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78 The House of Israel

The Arbroath Declaration of 1320 recorded the view of the which is everywhere manifested...Cranial type in the
Scottish barons that the Scots were directly descended British Isles is practically uniform from end to end.”
from “the people of Israel.” And from the sixteenth cen-
tury we have Drake’s prayer “that we might have contin- And the evidence of the anthropologists was supported
ual peace in Israel.” In the United States the death of by the archaeologists and the philologists.
George Washington provoked the observation that “a
great man in Israel has died” and, 70 years later, Ma- This mass of scientific evidence that the British people
jor-General P.H. Sheridan justified his “burning raid” on could be and probably were the descendants of ancient
Loundoun in Virginia as calculated to let the Confederates Israel brought about a dramatic change in the public at-
know that “there is a God in Israel.” titude towards the Holy Bible, and especially towards
the Old Testament which the Higher Criticism had at-
It is clear beyond reasonable doubt that the people of these tempted to discredit. Here was scientific evidence that
islands have always believed or accepted or assumed that the Bible was undoubtedly the inspired word of Al-
Britain was the home and refuge of ten-tribed Israel. John mighty God. Bible scholarship, previously the purview
Wilson brought about this conviction by publishing irre- of the classical scholar, was taken up by every type of
futable proof that this age-old belief could be confirmed trained or enquiring mind. This is reflected in the flood
by historical evidence, evidence that was accepted by the of scholarly books on Scriptural prophecy, numerol-
historians of his day. ogy, history and archaeology. Scriptural books of ref-
erence became best sellers, with Dr. Young’s massive
Having established that the various peoples who have in- Analytical Concordance to the Bible appearing in
vaded and settled in this country during a period of more 1879.
than 2,000 years had originated from that part of the world
where the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel had Here was evidence that discredited Papal doctrine that
“disappeared,” it was not long before the historical hy- the Church had inherited the promises made to Israel;
pothesis received support from other disciplines. In his that the Church, in other words, was to replace Israel as
Robert Boyle lecture at Oxford, Sir Arthur Keith F.R.S. the nucleus of the Kingdom of God on earth.
rejected the argument that we are a mixed and mongrel
collection of types and breeds with these words: “It is of- Unfortunately, those who propagated the Israel Iden-
ten said that we British are a mixed and mongrel collection tity message -- and their numbers now included a ma-
of types and breeds. The truth is that, as regards physical jority of the ministers of the Free Churches -- paid little
type, the inhabitants of the British Isles are the most uni- heed to Papal reactions to what they were teaching.
form of all the large nationalities of Europe.” They apparently believed that the facts would speak
for themselves. And in this they appeared to be right
Professor Huxley in his Racial Origins was equally em- because throughout the Victorian period the move-
phatic. He wrote: “The invasions of Saxons, Goths, Danes ment gained an immense following among the laity. It
and Romans changed the language of Britain, but added no inspired the great reformers and writers of that period.
new physical element. Therefore we should not talk of Queen Victoria herself and many members of her fam-
Celts and Saxons for they are all one. I never lose the op- ily became identified with the movement, the Countess
portunity of rooting up the false idea that the Celts and of Athlone becoming the Patron of the largest orga-
Saxons are different races.” Professor Ripley in his Races nized movement of Identity Christians.
of Europe supported Huxley by the evidence of
craniology. “The shape of the head,” he wrote, “is one of It was not until the early 1920s that the opposition be-
the best available tests of race known. The most remark- gan to make itself felt, not by open refutation, but
able trait of the population of the British Isles is its through the “inspired scholarship” of theologians
head-form; and especially the uniformity in this respect, friendly to Rome. By that time it became obvious that

The Berean Voice November-December 2002