I would assume that only Levitical priests would be able to serve in the Antichrist’s temple- if the Jews are ever to use it. So is there any effort in place to identify people with Levitical ancestry? I know that there are some studies that indicate a genetic link among modern day Rabbis, but how can we tell if these Rabbis are Levites?

Actually the 'genetic link' you speak of is not in 'Rabbis' but in the Priestly family, the "Kohenim." That's how they can tell who are legitimately acceptable for the Jewish Priesthood.

What I've heard is that the Kohenim and Rabbis are essentiall the same thing since Rabbi is pretty much an inherited profession.

No that is incorrect. Rabbis become Rabbis through a course of STUDY. The Priesthood is inherited.

If you go back to Jesus time, the Synagogues were almost all run by the Pharisees, whereas almost all the Priests were Saducees.

I know that one must be trained and educated to be a Rabbi, but if a man is a Rabbi, isn't there a good chance that at least one of his sons will also become a Rabbi due to family tradition?

The Levitcal preisthood is the only tribe of Israel that is easy to identify. Mostly because they have retained their last names which identify them:

ie....Levine, Cohen, Levinson, Leibenson, Levi, etc....

Their name derivations specifically tie them to the former Levitical priesthood.

The other tribes are harder to identify. It is often thought that the tribe of Judah can be identified by: fair skin and reddish blond hair as were characteristics of David.

There are other identifiers as well: If you travel to Israel, you will find that there are people who look very egyptian in nature...kinda like Howie Mandel. It probably wouldn't be a huge stretch to say that they are sons of Joseph, Ephraimites and Mannasehsites since Joseph's wife was Egyptian.

Anyway, the key thing to remember, is that the Saviour was promised to be Judean. That means there needs to be an accurate record keeping to verify his tribe of origin. After 70 AD the possibility of positive identification was mostly destroyed during the diaspora.....
surely the anti christ will come up with something, but if you don't believe Jesus heritage, which was very well and specifically documented, why would you believe the anti Jesus guy!

Since the Levites were assigned cities dispersed through the lands that were assigned to the other tribes so they could administer the Law, some Levites merged with the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which lead to the Jews. The remaining Levites merged with the other tribes to become the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The Assyrians captured this kingdom and exiled these Israelites and replaced them with people from other parts of the Assyrian Empire. When the Babylonians captured the Assyrian Empire, some of these Israelites merged with the Jews and returned to Canaan when the Jews were released from their own exile, which had been imposed by the Babylonians. The identity of at least some of the other exiled Israelites was known at least until Apostolic times (Peter addresses ye men of Judea and ye men of Israel in the Book of Acts), but eventually the identify and location of the non-Jewish Israelites was lost to human history. It would be interesting if we could identify the descendants of the Assyrian Israelites by comparing the Levite DNA with the rest of the world.

Greetings all:

I have a question for you, Flaja, if you don't mind my asking. Interesting thread and couldn't help but notices the Assyrian reference in connection to the Levitcal priesthood as to it would makes sense that the Assyrian is also the false jewish prophet, which has to be from the tribe of Levi. Was that what you were suggesting?

Sincerely yours,

Wendy

Very pertinent thread Flaja.

The present day Cohens in Israel have identified a familial gene that links them to one common paternal ancestor.
This is in spite of the Cohens having been mixed between the Shepardic (Spain) and Ashkenazy(Russian) Jews.

Who was that common ancestor?

Probably Aaron.

------------------------------------------------------------------

In the wilderness, while Moses was busy talking to God, Aaron set about building a golden calf for the Israelites.


Plus ca change, plus ca reste le meme, eh?

When Moses married an African woman, Aaron and Miriam were up in arms.
God however thought differently, and was willing to destroy the Israelites, and start afresh
with Moses' offspring.
Moses pleaded with God and it didn't happen so.


But your original post is very pertinent.

To my knowledge, the only people from the Northern Kingdom of Israel to ever be known as Jews would have been the small sample that joined up with the Jews after Persia released the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity. And even then at least some of these northern Israelites still retained their tribal identify (Anna in the Temple when Christ was presented there, for example). The remaining Israelites, outside of the Kingdom of Judah/Judea were never known as Jews.

You must remember that the exile of the descendants of Jacob happened in two stages. First the Northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria and then a hundred years or so later the Southern Kingdom of Judah was captured by the Babylonians. In both cases the conquered people were exiled, but God was so displeased with the Northern Israelites that He never sent them any prophets the way He did for the Jews during the Babylonian exile. God meant for the Jews to return to their homeland, but in Amos 9:8-10 God promised “Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD. For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.”

I don’t think the Jews have lived in every country on earth, and they almost always retained their Jewish identity in any country they did pass through, so the Jews are not the ones that God sifted through all nations.

Actually a common ancestor need not go back this far. It all depends on how biology and history have affected the Cohens' population genetics.

Consider the offspring of King Edward III ca. 14th century. It is estimated that he has something like 3,000,000 living descendants in Britain alone (something like 5% of the population of the UK). Statistically speaking half of these living descendants would be males and they all have Edward III as a common male ancestor (someone like Prince Charles would still have Edward III as a male ancestor since Prince Phillip is also a male descendant of Edward whle Elizabeth II is a female descendant of Edward). Male descent is traced via the Y chromosome- which women don't have, and the mutation rate is so slow that for any given generation the Y chromosome is passed essentially unchanged from father to son.

Edward III had several sons so he is the last common male link that all of his descendants share. But his descendants also share all of Edward's male ancestors going all the back to King Egbert and then back to the dawn of time.

But then Darwinists use the same kind of science to say that humans evolved in Africa a hundred thousand years ago.

BTW: The DNA analysis used by the Cohens can be used for any family name group. Map your DNA and you can find the most recent male ancestor for your last name- assuming it isn't something like Smith.

BTW: Could Cohans be Irish Levites?

http://www.cohen-levi.org/jewish_genes_and...f_tradition.htm

There's a link Flaja.