Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.ac.il>]

A year ago, I presented on the ANE list the results of a Y-chromosome study conducted on Jews of various origins as published in the press. The study showed that Jews of all communities, except for Ethiopian Jews, were more closely related to each other than to the non-Jewish populations of the host communities. Moreover, Jews taken together as a whole were shown to be most closely related genetically to Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese.

I then asked the following questions:

1) What is the importance of these findings for the history of the People of Israel and the accuracy of Biblical traditions?

2) Is it now possible to write a genetic history of the peoples of the Ancient Near East?

For this, I was roundly attacked amd called a racist, even a Nazi.

Only one of all the letters I received related specifically to my questions.

 

Today, on the "anniversary" of that auspicious event, I did a web search on ProQuest on what had been written on the matter of Y chromosomes. I was astounded by the vast number of research and other scientific articles that had appeared in the past year on the subject of Y chromosomes and their importance in traciong the genetic history of homo sapiens, of whatever ethnic origins, in various continents of the world.

 

It is no longer possible for biblical and Ancient Near Eastern scholars to ignore the flood of information now beginning to pour in on genetic history. I realize that some of this is going to hurt the pet theories of some important scholars, theories that have made their careers. But that's the way the cookie crumbles. Darwin's "Origin of the Spedcies" hurt a lot of Creationists.

 

For starters, for all you non-biology majors, I refer you to:

 

Hillel Halkin, "Wandering Jews -- and their Genes", Commentary 110 (Sept. 2000), 54-61.

 

This article is couched in language that any educated layman can understand - though he may not like its conclusions.

Sincerely,

Jonathan D. Safren
Chairman
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
44905 Israel