So, I was hit with this earlier over on Gab, under my post linking to my YouTube message from Zechariah about God and His unshakable plans for the Jews. Stuff like this is not uncommon, not just there, but in other crackpot circles around the world.

Since it is growing so very vocal, despite being long discredited, though, I think it would be worth our time to deal with it here.

Let’s deal with the historical aspect first and then with the Scriptural aspect.

Lying Heart begins by claiming that “Modern day Jews are not Semites, not ancient Israelites, and that 97% of the Jews in the world today are not descendants of Abraham.” As “proof,” he cites a 2012-2013 paper by Eran Elhaik. What the poster does not say is that Elhaik’s study was thoroughly rejected in a response by 30 leading geneticists (Behar et al.) who found precisely zero evidence of significant Khazar ancestry. Further, multiple large-scale studies (autosomal DNA, Y-chromosome, mtDNA) consistently show Jewish populations are… Jewish, Middle Eastern Levant. And even the 97% figure does not match Elhaik’s debunked garbage; that is a bonus flaw thrown in by others.

As for Dan Graur’s support, this is highly selective quoting that, even if it were accurate, would not mean a single thing in the face of the evidence to the contrary.

From there, Lying Heart goes on to claim that Ariella Oppenheimer’s studies show shared ancestry with Palestinians and Kurds. The only problem is, those studies actually showed the opposite. Oppenheimer’s work supported the Jews having Levantine ancestry, as do the Palestinians and Kurds, but these were pointed out to be consistent with mere shared ancestry in the region, but not with any replacement, and certainly not with any tie-in to the Khazars.

In the Abraham Harkavy 1867 study on Yiddish and the Khazars, he is yet another outlier being hailed as an expert. Mainstream linguistics overwhelmingly shows that Yiddish is a Germanic language with Hebrew, Aramaic, and Slavic influences, and there is absolutely no credible linguistic support for the Khazar origin of Yiddish.

As for the 1905 Jewish encyclopedia claiming that 95% of the Jews are Ashkenazim, this has nothing to do with genetics. That very same document traces Jewish history to ancient Israel.

In conclusion on the history side, overwhelming DNA evidence shows all Jewish groups forming a genetic cluster with ancient Levantine roots and no significant Khazar descent. Recent ancient DNA from medieval Jewish cemeteries reinforces that Jews are indeed Jews as they always have been.

Now let’s look at the Biblical side of this. Lying Heart claims that modern-day Jews are not Semites and not ancient Israelites but are instead “Edomites, liars, and name-usurping snakes of the synagogue of Satan.” Clearly, you can see how unbiased and rational Lying Heart is by his choice of words… (sarcasm).

What about it? Are ancient Israelites Edomites? Well, if they were, Lying Heart is having quite the argument with himself, even though he is too brainwashed to realize it; Edomites, just like Jews, were Semites, the very people that he just got done claiming the Jews were not.

I would dearly love to watch the debate between Lying Heart and Lying Heart on that one.

To Lying Heart and others like him, Semite exclusively means Jewish. But Semite comes from the name Shem, one of the three sons of Noah, and includes more than just the Jews. The reason antisemitism is rightly equated with the Jews, though, is because it always and only ever targets them, not others.

As for the Jews actually being Edomites, Lying Heart has a huge problem here, namely that Scripture (and history) make that impossible:

Obadiah 1:18 And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the LORD hath spoken it.

God promised the utter and complete extermination of the entire house of Esau, and this has already come to be. After their return from captivity, the Jews came against Edom, reduced them to slavery, and forced them to be circumcised and proselyte to Judaism. There may well be people lightly genetically descended from Esau still alive somewhere on Earth, but there are no more Edomites; they were destroyed through reduction and assimilation. The idea that they somehow survived and replaced the Jews is utterly Unbiblical and unhistorical.

Lying Heart then refers to them as liars. The answer to that is, yes, they and everyone else are indeed liars (Romans 3:4), including Lying Heart. But that proves absolutely nothing, and certainly nothing that he believes about them.

Then comes the “Usurping Snakes of the Synagogue of Satan.” Mind you, he has zero proof of any of that. He does think that he has Scripture on his side there, since Revelation 2:9 and 3:9 actually speak of people who in the first century were claiming to be Jews and were not, people that God himself referred to as being of the synagogue of Satan. But here is what he fails to mention: the person to whom God gave this message, John the Beloved, was 100% a Jew. The fact that others lie about that kind of thing means nothing in regard to real Jews. Further, that same Jew went on, under the inspiration of God, to write extensively about the Jews throughout the rest of that book, including these words:

Revelation 21:12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:
It is kind of funny that in Lying Heart’s view the Jews ceased to exist eons ago, and yet it is their names, the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, that will adorn the gates of the capital city of heaven itself.

I could go on at great length on the scriptural side of this. If we are to believe that the Jews have ceased to exist, then most of the pages of Scripture itself need to be ripped out and thrown away. The Major and Minor Prophets deal heavily with the Jews, not just of their day but of the latter days, days after our own. The Old and the New Testaments both speak clearly of the Millennial reign of Christ, a one-thousand-year period on earth when the Jews will have all of the land the Old Testament promised to them, and Christ, their King and ours, will rule and reign in Jerusalem from the throne of his father David, a Jew.

Paul put it this way:

Romans 11:26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: 27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

That day is coming, whether people such as Lying Heart like it or not.

Pastor Wagner can be reached by email at 2knowhimAcbc-web.org, and his books are available by clicking the Store link above.