Ok, I probably won’t get too many comments on this, but it is an interesting topic for me. For some quick background, I previously posted on this topic. I recently purchased a copy of “Quest for the Lost Tribes” by Simcha Jacobovichi. In this documentary, he tries to make a case where he identifies most of the lost tribes, and their possible locations throughout the world. He comes up with some startling conclusions.
What is interesting to me about these lost tribes is the connection to the Book of Mormon. The BOM claims that the Nephites were descendants to the Tribe of Manasseh. So I was interested to see what insights the movie might have on this tribe in particular.
First of all, we often refer to the 12 tribes of Israel, but there’s some discrepancy in numbering them. Jacob (Israel) had 12 sons: Dan, Naphtali, Issachar, Zebulon, Gad, Reuben, Levi, Joseph, Benjamin, Judah, Asher, Simeon. Due to idolatry, sometimes Dan is excluded from this list, and Levi did not receive land, but rather the priesthood, so this tribe is sometimes excluded from the list of the lost tribes. Joseph, as favorite son, gets both of his sons, Ephraim, and Manasseh included.
So, the Jews today are descendants of Judah. Joseph Smith claims that the American Indians are descendants of Manasseh (Joseph), so that explains how two of the tribes are not lost any more. The other 10 (or 12 tribes, depending on how you count them) were scattered by an invasion of the Assyrians in 700 BC. There is little archaeological evidence of these 10 tribes after 500 BC, so little is known about them. But there are prophecies in the Old Testament (Isaiah, Ezekiel) that these lost tribes would return to their promised land.
In the documentary, Jacobovici makes a case that he may have found large groups of people representing these lost tribes. A group in Ethiopia claims to be descendants of Dan. In the 1980’s, the chief rabbi became convinced that these Ethiopians were truly of the tribe of Dan. In the Civil War in 1991, the Israeli government airlifted this group, who practiced many Jewish customs, out of the war zone, and repatriated them in Israel, based specifically on their being a lost tribe of Israel.
1.5 million people, claiming to be descendants from the Tribe of Manasseh (Bnei Manashe) live on the India/Burma border. Many rabbis are becoming convinced that these people may be correct, and many are trying to migrate to Israel. Briefly, here are some others :
- Naphtali – China and Iran
- Zebulon – Bombay, India
- Issachar – Uzbekistan
- Tribes of Gad, Ephraim, Reuben,Simeon – can be found among the Pashtun (Pathans) tribes of Afghanistan
- Asher – Tunisia
Obviously, some of these groups have converted to Christianity, and Islam. They represent various races, and don’t look like the typical image of a Jew. Most of these obscure groups have unknown origins. Many of the groups have maintained some of their old Jewish traditions. For example, the Pashtuns seem to have combined their Islam and Jewish beliefs, some still killing a Passover lamb, even though this is not an Islamic custom, and many of these tribes have Israeli sounding names, even though they are Muslim.
There is not much DNA evidence in this film. However, there is another film, which I will detail in a future post, dealing with the Lemba tribe in South Africa. They claim to be one of the lost tribes of Israel, but make no specific tribal claims. They are kosher, wear Jewish clothing, and a DNA test was done on an Episode of Digging for the Truth, which seems to indicate that they have some semitic DNA. Perhaps they descended from the Ethiopian group, perhaps another way.
While I agree that these claims are highly speculative, there are some interesting claims. The Bnei Manashe (of Burma) are part of the National Geographic Genome Project, and in 2010, we will find out if there claims can be backed up by science that they are truly Semitic people.
What do you make of these claims about the lost tribes becoming found? What are the implications for the Book of Mormon?
Mormon Heretic 
Here is my new book on the ten tribes and so forth (shameless plug):
Land of the North: The Return of the Ten Tribes And the End of Days
http://www.amazon.com/Land-North-Return-Tribes-Days/dp/1470179709
It’s the spoken language that has many similarities. The Malays do not roll their tongues when pronouncing ‘R’s. Instead they use their throats to pronounce it with a very coarse sound that sounds like ‘GHR’, strangely very much like the Jews.
Geled is skin in Hebrew. Kulit is skin in Malay. Their ancestors adopted the Arabic alphabet and there is no ‘G’ sound in the Arab language. There is a K sound however. Geled must’ve evolved into Kulit.
Korban means sacrifice or victim in Malay. Same thing in Hebrew.
Tpu-ah is apple in Hebrew. Buah is simply fruit in Malay.
Mat is death in Hebrew. Mati is death in Malay. This is because the Arabic language do not end words with T. They normally put another vowel with the ending T. Mat became Mati.
Google Translate doesn’t play audios for Hebrew words whereas it plays audios for all the words of other languages.
They simply do not want to find the Lost Tribes of Israel.
It looks like you were right, not much comment. Not having read this particular book, I find this information very interesting and most likely truthful. I am sure if one studied history, migrations, and genealogy, this information would not be hard to believe. Bruce McConkie in The Millennial Messiah also states that the biblical prophesy fulfillment of the coming forth of the lost tribes in the last days is occurring with the many baptisms throughout the world into the church. Since he had access to the patriarchal blessings stating lineage, i would suppose he would know.
David,
“Quest for the Lost Tribes” is a DVD, not a book. As for Bruce R McConkie, I know Pres McKay took issue with many of his claims in Mormon Doctrine. Obvious McConkie’s claims about blacks were wrong, so I am not sure he is the best expert on patriarchal blessings stating lineage, though I’m sure his information should be considered. Thanks for commenting.
I heard that the professor from Malaysia(UKM) found 27% variant of Mediterranean in Malay DNA… DNA Mediterranean= Euro-Semetic..
Muhammad, do you have a link? I’d LOVE to hear more about this!!!!!
Here is the link of the journal mentioned by Muhammad.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12497642
or this one
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18985093
I hope the links will help…but one thing for sure one variant is very common among shepardic jews too.
and this one too – http://www.jewishgenetics.org/?q=content%2Fg6pd-deficiency
Good luck.
Ibroe, I read the abstracts; are these papers available for download? Does this seem to confirm the hypothesis that Malaysians have some Jewish ancestors?
Are the papers available for download? I’m not sure. 😦
As for Jewish ancestors…one thing we have to note that this part of the world is famous for the spices trades and international interactions are very common even before the colonial era. If you read the extract, the author only stated that mediterranean gene variants contributed by the Arabs. I don’t think that she would dare enough to mention shepardic jews because the research was done at public (government) university.
I’m not sure whether the Malays are included in the genome project because only through DNA research we could conclude anything scientifically. But believe it or not, most IT savvy Malays are aware of the findings and had been debated for months over the internet. Unfortunately most of the related debates and articles are in Malay. If it is proven that we do have Jewish ancestors genetically, it would be very interesting indeed. At the moment, the geneticists are more interested with the Chinese, Indians and some indegenous tribes of SEA and rarely with the Malays.
Therefore, everything is still a mystery.
Hello,
I come from Madagascar .
I meant that in Madagascar there is much talk about the Jewish home. If it is true , we have no written evidence that remains.
I am trying to trace the history to know what happens in Malay. With DNA analysis, we have two origins: Africa and Malaysia. I wonder if among Malaysian, is there any Jewish roots in your DNA? Please give me a link that leads me to a webpage that gives me what scientific result.
We need it to Madagascar to know our true origin . Thank’s
Rakri, I think that Ibroe gave some good links above. I’m not a DNA expert, and I don’t understand genetics very deeply, but I did find a pdf about Malay DNA you may find helpful: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/humu.9103/pdf
However the Malay spoken language is dying in terms of documentation and preservation. It’s only used at home and on the streets among peers.
What you see on the tv is the modern and must-do ‘intellectual’ way of speaking the bahasa. The Rs must be rolled and hurled, causing Malays to end up sounding like Javans. This is the way that is taught by the school teachers. The way school children must speak during their oral exams.
When they go home it’s back to the spoken language.
> More Hebrew treasures:
Melech is king in Hebrew. The ancient Malay empire was named Melaka.
Perach is bud in Hebrew. The rebuilt kingdom was named Perak.
may be for those who can read and understand malay can refer to mistisfilesblogspot..there are a lot of discussion and debate were made regarding malay connection with jews..ancient malay kingdom history…and other issues…
Another proof that Malays have Israelites DNA?
That’s the same Ralph I have discussed here on my blog. I have a feeling that scribd didn’t ask for permission to publish that document which was first published on my blog. See http://www.mormonheretic.org/2009/04/18/my-first-scoop-the-unpublished-malay-theory/
MH > Yes, I read in your blog first. By the way, I am from Pasir Puteh, the town mentioned in Ralph’s book. The thing is the name “Pasir Puteh” was only given in 1911 (consider quite recent). But on the other hand, people from other parts of Malaysia called Kelantanese as the Malay Jews.
@peachabow
The paper concluded that the G6PD deficiencies varient to have come from Arabs insteado of Shephadic Jews since it is not politically correct in Malaysia to admit that Malays have possible DNA ancestors. But statistically, if Malays were found to have 27% chance of having G6PD deficiency, and Shephadic jews to have probability of 60-70% and Arabs only 11% therefore, it is more probable for Malays to have it from Shephadic jews instead of Arabs.
One of the interesting facts about Malays is the definition of “Malay” itself. Practically, anybody can be a Malay as long as he/she can meet the criteria below:
“Malay” means a person who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language, conforms to Malay custom and –
(a) was before Merdeka Day born in the Federation or in Singapore or born of parents one of whom was born in the Federation or in Singapore, or is on that day domiciled in the Federation or in Singapore; or
(b) is the issue of such a person;
Is it not similar to jewish where you can convert into judaism and become a jew?
Another fact is that the Malays were known as Bani Jawi. Levi (son of Jacob) is known as “Lewi” in sanskrit. So over time Bene Levi => Bani Lewi => Bani Jawi?
The whole issue of the lost tribe has been in my interest recently. As I dig for the truth more revelations show. Some were hard to believe without evidence, while some present with little evidence. From my finding I can conclude as these:
1. Bani Jawi, Malay, Jawa(Java); these term are interchangable specific to refer the people who dwell much of the islands of southeast asia. Originally these people were known as Bani jawi, then Jawa and now as the region is splitted into 2 governments, they are known as malays and indons. Nevertheless, they are the same group.
2. Revelation from Gnome project research in Singapore shows that the malay roots is the ancestor for oriental races in China, mongolia and even korea and japan. This scientific evidence is overwelming because on history record of major school book teaches us that malay are the result of migration from India and china. While migration from India remains unchallenged, origin from china is now otherwise.
3. About bani jawi, there were some claims that these people share genetic origin of their cousins, Jews and arab. How? Well, it was said that Abraham, after the death of Sarah married a princess from east, Qanturah. From her, give birth the deutro malay which later interbred with their fellow proto-malay. At her time, i would say that there were semitic family within the older malay race. Now, they have blend in with the rest of the group. Later on there were claims that a tribe from Mannaseh family arrived and interbred with local. So in term of jewish origin, perhaps a minority of these malay contain genetic origin of mannaseh, but the rest of us may have genetic origin of abraham. That is why about 25-34 % percent of any malay men hold semitic gen. And before the arrival of Islam, majority of the people of southeast asia practice abraham teachings albeit different names and terms. So when Islam arrived at Melaka, there is no known resistance to the religious. The whole region embrace islam at ease. Why? unless they are familiar with islamic teachings, but how? because islamic teachings is not so different from abraham teachings. In fact prophet muhammad is also a descendant of Abraham, so the people here welcome the teachings as they perceived Muhammad as their distance cousin.
There are a number of new revelations that I find it hard to accept and yet their evidence is still inconclusive. These are:
1. Atlantis is actually located Malaysia-indonesia-philipine regions.
2. The big flood during Noah responsible in the disappearance of atlantis.
3. There are claims that Candi Borobudor is built by the army of King Solomon. There were even some confidence that Solomon descendent are still in Indonesia based on similarity of the names. Solomon is local known as Sulaiman, and some people are named with the same beginning like Suharto (president), Susilo etc.
I also understand that at the end of time, the lost tribe will return to the promised land and if penisular malaysia is the promised land and malay race has semitic origin yet most of them unaware (criterion of the lost tribe, they are not even realised their origin), then the lost tribe is already in the promised land.
I’m still looking for more solid ground about my racial origin. Personally, I don’t feel jewish. I’m still sceptical about malay being the lost tribe of Jew, but I can accept the theory of malay origin from abraham.
its very interesting topic about malays here,especially to know that some words in jews is similar with malays words..still, genetics is a very complex
@buzz
i was watching ‘the zohan’ when i discovered these 2 words, abah (abba/father) & emak (emma/mother).
Hi guys, I am following your discussion and find that my work must have suited what you’re looking for. Go here: http://www.surau.net/hebrew
Love, Peace & Brotherhood
Ali Cestar
I am a Kelantanese Malay who live in Kelantan. My brother had visited Thailand before and many Israelis in Phuket etc thought that my brother was an Israeli @ Jew so they always asked whether he was an Israeli @ Jew. The fact is my brothers and sisters and my family look different from Malays of other states. The discussion above may help us to find our ancestors. I hope genetic researchers would carry out genetic researches to determine the ancestors of kelantanese Malays.
I’m not sure about using G6PD Mediterranean variant among G6PD-deficiency patients is a correct way to hypothese malays having jewish ancestry since I’ve tested for both G6PD and Thalassemia and found that I carry no blood genetic disease.
Since I majored in biochemistry and also genetics, I actually understand whats going on that sparks the debate. 3 of the most common allele G6PD variant Viangchan, Mediterranean and Mahidol. This explains that majority of the G6PD-deficient gene drifted from Indochina. I think the most baffling idea that the Mediterranean variant are significant since 31.3% of G6PD-deficient individuals in Central Java have G6PD Mediterranean variant. Since my dad’s was from a central javanese ancestry. which Solo was admittedly Indonesian major muslim empire, hence explains the genetic drifts from travelling muslim pilgrimage since the early golden age of islam where spice routes are commonly use by most of the population the world. But these findings only support than 1/3 of the malay population with G6PD deficiency in their family have Mediterranean variants, however its not conclusive that it came from the existing ancient Judaic race as the study size didn’t really permit this kind of hypotheses.
One thing for sure, we need a more specific marker in genetic drifting among the ancient jewish population themselves to identify the ancestry of the Malay people.
I don’t entirely agree with the idea of I’m probably tiny bit jewish, but its safe to say that everything might be possible if each of us are open for genealogy studies without own family.
But we can all certain that, all race are created equal as we’re the God’s creation. So all these racial problems arguments in our country (offline/online) need to stop and everyone need to work with each other. Right?
interesting topic i must say btw i speak malay, though m not a malay,m a pashtun, and its been weeks since i’ve been searching for more information about pashtuns being from the ten lost tribes of israel..till i came across this one…shocked as i was the first time.but really interesting..as for the pashtuns, there r researches being held to know if the pashtuns r really one of the lost tribes. does anyone make research on the malay DNA to make everything clear? hope someone does coz m really eager to know about it! again as one of the commentator said “time will tell”:) so we should just wait and see:)
Also i heard some of my people(bugis), they always claim themselves come from King of Solomon dan Balqis(Sheba).
Ed, long time no see. Perhaps I’ll have to do a review of your book. Are you going to put it in Kindle format? Do you have any conclusions in common with Jacobovici?
I checked out the Amazon link. When you reference 666, does that refer to Nero, or something else?
Well, my thesis is a bit different than Jacobovici, but it shares the common theme that they are dispersed in Asia. The primary difference mainly is that I have identified what I believe is the Land of the North. I would be happy to send you a copy if you would like to email me where to send it (to the email I have posted with this message), and if you would be so kind as to leave a review on Amazon. Yes, I do mention that 666 refers to Nero.
Oh, and also if you want it in pdf format, I can email that to you too for review. I haven’t decided if it will be in kindle format yet or not. I have to figure out how to do that.
The Kindle format is pretty easy. Basically, you just save your Word doc as an html file, and then upload. You’ll want to make sure the graphics files are as small as possible, so it takes up as little space as possible, but that’s pretty easy. There is a free program called mobipocket creator that works out pretty nice to help you convert to Kindle (as well as Mobi) format. It’s pretty easy to use.
Go ahead and send me a copy to mormon heretic at gmail dot com, and I can do a review (here as well as amazon.)
bilo pulok ore panggil ore klate yahudi nih. ngarut molep demo nih. nok jadi yahudi ko?
The Malays are Muslims. Their religion is Islam and not Judaism. Therefore they aren’t Jews. Also, this isn’t a religious discussion but only a genetic one.
the Philippines people are surely the descendants levites, we found already thousand of vocabulary same to the ancient hebrew, the TORAH are on our lips. the most common word used is “LIWAATA” in english=you are a levite. we used it when we refer someone looks alike to his parents., or when a baby are born, we say: LIWATA nimo sa papa nimo= you look like you father a Levite. but we were not aware of this for for thousand years until we studied TORAH and tanak of HEBREW.
I found 2 Malay words being similar to Tagalog words in a tourist helpbook:
Ampat (Tagalog) = Empat (Malay) = Four (English)
Biru (Tagalog) = Biru (Malay) = Blue (English)
@Peachabow
It is all under the language family in the south east Asia.
it’s under Austronesian languages. Including Malay Language, Indonesia Language Tagalog Language and the surrounding area, My only supported theory about Lost Tribe is over Migration. The common writing about Malay genetic are migration from Yunnan, China. THE POSSIBILITY IS One of the Tribe leader arrived at southern China and move towards south and settled in Malay Peninsula. but that’s the only “ways” and “common” by migrate by foot and land.
Another Possibility are through Sea.
1. There’s a lot of Merchant from the western world (Europe, Levant, Arab) arrive at Malacca doing business and trade on Malacca Sultanate era aroudn 15st Century (after Malacca empire established).
2. It could be one of the tribe member did arrived on sea and settled in the hilly and mountain area as Strait of Malacca are one of the narrowest strait in the world.
the Malay originally means people of the mountain. refer to the mountain geography called Titiwangsa Mountain Range.
The only theory I support on Lost Tribe is Few of these scholar, philosopher and historic writer didn’t have much information on Malay over the isolation from the world (Okay not that isolate but Portuguese did a long way to reach Malay Peninsula before the Malacca Empire).
Regarding “corner of the earth” that Most of the European didn’t know much about the Malay Peninsula until Malacca Empire emerge as one of the important trading and port for the merchant who living on the east including China, Korea, and Japan Empire.
So the Theory of the Lost tribe make much sense over geographic location and the “ancient people” that discovered since the early 16th century.
Demo tidak bersaing dengan ramai orang luar bakali, sebab tu demo tak tahu. @istana_mahligai_melor
Malays are known as ‘Bani Jawi’. Levi in Sanskrit is known as ‘Lewi’ Bani Jawi came from ‘Bani Lewi’ or ‘Bene Levi’. ‘Yahweh’ or in Sanskrit is known as ‘Djovis’ (which sounded like ‘jawi’). It is possible that the Malays were came from Bene Levi who worshiped The One God Yahweh before the coming of Prophet Muhammad?
To answer the question that Malays were Hindus before Islam (to me Hinduism is actually originated from Judaism), it is well known that in various Hindu scriptures which mentioned there is only one God and no second. So even if you want to look at from religion point of view, there are arguments to support the hypothesis that Malays are originated from Bani Israel. @Peachabow
Levites or we call it Bene Levi = Bani Lewi = Bani Jawi = Malays.
Please refer to the DNA migration Map. From the map you will realize that the DNA migration to Malay Peninsula was not from Yunan to the Peninsula but instead from Burma to Peninsula and then went up to Indochina.
tsiko (tagalog) = ciku (Malay) = sapodilla fruit (English)
@matkamil
stuju dgn matkamil…ni melibatkan kajian genetik..kna faham “ciri ciri” yg persamaan yg ada dlm masyarakat klantan & the lost tribe of israil.
a href=”#comment-6685″ rel=”nofollow”>@Muhammad Hazwan
maybe indian or semitic descent who have been living in malay for hundreds of years ago, but the malay origin is absolutely of haplogroup o2, like indonesia. Malays still malays, can’t be mediteranian. Do you get it folks?
I am not an expert in the DNA-testing part of the discussion and also the test was only done on Kelantanese male infants.
However, just one look at some pure Kelantanese, who are not mixed with Malays from distant states and especially not mixed with either Malaysian Chinese or Malaysian Indians, will surely tell you that they are in fact quite Middle-Eastern looking and are fair. On the other hand, a Chinese is just a Chinese just by sight, no matter where he or she resides on this planet. With Indians, things can be a bit tricky.
If anybody can come up with more linguistic similarities between the Malay language and Hebrew, please add more to this topic.
You need to be careful about looks. This African tribe doesn’t look Jewish at all, but they have Jewish DNA. See http://www.mormonheretic.org/2009/05/31/similarities-between-the-lemba-and-lehi/
Indeed it’s true.
What’s mind-boggling now for me is that Google Translate has somewhat conveniently muted the pronunciations for both Hebrew and the Malay language. I’m not saying though it’s because of the possible connections between the two, but this has rendered me ‘tool-less’ in my research.
Audio is still on for Indonesian though but that’s probably because their language is closer to Javanese. They only have to incorporate some Malay words into the language for the sake of the Sumatrans.
still intriguing me that the malays, as new writings cropped up recently, are geneogically from the blood of Kethurah, the 3rd wife of Abraham a.s.
Just wonder who were the people in Noah’s a.s ship. Should there be some, the least, factual evidence on the saved people, then the issue of main races can put to ease once and for all.
just hate to learn that anthropologically there are only 4 major races and the malays are grouped with the sub ethnic of mongoloid i.e malayo-polynesia. Sub ethnic? with more than 400 million population? Snouk Hungronje could define better.
The UKM study was on G6PD deficiencies. The study was trying to be politically correct by making conclusion that the Malays got the it from the Arabs. If we look at the statistics on the G6PD deficiencies occurrence, the Arabs is about 11-13%, the Shepardic Jews is about 60%, whereas the Malays is about 27% of mediteranian variant. Statistically it is not realistic to conclude that the Malays inherit from the Arabs.
@peachabow
interesting when you mentioned about ‘R’ pronunciation. Only one group of Malay that do not use proper ‘R’ in their dialect. The kelantanese in the east coast of peninsular malaysia. I read in the newspaper recently mentioned The kelantanese is probably the oldest malay group based on DNA research.
The notion that pockets of Israelite descendants would pop up in various remote places of the world is not implausible nor is it in particular conflict with latter-day scripture. However, the Book of Mormon (3 Nephi chapters 15 and 16) and D&C 133 make a bit of a case for the belief that the 10 tribes are together somewhere and that they know who they are.
Here is a link to a curious collection of comments on the subject…
http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17777
@kerre
What are you talking about? The Perlis, Penang, Kedah, Perak, Negri Sembilan, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan dialects all DO NOT roll out the ‘R’s. They sound them out coursely like ‘ghr’. Only Javans, or rather, their Malaysian decendants do it.
Selangor is the melting pot so it’s not worth mentioning because everybody is there. I don’t understand the Sabahan, Sarawakian or the Bruneian dialects so I can’t comment on those.