What Happened to the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel?

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Could you imagine searching for a lost tribe, having everybody telling you that you're wrong, and then finding an extent group of religiously Jewish people exactly where you believed you would? What a feeling that would be.

The name “lost” makes people want to find them. They were lost as in dead, vanished, absorbed. Some of them became Samaritans

I think my favorite thing in your videos if none of it comes across as judgmental about different beliefs. You’re studying religion/culture as part of a peoples and I love it.

Excellent video Dr. Henry, concise, precise and well-researched as usual. I suggest that you should make a video explaining and comparing the differences between the samaritan and the jewish pentateuch

It always sounded weird to me when reading about the Samaritans in the Bible. It came off as the author was trying really hard to convince me that the Samaritans were in no way related to the 10 tribes, but he also wasn't doing a good job of it.

Great video Dr. Henry, though I did have one issue with the insistence of this being an "unprecedented" phenomenon. What we see happening with the legend of the 10 tribes is actually quite a common occurrence in the historical record. As non literate people came into contact with literary cultures and adopted their view of history, they crafted new legends to place themselves within that new history. The Romans did it by tracing themselves back to the Trojans, as did the Irish in the Book of Invasions. Later, in West and East Africa, royal dynasties also crafted legends that connected themselves with Muhammad and his close followers in order to assert their own legitimacy as Islamic rulers. Modern day Chinese Christians even do something similar by making the 3 Magi in the Jesus birth story Chinese. It's all about trying to make sense of one's own people in the context of a foreign narrative.

Very informative episode, thank you for sharing.

1:48 Historical Origins of the Legend 8:43 The Samaritans 11:58 Eldad Hadani 12:50 The Book of Mormon 13:20 The Patriarchal Blessing 17:06 Research on Genealogies

Holy crap, I took dr Tobolowsky’s History and Religion of Ancient Israel class just to fill out credits in college and its what got me into religious studies. Small world I guess

I don't know that we can say it's entirely unparalleled. The Romans had a myth that they were the descendants of the survivors of Troy after all.

There's a good reason why the tribe of Simeon isn't mentioned in Deuteronomy Chapter 33, that being that Jacob cursed Simeon's tribe and said they would be scattered within Israel, because of their violence and cruelty against the men of Shechem. By the book of Numbers, the tribe of Simeon is the smallest to leave Egypt. I think their absence is a sign of the fulfilment of Jacob's curse upon them.

Thanks, this is a great work of research

I wonder if someday we discover aliens on another planet some people will still make the assumption that we discovered one of the lost tribes of Israel.

THANKS FOR SHARING..GOOD EXPLANATION

This was really informative

The bottom line is, that the tribes of the Northern Kingdom were likely either assimilated into the Assyrian population which itself was quite diverse, fled to Judah, or fled to some other place nearby. The only thing that is "lost" are the minds of those pursuing the myth of the lost tribes of Israel.

An important piece missing from the video is that sometimes the 12 tribes include Levi, but sometimes he is missing, and Joseph is divided into Manasseh and Ephraim. My branch of Judaism teaches that the former is a Theological division into 12, and the latter, a political one, since the Levites were Temple functionaries, and thus had an odd place in the political realm. I am sure other Jewish groups, and different Christian denoms have their own explanation. No matter what, this is why you can have 10 lost tribes and have three left over (12-3=9) because the number 10 is based on the Split Joseph count. Also, the Jewish view is that Simeon fled north after Rehoboam, and Benjamin took his place. Also, Traditional Judaism has an interesting take that I'm surprised Dr. Henry didn't mention: Jeremiah brought members of the 10 Lost Tribes back to Judah during the reign of Josiah, though the majority of their population stayed "Lost", and thus all 12 tribes exist in Judaism today, but in the Second Temple period, these returned groups were adopted into Judah or Benjamin.

You can actually find this identity of the Samaritans when a Samaritan woman talked to Jesus, and talks about their shared ancestry.

Thank you for real, documented facts.