British Israelism

Definition and Meaning

British Israelism is the claim that the British and other Anglo-Saxon peoples, and more broadly the white English-speaking peoples, are the lineal descendants of the ten tribes of the ancient northern kingdom of Israel. Its proponents hold that the promises made to Israel in Scripture are being fulfilled today in these peoples. The claim is not the official doctrine of any particular denomination but a popular ideological movement that spread chiefly in nineteenth-century Britain.

Biblical and Historical Background

Biblical background. The northern kingdom of Israel fell to Assyria in the eighth century BC, and its people were carried off to various regions (2 Kings 17; see Fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel). Because Scripture does not record where these tribes went afterward, the expression "lost ten tribes" arose. British Israelites interpret Jacob's blessing that Ephraim's seed "shall become a multitude of nations" (Genesis 48:19) as fulfilled in the British Empire and the United States. They also claim that the promise of an everlasting throne of David (the Davidic covenant) has continued through the bloodline of the British royal family. Some cite a legend that Jeremiah brought a daughter of Zedekiah to Ireland.

Historical development. Figures such as Richard Brothers are known to have spread similar ideas in the late eighteenth century. The movement took shape through the writings of John Wilson in 1840 and the later work of Edward Hine, and the British-Israel-World Federation was founded in London in 1919. In twentieth-century America, the organization founded by Herbert W. Armstrong adopted the idea, but after his death in 1986 the organization formally abandoned it in the 1990s. Christian Identity, a white supremacist movement in the United States, is regarded as a racist adaptation of this ideology.

Criticism. Mainstream scholarship holds that there is no linguistic, genetic, or historical evidence supporting the claim. Scholars also point out that etymologies such as the assertion that "British" means "man of the covenant" in Hebrew are folk etymologies with no scholarly basis. Theologically, the claim is criticized on the grounds that the New Testament teaches that people become God's people through faith rather than lineage (Galatians 3:26–29).

British Israelism in Korean Churches

British Israelism is almost unknown in Korean Protestant churches. It is mentioned there mainly in discussions of the "lost ten tribes" or of ideas on the fringes of Western Christianity. No major Korean denomination is known to have specifically addressed the claim or adopted a resolution on it.

The position of the claim becomes clear when it is compared with the principal views of the relationship between Israel and the church held in Korean churches.

• The Presbyterian and Reformed traditions, which follow covenant theology, understand the church as the new Israel and therefore do not identify any particular ethnic group as Israel.
• Churches influenced by dispensationalism place distinct emphasis on the future of ethnic Israel, but they identify that Israel with the Jewish people of today.

Neither view identifies the British or the Anglo-Saxon peoples with Israel.