. The scholar will find here all the bibliography and footnotes needed to pursue the topic at the highest level. The general reader, on the other hand, will find a graceful and elegant introduction to a fascinating topic and to some of the very strange people who have pursued it in the past. I recommend the book with enthusiasm.
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