Lost Tribes

Lost Tribes, in Jewish history, ten tribes that inhabited the kingdom of Israel and many of whose members were exiled by Sargon II, king of Assyria (reigned 722-705 bc), after the Assyrian conquest (722 bc) of Samaria, capital of Israel, under Shalmaneser V, Sargon's predecessor (see 2 Kings 17:1-6). The ultimate fate of these people is unknown and has been the subject of intense speculation by historians and biblical scholars. Such speculation has led to theories that the tribes immigrated to prehistoric North and South America; that they became the Nestorian Christians in Asia; or that they became the ancestors of various Hindu castes. Various other theories have located the lost tribes in Ethiopia, Afghanistan, China, and Japan. One Jewish writer, Eldad ben Mahli (flourished late 9th century ad ), wrote a book of fabulous tales recounting his experiences with descendants of the tribes who, he claimed, were leading a utopian existence in an African river valley. The so-called Anglo-Israelite theory, which gained considerable credence in the 17th century, is that the ten tribes were the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxon peoples; many Jews were admitted into England about that time on the strength of the theory. The view that the tribes migrated to the Americas is stated in the Book of Mormon, in which the ancestry of the Native North Americans is traced to a supposed Israelite migration. More scientific views are held by scholars who maintain that the tribes lost their tribal identification by assimilation with their captors. Many modern Jewish scholars believe that only loose tribal identifications were maintained in the early history of Palestine, and that with the increased authority of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, the tribal distinctions of the nomadic period tended to decline.