Rome was an Empire long before it stopped being a Republic

The Political upheavals of the “Late Roman Republic” that eventually lead to the Principate are at the absolute earliest usually said to begin with the Tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC.  Any full study of his political program and the issues/circumstances that made it necessary fully demonstrate how Rome was already an Empire.

The word Empire does not refer to a form of Government but to one Nation or State wielding power over other nations or states, most stereotypically via military force but there are other ways.  Only when talking about Rome and people named Napoleon is that fact forgotten and the word Empire gets mistaken as meaning “ruled by an Emperor''.

Polybius was a Greek Historian who died before Caesar was born or Marius was ever Consul.  He wrote a book called The Histories that is sometimes renamed for modern editions something like “History of the Rise of the Roman Empire”.  It covers 264-146 BC, but the bulk of the focus is on 220-167 BC and Polybius’s argument that in only 53 years Rome went from just being Italy to a Superpower.

The Wikipedia page for 220 BC has a map of the Mediterranean world in that year and Rome is basically modern Italy minus Piedmont and Syracuse but plus Corsica.  However the next year the Second Punic War would start, then would come their first war with Macedon.  

167 BC is the year their last war with Macedon ended thus ending Macedon’s independence, and then Lucius Amelius Paulus went and conquered Epirus just casually on the way back home.  

146 BC is itself a notable year because that’s when Rome finally finished off both Carthage and the Achaean League.  Rome became complete master of both the Western Mediterranean and Greece. It was that year Lucius Mummius destroyed Corinth leaving the city only minimally inhabited for over a Century till Julius Caesar re-founded it shortly before his Assassination in 44 BC.

Rome was also already interfering in the affairs of those they didn’t directly control and spreading their influence.  The Roma Cult in Smyrna was founded in 195 BC long before Rome annexed any of Asia.  The Cleopatras BBC miniseries from the 80s starts it's narrative in 145 BC and one background plotline is the growing interference of Rome.

And in 133 BC the King of Pergamon died leaving his kingdom to Rome in his will, that is what gave Gracchus his opportunity and it’s how the cities housing the Seven Churches of Revelation became part of the Roman Empire.

I’m not posting this on my main Politics Blog because no Breadtuber is going to disagree with me that Rome was already doing Imperialism, the YouTube Channel Tribunate has videos getting into the Materialist Analysis of how the Republic's Imperialism helped lead to the Civil Wars and the Principate.

Its relevance to Bible Prophecy is my annoyance at those who seek to remove Rome from the Prophecies of Daniel.  I am a believer so I don’t view The Book of Daniel as Prophecy written after the fact and I’ve already argued Daniel 7’s climax happens in the 6th Century AD.  But even if I were an Atheist who wanted to believe in an early Hasmonean era context for all of the book of Daniel, Rome as the next Empire was already apparent.  Even in the part of Daniel 11 few disagree on, verses 1-35, the emergence of Rome is felt.  Verse 19 is usually seen as alluding to the Roman-Seleucid War of 192-188 BC.  Verse 30 is about when Gaius Popillius Laenas on Cyprus stopped Antiochus Epiphanes from conquering Egypt in 168 BC.  

Antiochus Epiphanes himself had been a hostage in Rome before he was King, in fact early on he was viewed as very Romanized.  In 173 BC he sent money to Rome to secure their support and affirm the treaty of Apamea, helped by him having the support of Rome’s ally Eumenes II. Rome was also holding as hostage Demetrius the firstborn son of Antiochus’s older brother.  So there are many reasons Antiochus couldn't defy Laenas in 168 BC.

I firmly believe Daniel 11:36-45 is about a Roman ruler, but my mind vibrates back and forth between a few different theories.  My oldest Roman theory is Augustus which I originally wrote for a different blog but reposted here.  I very recently posted a Pompey theory but with acknowledgment of some of its weaknesses.  And now I’m even considering Mark Antony which I will make a separate post about if I’m able to perfect that hypothesis.

Pompey The Great and Daniel 11:36-45

Previously I have argued for this part of Daniel being about Augustus, and I’m not abandoning that theory, but as I've been learning more about Pompey’s history I’m starting to find an argument for him being the focus of this passage compelling.  I currently have no idea if anyone before me has ever attempted to argue this.

First I should address the fact that many do not believe Pompey to have been a King.  It’s pretty uncontroversial to acknowledge that the rulers of the later Roman Principate were considered Kings by people in the East regardless of their official denial of that status.  Well I’d argue that to the people in The East conquered by Pompey denying he was a King was just as absurd.  The Roman Triumph very much revolved around treating the Triumphator as ceremonially King for the Day.  Pompey had already had two Triumphs before his career brought him to Judea.  

Similar to that is the matter of how Pompey is not considered to be someone who deified himself.  But again from The Hebrew Bible POV I’d argue everything about the Triumph was a self deification, calling yourself “The Great” was a deification, and making Statues of a person is a deification. 

Speaking of which, Pompey began being called Magnus/The Great by his soldiers as early as 80 BC.  And they did so specifically to compare him to Alexander The Great, which is interesting because when Daniel 11:36 says “do according to his will” it is repeating the language of verse:3 a passage all scholars agree is about Alexander The Great.  And then verse 36 goes on to say in the same sentence “and he shall exalt himself, and magnify”, the English Word “magnify” coming from the same linguistic root as Magnus.

Verses 37-39 are the most difficult to justify applying to either Pompey or Augustus, there are ways to interpret these passages that aren’t a very face value reading.

The rest could be all about Pompey’s actions in the Near East during the later phase of the Third Mithridatic War leading up to his famous capturing of Jerusalem except the very last statement jumping forward to his end.  The only issue is the exact chronology.

The “Tents” detail fits very vividly with how Josephus describes the Roman Military Encampment setting itself up on The Temple Mount.  Pompey never military invades Egypt but they were involved in all this and we want to basically extort all most of Egypt’s Wealth from Ptolemy XII.   And he did redraw the borders of the region” dividing the land for gain”.

“He shall meet his end and none shall help him” is an admittedly vague description that could be made to fit a lot of things.  But the Vibe I feel fits Pompey’s final fate being killed by people he thought were allies in Egypt more than it does Antiochus Epiphanes or any Julio-Claudian Emperor.

Sulla and 666

My last post on the 666 issue should be read before this one, the main point of that, the argument against it referring to Nero stands, and my final theory about Iapetos is still my main theory, but I felt the need to share this observation.

Ancient Pagan Rome had primarily two ways of identifying a year, identifying it by the names of the Consuls of that year was the more standard method, so it seems like the Ab urbe condida (In the year since the city’s founding) date was mainly used to answer the question of when someone was Consul.  In other words it’s a non Gematria/Isopsephy way of associating names with numbers.

The year 666 Ab urbe condita was The Year of the Consulship of Sulla and Rufus and is the year known on our calendar as 88 BC.  Sulla is listed first for formal reasons independent of his being the more well known of these two persons to us Roman history buffs centuries later.  And yet a big part of why Sulla is one of the most infamous Romans of his generation is because of something he did during this year, he was the first Roman General to march his armies into the city, 39 years before Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon.  

This was also the first Consulship not only of this Sulla but of anyone with that name. That point is key, this is obviously not an argument for The Beast being this person who died still in the BC era, but for associating it with his name.  Or perhaps more politically with his actions???  

Sulla was a reactionary not just in the context of his time but by any time, he marched on Rome interfering in the Social War taking a fundamentally xenophobic stance against the expansion of Roman citizenship.  Expansion of Citizenship to those not by blood descendants of a nations’ founding tribe is a key theme of The New Testament, principally about Citizenship in The Kingdom of Israel being expanded to include Gentiles.  However the comparison to this ongoing Roman issue is arguably there in the subtext, Paul evokes his Roman Citizenship, The Philippians had Lus Italicum. None of that could have happened if Sulla got his way in the long term.  In fact Pontius Pilate himself may very well descend from a Samnite tribal leader of The Social War named Pontius Telesinus.

Many of the Italian Tribes seeking enfranchisement during the Social War were based in Southern Italy, somehow them being looked down on by northerners is a problem still to this day after getting tied into Scientific Racism in the 19th Century.  [Sicily it should be noted wasn't even part of the Social War, the Sicilians gained Roman Citizenship with the help of Fulvia decades later.]

Something else Sulla sought to gain from these actions was an appointment as a leading General in the First Mithridatic War.  From which position he burned Athens to the ground in 86 BC.  This is one of many reasons why what New Atheists blame on Rome's Fall should really be blamed on Rome's Rise.  I'm skeptical of the common origin story you hear for the Altar of the Unknown God in Acts 17, maybe it's really there because the Athenians felt there were ancient gods who they may have been forgotten after Sulla's massacre and destruction.

Romans with the same name are documented to have still existed into the early 3rd Century.  Sulla had a son named Faustus Cornelius Sulla who served under Pompey who was the first over the wall of Jerusalem in 63 BC and married Pompey’s daughter Pompeia Magna.  His last confirmed direct descendent was a Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix who spent his later life in exile in Southern France, he was also a descendent of Antonia Major.

Ephesus and the Novatians

In Revelation 2-3 there are two Churches with nothing bad said about them and two with nothing good said about them.  Of the three that have mixed reviews a casual assumption is often that Pergamon and Thyatira are little better then the two with nothing good said while Ephesus leans towards being more positive.

I feel that’s an oversimplification, I don’t necessary want to argue for looking at it the exact opposite, but what I find notable is that with Pergamon and Thyatira it’s really only some of them who have the problem, the Church as a whole is judged a bit for not dealing with them but it’s mainly just these sub groups who have the bad doctrine and so the prophecy of judgment is also on just them.  With Ephesus however it is the community as a whole who has “left thy first love” and thus the community as a whole who will have their Candlestick removed if they don’t repent.

What is the sin of Ephesus then? The clues the immediate context itself gives us are unclear, “left thy first love” and not doing what they did in the beginning can be interpreted as referring to a lot of things.

The only other verse of the KJV that uses the words “first love” in sequence like that is 1 John 14:19 which uses them grammatically differently and so I don’t think can solidly be assumed to be talking about the same thing.  

The virtue of Ephesus is that they care about being doctrinally sound, they may not actually be more doctrinally sound then anyone else, but they strive to be.  That’s why they rejected the Nicolaitans and False Apostles.  Maybe their vice is something that often has a risk of going with their virtue.  Maybe in their zeal to reject those heretics they’ve accidentally rejected some they were meant to welcome?

In the message to Pergamon there apparently is good reason in the Greek for interpreting the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans and the Doctrine of Baalam as different names for the same doctrine.  So that would mean Ephesus is in part being praised for their not engaging in Idolatry or even compromising on the subject.

Of the things the Early Church was doing in the beginning, the two that were most explicitly their mission statement were spreading The Gospel and whatever Matthew 16:19 is about.  But I don't think “spreading The Gospel” means what most Evangelicals think it means, we were told to Be a Witness.  

In Matthew 16:19 Jesus quotes Isaiah 22:22, the Key that He gives Peter here is the Key of David.  To Catholics this is the source of Papal Authority, to the Orthodox and High Church Protestants this goes to all of the Clergy, not just one leader at the top.  But to those of us who take seriously the Priesthood of All Believers this is an authority inherited by All Believers, by all who Confess what Peter confessed in verse 16.

I am a Continuationist on the issue of the Spiritual Gifts, but I do feel many Pentecostals and Charismatics are making a mistake in seeing the Binding and Loosing that this verse talked about as being mainly about Spiritual Warfare, binding or losing Demons.  There is something else Jesus says in The Gospels that echos Matthew 16:19 in a way that I feel clarifies it, and that’s John 20:23 “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.”  It’s about our authority to forgive Sins.

In the mid Third Century after the Decian Persecution had subsided there was a controversy in the Church, principally in Italy and North Africa about the issue of readmitting those who had lapsed during the persecution.  The mainstream Church sided with allowing readmittance after a penance had been done while the Novatians refused to allow any to be readmitted.  Later in the Fourth Century after the Diocletian Persecution and Edict of Milan this issue emerged again but the Donatists were not as extreme as the Novatians for them the focus was simply on allowing a formally Lapsed Christian to be part of the Clergy. 

It amazes me that anyone who read The New Testament considered this issue open for debate.  Peter himself lapsed, three times, and was under less immediate risk of losing his life then anyone who lapsed during the Decian or Diocletian Persecutions. His penance for these denials is recorded in John 21:15-19, Peter is forgiven and his position of leadership is reaffirmed.

Those who today sympathize with the Novatian position will cite passages from Hebrews 6 or others that are the same ones used by those who say Salvation can be lost, but Hebrew 6 is the core passage.  The context of Hebrews 6 is about explaining why some Apostates don’t repent, using it to prove a claimed repentance is insincere misses the point.  There are some people The Holy Spirit will for the time being leave where they are (I don’t believe The Spirit gives up on anyone permanently since I believe in Universal Salvation). 

[Update May 22nd: Also check out this YT video on Hebrews 6.]

1 Corinthians 12:3 proclaims that no one can confess Jesus is Lord except it be by The Holy Spirit.  1 John 14:15 says anyone who confesses that Jesus is The Son of God, God dwells in Him. Later 1st John 5:4-5 says that anyone who believes Jesus is The Son of God overcomes The World because they are Born of God.

Fake Christians can theoretically exist in the most literal sense, someone can simply lie about what they believe, but the concern so many Conservative Christians have about the existence of people who think they are Christians but are not is invalid, The New Testament assures us such people can’t exist.

So the Novatians were wrong, and even the milder position of the Donatists was wrong.  And I think wrong in a way that is at least similar in spirit to how the Church of Ephesus of Revelation was wrong.  

Since I’ve connected them spiritually can I also connect them historically?

The Catholic Encyclopedia says John Chrysostom shut down some Novatian Churches active in Ephesus in his time.  Could it be that it was those Churches who more directly descended from the Christian Community of Ephesus the book of Revelation was addressing?

The Carthaginian origin of the Donatists (as well as there being Novatian sympathizers there and being influenced by Tertullian) makes it interesting that one proposed founder for the Carthaginian Church is Epentus who became a Christian in Ephesus.

Hippolytus of Rome was not a student of Irenaeus, that claim first pops up with Photios of Constantinople in the 9th Century.  Hippolytus taught some similar ideas to Irenaeus especially on Eschatology, but he could have come to them independently or just read Irenaeus. 

Hippolytus was probably not born into a Christian family since his name isn't Biblical but comes from a character in Pagan Greek Mythology.  The Pagan Hippolytus being associated with Artemis I'm willing to consider circumstantial evidence that Hippolytus of Rome may have had family ties to Ephesus, the ancient center of Artemis worship.

I bring this is up because Hippolytus alongside Tertullian are considered the Proto-Novatians.  How to deal with the Lapsi isn't something they directly address, but they held similar Rigorist views often associated with Novatian and Donatist tendencies as well as by the modern Landmarkists who identify with them.  If Novatian was born in 200 as traditionally assumed he could have been a student of Hippolytus in his youth.

The main group of Christians active today who desire to claim the Novatians and Donatists were right are the Landmark Baptists.  I do not believe in any actual historical continuity between Ancient Novatians or Donatists and contemporary Baptists of any kind, but that the Landmarkists desire to identify with them on this issue means they share their Ephesian vice.  So I shall devote the rest of this post to dealing with historical misconceptions about these groups that the Landmarkists perpetuate.

First I should cite someone before me who did similar work.  Tyler Robbins on the Wordpress Blog The Eccentric Fundamentalist.  But I don’t actually agree with him on everything.

https://eccentricfundamentalist.com/2018/03/04/were-the-novatians-early-baptists/

The main thing I disagree with is that I do believe the Novatians were Credo-Baptists.  Socrates records that they did not observe the Sacrament of Confirmation which only makes sense if they were Credo-Baptists. It’s well known that Novatian was heavily influenced by Tertullian who argued against Infant Baptism but for the wrong reasons as it is tied to his own belief in a type of Baptismal Regeneration, the idea that Sins committed after Baptism are what can’t be forgiven.

The Church in Rome may have been practicing Infant Baptism already, but it wasn’t yet the rigid Dogma it would become, it wasn’t till the late 4th Century that a belief in Unbaptized Babies being damned to endless punishment in hell began to be popularized by Catholics like Augustine and Pelegius and Cyril of Alexandria. So Novatian could have disagreed with the practice without really seeing it as something that worth arguing about.

Robbins himself quoted something that contradicts his assertion of Infant Baptism being already Universal, if Novatian himself wasn’t Baptized till  a time he thought he was about to die then he wasn’t Baptized as an infant.  And if he was a convert he wasn’t Baptized as soon as he converted either.  It sounds very in agreement with Tertullian's position.

The Apostolic Traditions are not the solid evidence he thinks it is either, there is increased scholarly skepticism it was even used in Rome and certainly that it was the standard universal form.  The earliest references to Infant Baptism existing are Origen and Tertullian, Origen defends it and Tertullian is against it but both speak of it in a way that only makes sense if it’s a new custom.

The error of Baptismal Regeneration came first and then Infant Baptism came from that, not the other way around.  

But Robbins is very correct in pointing out the ways in which Novatian was certainly not a Congregationalist.  Novatian was quite Authoritarian and Undemocratic.  Of course I often criticize contemporary Baptists for being pretty Episcopal in their own way, but that doesn't seem to be quite the same as Novatian's issue.

However while I oppose Novatianism I’m not as entirely in agreement with Cyprian as Robbins seems to be.  You see Cyprian was actually the centrist in this dispute, while Novatian disagreed with him from the right, others like the confusingly similarly named Novatus disagreed with Cyprian from the left. Based on my understanding of John 20 every Believer has the authority to forgive sins not merely the clergy, and based on John 21 the penance for lapsing is pretty simple actually.  Cyprian believed people insincere in their repentance were obvious and easy to spot, I fear even Cyprian would have rejected people he shouldn’t have.

The Landmarkists love to treat Novatians and Donatists as if they were simply different names for the same group, and the fact that many in the Mainstream Roman Church of the 4th and 5th Centuries who viewed both as heretics lumped them together in their attacks helps them do that.  But the Donatists were huge fans of Cyprian, to them they were the more faithful followers of Cyprian then the mainstream Church.  Augustine of Hippo when criticizing the Donatists confirms they held to the same Church Polity as the mainstream Church. 

The Donatists were condemned for doing Rebaptisms, and that’s another source of confusion.  Because the 16th Century Protestant Anabaptists were doing all their Rebaptisms mainly because of their belief that Infant Baptisms were invalid, these Landmarkist pseudo-historians assume that must always be the reason for Rebaptism.  

Cyprian however was a supporter of Infant Baptism but who did call for Rebaptizing those who had been Baptized by people he considered heretics, like the Novatians, I'm sure the Donatists expanded this to include anyone Baptized by the Mainstream Church.  Augustine of Hippo when arguing with Donatists said Cyprian was wrong on that issue, and the then contemporary Bishop of Rome Stephen the First also disagreed with Cyprian on this issue.

Since who you place your Faith in at Baptism is Jesus not an organization I'm also inclined to agree that Cyprian was wrong on this reason for Rebaptism.  Adult Baptisms of people Baptized as Infants is the only Rebaptism I consider necessary.  But since Water Baptism is only symbolic doing a new one I'm not gonna call bad either.

The problem with claiming any groups to later pop up in Europe descend from the Donatists is that they never left North Africa.

The Montanists are also sometimes viewed as Proto-Novatians and thus also part of the Landmarkist theorizing.  However on their Wikipedia page the source for them opposing forgiving the Lapsi isn't a primary source, and other traits mentioned are the opposite.  Expanding the authority to forgive sins beyond just the Clergy is a trait of those who were to the Left of Cyprian and Rome not Novatian.

A lot of confusion about the Montanists comes from Tertullian's association with them.  Not everything Tertullian taught he got from the Montanists and some of it seems in conflict with what other sources imply about the Montanists.  He was clearly influenced by the Montanists but was awkwardly mixing some of their ideas with others he got from other sources.

Armenia and Lachish

The Armenians are another people group DNA analysis has shown to be closely related to The Jews.

During much of the divided Kingdom Period the city of Lachish was the second largest city in Judah, and in fact the largest within Judah's proper Tribal allotment since Jerusalem was originally a city of Benjamin.  Assyria failed to conquer Jerusalem, but in it's war with Judah during the reign of Hezekiah it did capture and carry away into captivity the population of Lachish.  Micah 1 is a Biblical reference to the Assyrian Captivity of Lachish, and it uses Eagle Imagery of Lachish which also became a symbol of Armenia.

There are no Biblical clues to where the Judeans of Lachish were taken like there are for the Northern Kingdom's Captivity.  However where Assyria settled the northern captives made sense in the context of what their other recent conquests were, Assyria liked to move populations from one conquered region to another to weaken local national identities.  So it's notable that between the Northern Kingdom's captivity in the 8th century BC and when Lachish was taken in the 7th century BC the Assyrian Empire had conquered Urartu extending it's borders further north.  And the Armenians first began to emerge in the former Urartu lands after Assyria conquered it.  It took awhile however, the Orontid Kings don't show up till 570 BC, and nothing is known to have been written down in the Armenian language till their translation of The Bible in the 5th Century AD.

Armenia's traditional claim to descent from sons of Gomer (chiefly Togarmah but Ashkenaz is also mentioned) I think refers to some of the ancestors of the Urartu who lived in the region before them and who they intermingled with.  Or maybe the Armenian Language being Indo-European is their influence.

It's possible additional Jewish migrations to this region happened later, like during the Babylonian Captivity or when it ended.  Two patrilineal descendants of Herod The Great were Roman Client Kings of Armenia as Tigranes V and Tigranes VI.  And then Jewish Christians of the first couple centuries eventually brought The Gospel to Armenia, Armenia even claims to have beaten Rome to making Christianity their State Religion in 301 AD. I think it actually happened a little later probably at the same time as Iberia in the 330s and like them perhaps partly because of diplomatic relations with Constantine. 

Both the Six Pointed Star and a Red Lion are among Armenia's National Symbols.  Many insist the Six Pointed Start didn't become a Jewish Symbol till fairly recently, but archeological evidence does exist of it being used in Ancient Israel, and I have a hypothesis that the Hebrew Bible's Lily Imagery is partly where it comes from.  

It is sometimes claimed that only the Georgian Bagratuni claimed Davidic descent, but their heraldry was a Lion already in Armenia.  There is also an Armenian folk hero named David of Sassoun who's father was called Lion Mher meaning "lion like".  The Sumbat Chronicle genealogy of the Georgian branch connects them to David in a way that seemingly excludes the Armenian branch, but that link alone may not be the whole story.  I think the Isaac who is generation 86 of the Sumbat Chronicle genealogy is Sakah/Isaac I of the Armenian Bagartuni and it's the generations after him that are mistaken in connecting this line to Iberian royalty too early.

https://archive.org/details/toumanoff-cyril-1967.-studies-in-christian-caucasian-history.-georgetown-university-press/page/n167/mode/2up

Genealogy of Armenian Bagartuni starts on page 338 (or 168 of 304).

(I'm thinking of making a post arguing that Cleopas was married to a Sister of Jesus)

The name of the Bagartuni comes from a Persian word meaning "Gift of God", so it could be a name a clan of Davidic Ancestry chose to honor claiming descent from David's son Nathan (since Nathan in Hebrew means Gift), who's also the Son Luke 3's Genealogy of Jesus goes back to, meaning Jewish Christians claiming descent from the Half-Siblings of Jesus could have also found it attractive.

But maybe Lachish itself was simply a frequent home to Cadet branches of the House of David, like Orleans was for France and York for England?  David himself, Rehoboam and Abijah are all known to have had a lot more children then just the Son who followed them on the Throne.

Plato's Myth of Er son of Armenios is probably an adaptation of Armenian legends about their local hero Ara The Beautiful.  That draws attention to the possibility that the Armenian name Ara could be related to the Hebrew Er.  In Genesis 38:3-7, 46:12, Numbers 26:19 and 1 Chronicles 2:3 the name of Er is given to Judah's firstborn son who died childless.  I believe Er's widow Tamar did eventually marry Shelah after the events of Genesis 38 end and that she's the mother Shelah's children (in addition to Zerah and Pharez).  In 1 Chronicles 4:21 the name of Er is given to the firstborn son of Shelah.  

It could be the real story behind the myth was this second Er being thought of as a symbolic rebirth of the first Er.  I don't think Semiramis was ever part of the Ara mythology prior to Hellenistic influence in the region, and Plato we also know would change the myths he talked about to suit his rhetorical purposes.  However if a literal belief in Reincarnation was part of the Pre-Christian Paganism of Armenia, my current theories about the origins of that belief suggests it would have came not from the Jewish element of their ancestry but from the same people responsible for their language being Indo-European.

Or the dynastic name Zariadres could identify descent from Judah's son Zerah, which is the Dynasty that produced the Artaxiads of Armenia and Iberia.

It's also possible the Armenians aren't connected to Israelites only through Lachish.  At it's greatest extent Armenia overlapped quite a bit with Kurdistan so some deported Northern Israelites could have came there too.

Perhaps I should give some more thought to Armenia's close relationship to Georgia however.  The oldest civilization in what is today called Georgia was Colchis.  Certain classical Greek writers like Diodorus Siculus (in Section 28) said that the Colchi descended from the same "foreigners exiled from Egypt" that the Jews descended from, and that they also practiced circumcision. "The nation of the Colchi in Pontus and that of the Jews, which lies between Arabia and Syria, were founded as colonies by certain emigrants from their country; and this is the reason why it is a long-established institution among these two peoples to circumcise their male children."  The Georgians were called Iberians during Greco-Roman times, a name which could derive from Eber/Hebrew.  So maybe the Colchi were the lost clan of Calchol son of Zerah son of Judah?  

The Colchi definitely existed on the shores of the Black Sea before the captivity of Lachish however, so we'd need an additional route for how they got there.  They could have just been a colony founded by Judean sea faring merchants.  However Joel 3 speaks of Tyre & Sidon and the Philistines selling children of Judah and Jerusalem to Ionians(Javan) as slaves.  Ezekiel 27:13 speaks of Javan, Meshach and Tubal trading in commodities including Slaves that they got from Tyre.  Meshach and Tubal are the names of two ancient cities in Georgia.  

Herodotus also claimed the Colchi practiced Circumcision though his theory on why was that they were an Egyptian colony.  Modern scholars tend to dismiss these Greek references to Circumcision in Colchis because none of the Karvelian tribes seem to have ever practiced it.  However the Georgian Jews were already present in the region by the time of Nebuchadnezzar, so it could be they were who these Greek authors were thinking of.

Kurds descend from The Northern Kingdom

I used to flirt with more epic and sexy theories about the "Lost Tribes", but now I focus on who makes the most sense based on the DNA evidence.

The Kurds are among a few middle eastern Ethnic Groups who DNA has shown to be even closer related to The Jews then the Arabs.  And since I view even the Edomites as having bene absorbed into the Arab population that means they must be among those who descend from Deported Northern Israelites. 

1 Chronicles 5:26 refers to the Trans-Jordan Tribes being carried away by Assyria to Halah, Habor and Hara by the River Gozan.  2 Kings 17:6 and 18:11 also refer to those locations minus Hara but adds "Cities of the Medes" (some have argued it originally read "Mountains of Media", still implies the same general area) as being where the Captives of Samaria under King Hosea were taken.  Then 2 Kings 19:12 and Isaiah 37:12 mentions Gozan and Haran as among nations Assyria had destroyed previously.  From studying similar words in the Hebrew texts I think Hara is a shortened form of Haran, so it's like they're going full circle and being taken back to where Abraham was before he was called.

The River called Gozan in those verses is most likely the Khabur a significant tributary of the Euphrates that has tributaries of it's own, Guzana/Gozan is the name of an ancient city on that river who's remains are now called Tell Halaf, it may be a translation or scribal issue that switched the name of the river and city, or maybe they just were more interchangeable in Antiquity.  Edessa and Nisibis are both cities on rivers that are tributaries of this river as are many other important cities of Syrian and Turkish Kurdistan.  Antiochus Epiphanes renamed Edessa/Urfa as Callirrhoe or Antiochia on the Callirhoe, I'm not sure what exactly Callirhoe refers to here, but it could come from Halah given how Harran is similarly called Carrhae in Greek. 

Ancient Media meanwhile overlaps with modern Iranian Kurdistan, and the Kurdish Language is classified as a Northwestern Iranian language closely related to the Median Language (as are the Zaza-Gorani Languages spoken by some Kurds).  During classical Greco-Roman times this region included Corduene/Gordyene, Media Atropatene and Osroene, it's complicated however because multiple ethnic groups existed in those regions.

These were all territories at least partly under Assyrian Control in 740-720 BC, the more fanciful identifications for these places like Velikvosky's theories and those of British Israelism have Assyria somehow deporting Israelites to places Assyria never controlled.

The passages including Naphtali in the Captivity don't specifically refer to these locations,  But the Deuterocanonical book of Tobit gives us good reason to believe Naphtalite clans were actually living in the heart of Assyria itself (I know that the main protagonists of Tobit are in Media, but it established Ahkir an important Vizer of Assyria as their cousin), and 2 Kings 17:23 also refers to captives being taken to Assyria.  So I think they are the ancestors of first century Adiabene who's capital was Arbela and through them the Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan who's chief city is Irbil.  

Corduene/Gordyene was inhabited by a people called the Carduchoi/Carduchi who are also popularly proposed to be ancestors of the Kurds.  There is a medieval Jewish legend that the Corduene were the result of Solomon marring some of his Jinn to 500 Jewish Women.  That is a weird legend which is certainly not correct, but it does show that ancient Jews thought of these people as in some way related to them.  It could partly have it's roots in 1 Kings 4's account of Solomon marrying two of his daughters to Northern Governors, one of them being governor of Naphtali.

A region in Media Atropatene called Cadusia may have also been named after Gad.  A city in northwestern Iran is called Zabad, possibly related to the Zabad of 1 Chronicles 7's Ephraimite Genealogy.  There is also a city in Iranian Kurdistan called Salmas who's name could be related to the Biblical name Salma or to Shillem a clan of Naphtali from Number 26:49 and Genesis 46:24.  Salmas first appears in the historical record right at the same time the Parthian Empire was conquered by the Sassanids.

The proper Kingdom of Media of classical antiquity didn't actually begin till just after when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered.  Deioces is the name given in Classical sources for it's first King, the dates work for this being a Median name given to King Hosea reigning in the region after his deportation.  

Historian	Herodotus	George Cameron	Edvin Grantovsky	Igor Diakonoff
Era	700-647 BC	728-675 BC[8]	672-640 BC	700-678 BC[5]

Deioces is also speculated to be the same person as Hushung in the Sahanameh, Hushung is a name that both phonetically and in meaning could be a poetic adaptation of the name of Hosea.  So Media Atropatene could be the Arsareth that II Esdras says King Hosea lead some of the exiles to.

Dejoces is a direct Paternal-ancestor of Astyages who's daughter was the mother of Cyrus.  Media Atropatene was the one former Persian territory not fully conquered by the Greeks under Alexander, it remained Semii-Independent till the 1st century when their Royal Family became the main Parthian Royal Family and through them of Armenia as well.

Of course contrary to Herodotus the Medes never had a centralized State, they were a decentralized confederations of tribes and cities of mostly Local Autonomy who only ever seemed to have a single King when they needed to unify for War.

Saladin was of Kurdish ancestry.

One controversial point of contention in Lost Tribes speculation in whether or not we should expect them to have been absorbed into other population so thoroughly they forget their Israelite Identity.  And I feel like maybe it depends which Tribe you're talking about.  Because it might worth noting that Manasseh means "forget" as explained in Genesis 41:51.

The Captivity recorded in 1 Kings 17 is of principally the City of Samaria.  But even that was only part of Western Manasseh.

The reason why many even who agree with me that not actually everyone was deported still assume this deportation probably includes some of Ephraim too or even was primarily of Ephraim is because people get confused about which tribal allotment Samaria was apart of.  Shechem was on the border of Ephraim and Manasseh, so cities north of Shechem like Samaria and Tirzah are Manasseh.   However because the mountain range both Shechem and Samaria are apart of gets called "Mount Ephraim" or "Mountains of Ephraim" people get confused.  It also doesn't help how both Samaria and Ephraim are used as poetically synymous with the entire Northern Kingdom.  

I suspect that after the fall of the House of Omri the Northern Kingdom was dominated by Manasseh.  Jeroboam and Baasha were the only Northern Royal Families who's Tribal affiliations were explicitly identified, my hunch about Omri is that he was a Danite.  Jehu rose to power in Gilead, Eastern Manasseh, and Menahem was from Tirzah, Hosea rebelling against the house that overthrew Menahem's house I see as circumstantial evidence he was related.  Menahem being called Son of Gadi in 2 Kings 15 could be because he descends from Gaddi the spy representing Manasseh in Numbers 13:10-11.

I think even some of the Manassites who never left the Land eventually forget who they were.  I think some of them became absorbed in the population of the Northern West Bank Palestinians, (like those of Jezreel aka Zir'in).  

That's not to say I don't think any Ephraimites could have been among the deported.  But I think the principal descendants of Ephraim are the Samaritans.

Smyrna and The White Horseman

The idea that the Rider on the White Horse in Revelation 6 isn’t “The Antichrist” or some other Villain but something more positive is almost unheard of among Futurists and thus something I was long hostile to when I was a Futurist.  But now that my Eschatology is a mixture of Historicism and Post-Millennialism it’s one I need to reconsider.  The idea I shall propose here is kind of mutually exclusive with some readings of Revelation 6 I’ve proposed before and that’s fine, I’m currently being Dogmatic about very little.

In Halley’s Bible Handbook it seems the standard Historicist take is that it’s The Church conquering the world not militarily but by spreading The Gospel.  My take here shall be like that but a bit more specific.

I’m not in favor of interpreting him as an individual, as some secondary Messiah like a Christianized Messiah Ben-Joseph or the Last Roman Emperor or The Mahdi.  I don’t like The Great Man Theory of History, so my Historicism prefers to focus on Collectives and Systems.

The word translated “conquering” and “conquer” is Nikao (in different forms) and it’s translated that way in The KJV only in this verse, everywhere else in the New Testament including elsewhere in Revelation it appears it is some form of “Overcome” or "Overcomer".  

Each of the messages to the Seven Churches has near the end a promise to the Overcomer.  However it is only Smyrna that Jesus promises to give a Crown (Philadelphia already has one).  So I do think when simply reading through Revelation that Chapter 6 verse 2 is supposed to remind the reader of Chapter 2 verses 10-11.

Smyrna in Revelation is most well known for being directly and explicitly associated with Martyrdom.  As the birthplace of the Roma Cult the pressure to conform to Imperial worship was the most pressing there.  Persecution of Christians in the province of Asia began in the Reign of Hadrian during the Governorships of Granianus and Fundanus.  So this message reflects that, being reassurance to Christians having a very difficult time and promising a reward to those who die for their Faith.  That theme shall recur in the history I shall discuss even though the contemporary descendants of Smyrna are currently pretty safe.  

Polycarp was an important second century leader of the Church in Smyrna, I sometimes speculate that him being called a "hearer of John" originally meant he was contemporary with the initial publication of The Book of Revelation, maybe even the "Angel" of Smyrna if you think the Angels of the Churches were Human messengers.  He identified himself in his letter as merely one among a group of Elders/Bishops showing that Smyrna didn't have Episcopal Polity yet. He was Martyred in probably AD 155 during the reign of Antonius Pius.  

The text known as the Martyrdom of Polycarp is a later text probably not an accurate account of exactly what happened.  But even if Polycarp did say he's served Christ 86 years that doesn't prove Infant Baptism.  It's an assumption that the 86 years was his entire lifespan, and it's an assumption that how long one serves Christ can only begin with Baptism.  But more importantly I don't even think this was meant to be taken literally, that he may be equating his entire lifespan with how long he served Christ even if that isn't chronologically true, he's speaking poetically.

Saying “went forth conquering and to conquer” suggests that this Rider will not stay in a single location.  The first Christian Community to pop up in what we today call France was based in Lyon and founded by immigrants from Smyrna, its two most well known early leaders were Pothinus and Irenaeus both said to be students of Polycarp.  

Irenaeus has been falsely accused of supporting Infant Baptism, however it is only false beliefs about what happens Metaphysically at Baptism tied to Infant Baptism that makes what Ireneaus said in Against Heresies II.22.4 sound like it’s relevant to Baptism at all, it in fact is not.

Vienne is a French city just a little south of Lyon, and as far as I can tell it’s the only significant French city with even a claim that its Christian presence might predate even Lyon's.  But its earliest Traditional Bishops are not as historically well attested as Pothinus and Irenaeus.  My hunch is that it first emerged as a Daughter Church of Lyon, or that both were together Sister products of the missionary work of Pothinus and Irenaeus.  We know a Christian Community existed there in 177 closely associated with Lyon because of a letter preserved by Eusebius.  Vienne was another center of the Imperial as home to the Temple of Augustus and Livia built by Claudius.

The city of Augustodunum aka Autun seems likely to have also had an early Christian Congregation derived form these Smyrnaeans of Lyon though the traditional origin story is Chronologically confused having Polycarp seemingly still alive in the time of Septimius Severus. 

Other Smyrnaeans said to have been sent by Polycarp to Evangelize in Gaul were Andelolus of Vivarais and Benignus of Djon, and then Ferrelous and Ferrutio of Besançon.

Like many Asian Churches in the second century they followed the Quatrodeciman tradition of observing Pascha on the 14th of Nisan rather than the following Sunday.  While most Churches disagreed with this position it was only Victor the Bishop of Rome who wanted to excommunicate people over this and Irenaeus was one of those who wrote to Victor in defense of Quartodecimanism.

This Lyon community suffered Persecution in 177 when Pothinus was Martyred as did nearby Vienne,  then again in 202 when Irenaeus was Martyred, and again in 208 when Andelolus was Martyred, finally Ferrelous and Ferrutio were Martyred in 212.

Hippolytus of Rome was not a student of Irenaeus, that claim first pops up with Photios of Constantinople in the 9th Century.  Hippolytus taught some similar ideas to Irenaeus especially on Eschatology, but he could have come to them independently or just read Irenaeus.  The clerical heirs of Irenaeus, if he had any at all, (I don't think he supported Episcopal understandings of Apostolic Succession), were those who followed him as "Bishop" of Lyon, Zechariah, Helios and Faustinius.

Fabian who was Bishop of Rome from 236-250 AD sent missions to found Churches in other Parts of France resulting in the first Bishops of Paris, Arles, Narbone, Clermont, Limoges, Toulouse and Tours.  Later the Churches of Reims and Soissons were founded by Sixtus and Sinicius sent by Sixtus II of Rome.  The Gallican Church, the French Branch of the Roman Catholic Church, I believe descends clerically from these Churches.  In time they consecrated their own Bishops of Lyon and Vienne who would claim succession from the original Bishops of Lyon and Vienne but in my view the true Heirs of the Smyrneans of Lyon were eventually Congregations that operated more underground.

The singular Bishops canonized on these later Episcopal Bishop Lists were probably just Preachers who happened to stand out.

When this shift in the official list of Bishops of Lyon and Vienne happened is hard to tell for certain however.  The Bishops of Lyon who would have been contemporary with the Council of Nicaea (Vocius, Maximus or Tetrad) did not attended that Council, it’s well known that only five Bishops from the West attended Nicaea and only one of those was from France, Nicasius of Die, himself the first known Bishop of Die.  Likewise neither Justus or Alpinus seem to have attended the Second Ecumenical Council.  Sicarius, Eucherius and Patiens aren’t documented as attending the Councils of Ephesus or Chalcedon either.  Reticius of Autun didn't attend Nicaea either.

Make no mistake I do believe these Christians were Theologically and Christologically Nicene, Trinitarian and probably also Chalcedonian on the core issues those councils were held over.  Point is they didn’t submit themselves to Episcopal Authority, they operated Congregationally. 

Lyon was part of the Kingdom of the Burgundians when the Western Roman Empire lost control of Gaul, as were Vienne, Autun, Vivarais, Dijon and Besançon.  The Burgundians were Arians but like most other Gothic Arians were tolerant of the other Christians living in their kingdom so the original Christians of Lyon would have been left alone under them.  Their Kingdom however was Conquered by the Merovingians by 534 AD.  Clovis was Baptized by Remigius of Reims making him a clerical descendent of Sixtus.  Lupus was the first Bishop of Lyon after that point and some consider him the first Bishop of Lyon to be an Archbishop.  Nicetius was given the title of Patriarch by the Bishop of Rome, Priscus was appointed explicitly by a Merovingian King and Aetherius was a close associate of Pope Gregory I.  

The true Smyrnaeans surviving underground outside the notice of recorded History during the “Dark Ages” would have been fairly plausible.  

In the 12th Century the Waldenses emerged in the region of Lyon.  Their origins are definitely more complicated than just being founded by a guy named Peter Waldo.  Even their enemies referred to them as having existed since the time of Sylvester (in Catholic tradition the "Pope" at the time of Nicaea).  There is strong evidence they were originally both Credo-Baptists and Congregationalists.  

I’m certain they played a role in the origins of various Anabaptist movements of the 16th Century and through them can be connected to the origins of the General Baptists of England, (maybe also the Particular Baptists), the German Baptists (Schwarsenu Brethren) and the Swedish Baptists.  And from them came The Diggers, The Quakers, and many other offshoots.

So yes I just argued for a form of Baptist Successionism, but I don't believe in the Doctrine that it matters if you have an unbroken chain of Believers Baptisms going back to the Apostles.  And I reject the standard Landmarkism history claiming descent from the Montanists, Novatians and Donatists, Faustinius of Lyon was in fact on record as opposing Novatianism.  

But since I’ve broached the subject of secret underground Proto-Protestantism in France I need to remind readers that NO I do not believe Jeanne d’Arc was a Proto-Protestant of any kind, she wanted to lead a Crusade against the Husites.  And one website documenting her Catholic Orthodoxy even has some quotes to show that if anything those who burned her were more Proto-Protestant.  But they would be more like Proto-Anglicans serving the interests of the King of England not Baptists who were originally the strongest defenders of Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State.

An attempt to return Lyon to something like the Congregationalist principles of Polycarp was made by Antoine-Adrien Lamourette of the Cercle social appointed Bishop of Lyon under The Civil Constitution of The Clergy during The French Revolution.  He was Guillotined on January 11th 1794, another Christian Martyred by the Hebertists.

That Temple of Augustus and Livia at Vienne became a Church after Christianization and then during this period a Temple of the Cult of Reason.