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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 |
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