The Formation of English

How was English formed?

English is not an ancient language like Greek or Hebrew.  It did not evolve from the original language of the original inhabitants of modern England.  Rather English was formed from a variety of foreign languages through a process that took over eight hundred years.

It all started with the Romans. 

The Romans first invaded Britain in 55 BC during their conquest of the Gauls in modern France, but they did not stay.

Then in 43 AD, the Romans returned and conquered the eastern two-thirds of modern England to form Roman Britain.  They built Londonium (London) at this time.  They also brought in the Latin language, which was not related to the Celtic language called British, that was spoken by the natives.

Christian missionaries came to the Roman Britain as early as 54 AD.  They began writing documents in a dialect of Latin influenced by Celtic British called British Latin.

Not long after that, the Romans encountered the Anglos, the Saxons, the Jutes, and the Frisians.

These tribes had their original homeland between the Roman Empire and the North Sea.  They spoke West Germanic languages.  Collectively they are called Anglo-Saxons, after the two largest groups.

According to Jerome, the Galatians and the people of Roman Germany spoke the same language.

So, Galatian or Roman German missionaries appear to have created a written language for the West Germanic tribes, based on the Old Latin used in the Vetus Latina, which contained the Gospels.  This  writing system is called Runic writing.

These missionaries could have easily taught the West Germanic tribes that bordered the Roman Empire to read this written language.  This Runic writing could have spread from there.

These missionaries might have also taught this written language to mercenaries from these West Germanic tribes hired by the Romans.  These mercenaries could have brought this writing system back with them to their homelands.

The Anglo-Saxons wrote their languages in Runic form like other Germanic tribes. The Germanic tribes had no written language prior to 150 AD. 

Eventually, the Romans introduced the Anglos to Roman Britain.  By this time, Celtic Christianity was already entrenched in Roman Britain and spreading among the Celtic people that bordered Roman Britain.

The Celtic British speakers called the West Germanic language of the Anglos, "Anglish" (English).

In 382 AD, Jerome began creating a translation of the entire Book of Truth (The Bible) in Latin.  This translation was called the Latin Vulgate, because it was written in the everyday Latin spoken by the common people, who were called "vulgar", by speakers of classical Latin.   He began with translating the Vetus Latina from Old Latin.

In 385 AD, persecution for his translation work forced Jerome to flee Rome and move to Bethlehem.  He continued working on his translation there, having access to many more source documents, including Hebrew copies of the entire Original Covenant (Tanakh aka The Old Testament) and Greek copies of the Renewed Covenant (B'rit Chadashah aka The New Testament).

According to Gildas the Wise, mercenary Saxons were first invited by a Roman treaty to settle in land in the east part of Roman Britain and to be given a stated amount of supplies, including food, in exchange for defending the British against the Picts and the Scoti (Scots) around 400 AD.

The Venerable Bede explains that the mercenary Saxons were really a mix of people from three different Germanic tribes - the Saxons, the Anglos, and the Jutes.  This mixed group, and the Frisians who came later, are collectively called the Anglo-Saxons, because the majority were either Anglos or Saxons.

Even though Christianity was well established in Roman Britain by this time, these Anglo-Saxons still worshiped the same deities as the most of the Celtic people outside of the Roman Empire.

Jerome finished his translation in 405 AD.  Soon, some the Children of Truth who had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, returned to Roman Britain with copies of the Latin Vulgate.

Then Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 AD.

The Romans left Roman Britain in 411 AD, following the sack of Rome, according to Procopius.  At this time, the main languages were Celtic British and British Latin.

This led to the Anglo-Saxon invasion.

According to Gildas, as soon as the Romans left off collecting taxes, the British quit supplying the agreed amount of food to the Anglo-Saxons.  So, the Anglo-Saxons sailed back to their homeland, only to return with an invading force.

Also, according to Gildas, wicked British kings ruled parts of former Roman Britain and had turned away from Christianity, after the Romans left.  He relates that the Anglo-Saxons were divine judgment upon those kings, only taking over their kingdoms, not all of modern England.

According to Bede, many Saxons, Anglos, and Jutes began immigrating to former Roman Britain at this time.  They spoke different, but closely related West German languages.

In fact, the Anglos almost completely abandoned their homeland and became the largest group of the invaders. The descendants of the remnant of the Anglos who did not migrate, still live in the area of Anglia, the land of the Anglos, along the northern coast of modern Germany.

The first of these West Germanic tribes to create a kingdom in former Roman Britain was the Jutes.  Their kingdom was called the Kingdom of Kent.

The British Children of Truth had little success in their efforts to bring the Good News to the Anglo-Saxons during this time.  

However, Saint Patrick, a speaker of Celtic British and British Latin, went to northern Ireland to take the Good News to the Celtic people there in 432 AD.  His arrival was more than just the luck of the Irish.

According to the Chronicles of Gallic of 452 AD, the Anglo-Saxons were ruling in the place of the Romans by 441 AD.  

According to Gildas, the Anglo-Saxons were also wicked.  They soon spread war all over the British Isle against the British kings.  This was further judgment on the British for turning against the Children of Truth (those who obey The Father of Truth because they love Him).

The Anglo-Saxons were finally defeated in 482 AD, which ended with a treaty.  The Anglo-Saxons retreated to live in the land originally given to the Anglo-Saxons by the Roman treaty.  They also had to pay tribute to the British kings.

The Anglo-Saxon invaders continued to speak their West Germanic languages, while the rest of former Roman Britain spoke British Celtic or British Latin.

However, the Anglo-Saxons managed afterwards to take over the all of Roman Britain until they formed the Seven Kingdoms. 

The Seven Kingdoms became collectively known as England (land of the English (Anglos)).  The Seven Kingdoms were the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Sussex, Essex, Kent, and East Anglia.

The West Germanic languages of the invaders, soon began to be learned by some of the British along side of Celtic British, inside the Seven Kingdoms.

In the years that followed, the boundaries of the Seven Kingdoms continually shifted as they fought for dominance over each other.  There also rose up lessor kingdoms along side or inside of the Seven Kingdoms during this period of constant internal war.  These lessor kingdoms were Celtic British kingdoms.

According to Bede, the Seven Kingdoms came be subject to one another, with the king of the dominant kingdom being the high king over one or more of the other kings.  The high king shifted from time to time, as one kingdom would get the advantage over the others.  Frequently there was more than one high king, each with different subject kings. 

After his death in 493 AD, the Irish congregations that Saint Patrick had started, began sending missionaries to the Celtic speaking people in the rest of the British Isles.

According to Procopious, by 550 AD, there were effectively three kingdoms south of Scotland that were each ruled by a different high king.

The first high king was over the British Celts west of former Roman Britain.  The second high king was over the Frisians (another Germanic Tribe that invaded after the Anglo-Saxon invasion, which spoke yet another West Germanic language) in the western half of former Roman Britain.  The third high king was over the Anglos, Saxon, and Jutes, in the eastern half of former Roman Britain.

Celtic British and British Latin continued to be spoken in all three kingdoms, but the West Germanic languages were being learned out of necessity in the kingdoms ruled by the Anglo-Saxon high kings.  Generally, West Germanic languages became less common and Celtic British became more common from east to west.  British Latin was mostly spoken by descendants of those who had lived in the cities of Roman Britain, which was a shrinking percentage of the population, and the religious professionals, since the Latin Vulgate was the only translation of the Book of Truth available at the time.

The people of these three kingdoms multiplied like rabbits.  So, the Franks kept inviting them to move into unoccupied lands in their kingdoms.  Many of them migrated, since there was not enough hides (the amount of land required to support a family - 120 acres) in modern England.

In 597 AD, a missionary from the False Church of Rome called Augustine the Monk, came to the kingdom of Kent.

Soon after Augustine arrived in Canterbury, the king of Kent, one of the Seven Kingdoms, converted to Christianity.  He had married a Christian from France, so he had being prepared for this day.  By Christmas of that year, almost everyone in the kingdom of Kent was mass baptized.  This was the first Christian kingdom, after the departure of the Romans.

However, Augustine was unable to get the native British missionaries of Kent to join the False Church of Rome.  They were still practicing Celtic Christianity in its original form.  Augustine found the same thing among the Children of Truth outside of Kent, including the descendants of those who had been taught by Saint Patrick in northern Ireland.

In 627 AD, King Edward, the king of Northumbria, another of the Seven Kingdoms, became a Christian as well.  However, afterwards he was killed in a battle with King Penda, the pagan king of Mercia, another of the Seven Kingdoms in 632 AD.  However, Christianity rebounded in Northumbria under the rule of the the kings after him.

By 656 AD, the new king of Mercia, Peada, also became a Christian and Christianity prevailed in his kingdom.

In 664, at the council of Whitby, King Oswy of Northumbria decided that his kingdom would follow the practices of the False Church of Rome, rather than those of Celtic Christianity.

The continual shifting of borders, alliances, and dominance of the Seven Kingdoms changed the languages of the Anglo-Saxon invaders.

Old Frisian, Old Anglo, Old Jute, and Old Saxon eventually became four dialects of a new language called Old English.  These four dialects of Old English were Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish, and West Saxon.

By 680 AD, Caedmon's Hymn, the oldest known literature written in Old English, was written using the Latin characters used to write British Latin.

By 700 AD, Sussex, another of the Seven Kingdoms, had became Christian as well due to the efforts of a missionary named Wilfrid.

By 731 AD, when Bede wrote his history of the English, in British Latin, all of the the Seven Kingdoms were all Christian kingdoms.

British Latin was no longer a spoken language by this point.  It was only used by religious professionals and the highly educated.  They had little choice since the only copies of the Book of Truth, and related materials, were all written in Latin.

Most of the British people in the Seven Kingdoms, who had spoken British Latin, now spoke Celtic British.  Some of the British people also spoke some Old English.  They spoke the dialect of Old English that was spoken by those who ruled the kingdom that they lived in.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Seven Kingdoms continued for over another hundred years.

The Seven Kingdoms continued to shift from dominance between multiple overlords, until Offa, king of Mercia, became overlord of all of the Seven Kingdoms, except Northumbria, by 790 AD.

Then in 793 AD, a Danish Viking ship showed up, sacked the island of Lindisfarne, and returned home.

After King Offa died in 796 AD, the kings of the Seven Kingdoms fought again for dominance.

In 802 AD, Ecgbert, the king of Wessex, began gaining dominance over the Seven Kingdoms.

In 829 AD, Northumbria submitted to King Ecbert.  He became the first high king over the Seven Kingdoms.  For the first time, there was a single high king over all of the Anglo-Saxons.

In 835 AD, Danish Viking ships began frequently making raids against the Seven Kingdoms.

After Ecgbert died in 839 AD, the Seven Kingdoms soon returned to fighting each other for dominance, while those kingdoms on the eastern coast were distracted by the Danish Viking raids.

In 860 AD, the Danish Viking ships suddenly stopped appearing.

However the Danish Vikings were not done with an England weakened by centuries of internal fighting between the Seven Kingdoms.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in 865 AD, multitudes of Danish Viking ships appeared for a full-scale invasion with what the Anglo-Saxons called, "The Great Heathen Army".

By 869 AD, the kingdoms of East Anglia and Northumbria were under Danish Viking control.

In 871 AD, the Danish Vikings received reinforcements with what the Anglo-Saxons called, "The Great Summer Army".

By 878 AD, the Danish Vikings controlled all of the Seven Kingdoms, except for a small part of the kingdom of Wessex.  The era of the Seven Kingdoms was over.

However, King Alfred made a surprise attack on the Danish Vikings in May of that year.  

His army soon had the Danish Vikings and their king, Guthrum, besieged in their stronghold.  The Danish Vikings ultimately agreed to withdraw from Wessex and their king was baptized.  Upon becoming a Christian, King Guthrum took on the new name of Aethelstan.

King Alfred led the Anglo-Saxons in taking back more of their land until he reclaimed London in 886 AD.

At this point, he made peace with King Aethelstan.  They split the land of the former Seven Kingdoms roughly in half, with a border that ran southeast to northwest. The Danish Vikings held the northern half and called their kingdom, "Danelaw".  The Anglo-Saxons held the southern half, except for the small kingdom of Cornwall that was retained by the British.  King Alfred was the sole king of the the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom.

Their treaty also had provisions for a number of laws based on the Law of Truth  (Torah aka The Law) that would be observed in both kingdoms.

By this time, most of the people in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom, as well as the the Anglo-Saxons in Danelaw, spoke Old English.  The Danish Viking immigrants in Danelaw spoke Old Norse.  British Celtic was only the dominant language in Cornwall, southwest of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, in Wales, west of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, and in Strathclyde, northwest of Danelaw.

So, King Alfred made the West Saxon dialect of Old English the official version, and began having documents written in British Latin translated into it.  He also set about creating an education system to teach the nobility, and the gifted from all classes, to read and write both Old English and British Latin.  This allowed the translation work to continue.

He created a list of the books most necessary for the common people of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom to be able to read, in order for the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom to be a strong and prosperous nation.  He put his army of scholars translating those books into Old English first.  His ultimate goal was to have the Book of Truth translated into Old English.

King Alfred translated at least four books himself, including fifty-five of the Psalms translated from the Latin Vulgate into Old English. These were collected in the Old English Psaltery used for praise and worship during church services throughout both his kingdom and Danelaw.

King Alfred also extended the education system to teach even those in the lowest class how to read and write Old English.  This way, the wisdom to make the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom strong and prosperous could penetrate every level of society.

At the same time, King Alfred worked with the religious professionals to create a comprehensive series of laws compiled together in the 120 chapter Doom Book.  This was the first uniform set of laws since the Romans had left, and the first to be written in Old English.

King Alfred and the religious professionals compiled these laws from the laws written by three earlier kings, each one over a different one of the Seven Kingdoms at a different time, and the Book of Truth.  He wrote about a fifth of the Doom Book himself, including the introduction.

In the introduction, King Alfred began with his own translation of the Ten Commandments, part of the book of Exodus, and the letter from the Apostles detailing what was expected of the Gentile Children of Truth (Acts 15:23-29).  He then proceeded to explain that the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ) had not come to do away with the Law of Truth, but to show people how to fulfill it with meekness and mercy (Matthew 5:17-18).  He set about to establish the Law of Truth in a way practical for the Anglo-Saxons, because he wanted to be great in the kingdom of the Man of Truth (Matthew 5:19).

King Alfred also explained in his introduction, that he had chosen for the laws of the Doom Book to be arranged in 120 chapters, because Moses had died at 120 years of age (Deuteronomy 34:7).  He wanted people to forever be aware that the Law of Truth was the basis for the laws of any kingdom, which wanted to be strong and prosperous.

King Alfred also built the first Anglo-Saxon navy, so the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom would stop being so vulnerable to invasion from the mainland of Europe.

With the Anglo-Saxon kingdom secure, King Alfred was ready to begin work on his dream of the Book of Truth to being translated into the common language of his kingdom, so everyone in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom could read it for themselves.

Before translation of the Book of Truth could begin, King Alfred died in 889 AD.  Afterwards, the English called him, "Alfred the Great".

The religious professionals immediately abandoned all efforts to translate the Book of Truth.  They wanted the common people of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom to remain depended upon them to tell them what it said.  If people started reading it themselves, then they would start seeing contradictions between it and the practices of the False Church of Rome.

Not long after that, King Aethelstan also died in 890 AD.

King Alfred had created a standard for the pronunciation and definitions for Old English words.  He also confirmed that the letters of the British Latin were the standard for writing Old English words.

King Alfred had ensured that this standard form of Old English was learned and used across all classes for all purposes.  He made it both the language of the government and the church.

The people of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom finally had a single unifying language used by both the rulers and the ruled.  The formation of English was finally completed.

All that was left to be done was to translate the Book of Truth into English.

The formation of English as the standard language of the natives of Britain from four different spoken foreign languages and an unrelated written foreign language was not a strange accident of history.

This was the work of the Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD).   He had brought about the rise and fall of Empires to set these events in motion.  Gomer and his bands had to have a single unifying language to make His plans for them come to past.

It was the Children of Truth actively carrying out the Great Commission that made this possible.  They were the fingers of His hidden hand.

The Children of Truth gave the Anglo-Saxons a system for writing their language. They brought the Good News to the British people.  They preserved the use of Latin writing in their efforts to maintain the Indestructible Book in a land, where many people were often hostile to it.  They made faithful copy after faithful copy of the Book of Truth to preserve the Incorruptible Word in modern England.  They were the first to begin writing in Old English to teach the Anglo-Saxons some of the truths contained in the Book of Truth.  Their testimony brought the Anglo-Saxon kings into submission to the King of The Jews.

It was the desire of King Alfred for the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom, and the people who lived in it, to come into obedience to the Law of Truth that drove him to finish the formation of English.  It was his desire for the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom to live in accordance to the Book of Truth, that caused him have everyone in his kingdom taught standardized Old English.  It was his desire for his people to be able to read the Book of Truth for themselves, that drove his efforts to have all important books translated into standardized Old English.

Eventually, the journey that King Alfred had started was completed.  However, that strange and arduous journey is a story for another day.

Today, the entire Book of Truth is available in almost half of all written languages.  At least part of it is available in almost every written language.

The truth is that most of the languages in the world had their first system of writing created by Christian missionaries.  This includes well known and widely spoken languages like Russian.  Even today, it is Christian missionaries living among native speakers, who are working to create writing systems for those languages.  Their driving goal is to allow the natives to read the Book of Truth in their own language.

The goal of all this effort is to bring people of every nation into the House of Truth.

The Good News must be preached to all people (Mark 16:15)!

All people must be convicted by the Law of Truth.

All people must be told about the Law of Truth to be convicted of their sin (Romans 7:7).  They must be told that sin is transgression of the Law of Truth (1 John 3:4).

All people must be warned that the wages of sin is eternal death (Romans 6:23).  

All people must hear the story of the great love of the Father of Truth for them.

All people must be told of His love which caused Him to sacrifice His only son to save them (John 3:16).  They must be told of His unspeakable gift (2 Corinthians 9:15).

All people must be told that the Father of Truth is not willing for any of them to perish (2 Peter 3:9).

All people must be taught about the Spirit of Truth (Ruach HaQodesh aka The Holy Spirit aka The Holy Ghost).

All people must be told that the Spirit of Truth will make them able to obey the Law of Truth from their hearts (Ezekiel 11:19-20).  They must be told that the Spirit of Truth will lead them into all truth (John 16:13). 

All people must be told that the Spirit of Truth will empower them to tell other people the Good News (Acts 1:8).

All people must be told the Good News about the Man of Truth.

All people must be told about Man of Truth dying on a cross for their sins, and rising again for their justification (Romans 4:24-25).  They must be told that he will also either resurrect them from the dead, or take them off this Earth alive, to meet him in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17).

All people must be told the Man of Truth will soon return to rule over this Earth (Revelation 11:15)!

The Father of Truth has given everyone assurance that the Man of Truth will judge them by resurrecting him from the dead (Acts 17:31).  Every person will either bow to the Man of Truth now out of love, or bow later out of fear (Philippians 2:9-11).

So, bow to the Man of Truth now and be saved, because you believe that the Father of Truth raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9).  People of every language will reign with the Man of Truth in his kingdom (Revelation 5:9-10)!  Join King Alfred in ruling as a king in the kingdom of the King of Kings (Revelation 19:14-16)!

Come into the House of Truth!

The Reluctant Jew

What should people do if they discover that they have Jewish ancestry?

Have you ever had a friend, co-worker, or relative by marriage find out that they had Jewish ancestry?

I have known people, who through genealogy research, or DNA testing, or a deathbed confession by their oldest living relative, or some other means, discover that they have one definitely Jewish ancestor, possibly from five hundred or more years before they were born.  A lot of them just started acting weird after that.

Even though they might be one billionth Jewish, they started wearing a yarmulke, and suddenly referring to their best friend since kindergarten as their "Gentile friend".  They started growing long side locks and an untrimmed beard.  They started learning Yiddish and working Hebrew words into every conversation.

In fact, they started becoming hyper-Jewish as they tried to up their Jew credibility.  They started flying an Israeli flag in their front yard and putting a mezuzah in their car.  They started putting on and tying their shoes in the order prescribed by the Rabbis - as if that somehow makes them more Jewish.

They started seeking out other Jewish people to bring into their life - and putting up barriers to keep everyone else out.  They would only eat at kosher restaurants.

The ironic thing is that all of these efforts to "be Jewish" actually puts off a lot of Jewish people.  They think that these people are a little crazy.

Most people who were raised Jewish are seeking to fit in with the host society at large.  They are generally comfortable with their Jewish identities and do not feel any need to prove how Jewish they are.  In fact, some of them are doing their best to keep their identities as Jews as secret as possible.

Those raised Jewish can see the downsides to being Jewish, which those who have learned that they have Jewish ancestry after becoming adults seem to be blind to.  Those not raised Jewish go overboard doing Jewish things, because they do not know how to simply be Jewish.

However, I know one man that went the completely the opposite direction of most people, when he discovered that he had Jewish ancestry.  I call him The Reluctant Jew.

The Reluctant Jew was raised as a Gentile on a farm with the parents of his mother.  They lived just like to their neighbors, except for a few things.

The mother of The Reluctant Jew insisted that they do some of these things, because that is what she had learned from the mother of her father, when she grew up on the same farm.  His mother had no idea why they did things that way, but she insisted that had to be done that way.

Her father also did some things with the land that none of their neighbors did, but his father had taught him to do.  They also ate a few dishes that her father had grown up with, which their neighbors did not make.

They were neighborly, helping their neighbors when needed, but mostly kept to themselves.  Their farm was in many ways a world unto itself.

Like most of his neighbors, his family loved to eat catfish and frog legs.  His grandfather loved to eat pickled pig's feet.

The Reluctant Jew went to church on Sundays.  He celebrated Easter, Halloween, and Christmas.  He went to public school and participated in the same things as everyone else.

Yet at times, some people would hate him with an irrational hatred.  They had no good reason to hate someone who had only done good to them.  They persecuted him without a cause.

So The Reluctant Jew never felt like he could never fit in, no matter how hard he tried.

His grandfather also loved to read the Book of Truth (The Bible).  He was thrilled, that by some strange coincidence his family name was in the Book of Truth.

His grandfather also spent decades researching the genealogy of his family with his cousin.  It was their hobby.  They traced the family of genealogy of his father and mother back to about 800 AD.

His grandfather told him about the migration that some of his ancestors had taken from one place in Europe to another, then from Europe to America, and finally from one place in America to another, until they finally settled down in the area where their farm as located.

So, The Reluctant Jew grew up believing the Great White Lie that so many Americans believe - that he only had ancestors from northern and western Europe.  As far he was concerned, his family was one hundred percent part of Gomer and his bands.

After his grandfather died, The Reluctant Jew started reading the Book of Truth for himself.  Eventually, he came into the House of Truth by coming the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ) in total surrender. 

Afterwards, The Reluctant Jew married a beautiful woman with ancestors from Poland and Ireland in the mix.  So she was racially a little different than him, but he did not mind.  He had thick skin and loved her.  He would deal with any relatives who gave him grief for having an inter-racial marriage.

Soon, The Reluctant Jew suffered persecution from his relatives for following the Man of Truth.  After a while, he joined the military and moved away with his wife.

While in the military, The Reluctant Jew had to get special permission to deal with grooming standards differently due to a couple of genetic abnormalities.  He found it strange that he had these abnormalities, since some were only found in people with northern African, Arab, or Jewish ancestry.  After all, he was sure that he only had northern and western European ancestry.

After finishing his military service, The Reluctant Jew moved to a large city to complete his education and build a better future for his family.

While there, the Reluctant Jew began going to church services three times a week and watching Christian television shows.  He became interested in one show because it told him about the connection between the Jewish people and the Bible.  He had a vague sense that the Man of Truth was Jewish before that, but he did really understand what that meant.

Then one Sunday while napping between church services, The Reluctant Jew had a strange dream.

The Reluctant Jew saw a what looked kind of like a castle, except the castle walls were very long and there were no higher castle walls inside the outer castle walls.  He looked at this castle-like structure from a distance until he spotted a gate.  Suddenly, the area around the gate looked magnified and he could see what looked like bullet holes are around it.  The his vision zoomed back out so he could see the gate and the castle walls.  Finally, the castle-like structure called out to him in the voice of a woman, "Come home, come home".

The Reluctant Jew had no idea what this dream meant, but he could forget it like most dreams.  He can still see that castle-like structure and hear the voice of the woman calling out to him, "Come home, come home".

The Reluctant Jew knew that he had ancestors from England, Scotland, France, Germany, and Norway, so he thought that perhaps the Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD) was calling him to go to one of those countries.  He looked through books and on-line for pictures of castles in those countries.  Although some built by the Crusaders had similar shaped walls, none of them were that castle-like structure, which had called out to him in his dream.

Later, The Reluctant Jew went on a vacation.  He normally did not turn on the television while on vacation, but while waiting for his wife, he suddenly felt the need to turn it on.

On the screen was a commercial about visiting Israel.  At the end of the commercial, the voice of a woman said, "Come home to Israel.".

This caught the attention of The Reluctant Jew.  The voice was similar to the one that he had heard in his dream.  However, it just did not make any sense, considering his ancestry.

Later that year, the mother of The Reluctant Jew went to visit his brother, who had moved to Europe to be near to the parents of his wife.

When his mother came back from her trip, she told The Reluctant Jew about her visit - mostly the sites she had seen and the food that she had ate.  He was particular interested in the pictures of the castles she brought back.

Then she started laughing about something crazy that her daughter-in-law had told her.

Her daughter-in-law had been going on about how great her country was, and how much better people from her country were than other people.  Then the mother of The Reluctant Jew chimed in, that her ancestors were from that same country.

Her daughter-in-law suddenly looked at her and sternly said, "They are not part of the people of this country.  They moved here from somewhere else.  They are Jews!".  This was not a compliment.

As soon as The Reluctant Jew heard this, it turned his entire world upside down.  He sat there stunned unable to really think.  He could hardly believe her words, but something inside was telling him that it was true.

The Reluctant Jew knew that this revelation about his ancestry was life changing.  He just was not sure if it was good or bad.  It was like learning that you either have the winning lottery ticket - or terminal cancer.

As soon as he started recovering from the initial shock, the first thing he thought about was a book he had read in sixth grade, The Diary of Ann Frank.  Then he thought about the Holocaust, the Pogroms, the Inquisition, and the Crusades.  Then he thought, "My ancestors were wise to hide this.".

Next, he turned to his wife and asked her what she thought.  She looked at him and said, "Well, you do kind of have a big nose.".  He had never thought of his nose as big, and he had no idea what that had to do with anything.

Later his wife explained, that she had been around plenty of Jewish people in the big city where she had lived before her family moved to the country.  Most of the Jews that she had seen there had kind of a big nose.

Then he said, "As if I did not have enough trouble.".

He knew that a lot of his neighbor believed that the Jews somehow controlled everything as part of a global conspiracy.

The Reluctant Jew had always thought that their conspiracy theories were crazy.  However, he also knew that it did not matter what he believed.  It mattered what the drunken crowd with the guns believed.

Still, The Reluctant Jew was not convinced.  The truth is that he knew hardly anything about Jewish people, other than what he had read in the Book of Truth and history books, and had seen on Christian television.

Yet, as The Reluctant Jew continued to learn more about Jewish people from Christian television shows, some of the things began to get his attention.  Jewish people from Europe did the same things out of tradition that his mother and grandfather had done - even though they did not have any idea why they had been taught to do them.  They also ate those same dishes that his family ate, but other families in his area did not know how to make.

The Reluctant Jew also learned that one of his children had a rare form of a rare medical condition, which only occurred in people of Jewish ancestry from northern and western Europe.  He thought, surely the doctors have made a misdiagnosis.  They had genetic testing done to confirm it, but he thought they must have misinterpret the results.

While these things bothered The Reluctant Jew, he was still reluctant to believe that he was Jewish.  In fact, he had started acting hyper-Gentile as he tried to up his Gentile credibility.  He was no longer comfortable with identity that he had grown up with.  He could no longer simply be Gentile.

Not long after that, during an economic downturn, The Reluctant Jew found himself unemployed with a lot of free time on his hands.

Then one day, while watching a Christian television show about Jerusalem, The Reluctant Jew saw the castle-like structure and gate that he had seen in his dream!

In this show, The Reluctant Jew learned that the Old City of Jerusalem was surrounded by a castle-like wall built in a style similar to that of the Crusaders in 1538 by Suleiman the Magnificent.  Cities with a low castle-like wall surrounding them were called walled cities.

The Reluctant Jew also learned that the gate was called the Lions Gate, after the heraldic lions representing the family of Suleiman the Magnificent that decorated it.  It had been called the Sheep Gate during the time of the Man of Truth, because the sheep sacrificed at the Temple were brought in through the gate, which had existed in the same location before the Romans destroyed the walls of Jerusalem in 70 AD.  It was later called "Saint Stephen's Gate", because it is believed to be the gate that Stephen the Jew (Saint Stephen) was taken out when he was stoned outside of Jerusalem.

The Reluctant Jew could see that the gate looked like it was full of bullet holes.  He learned that that those bullet holes were made when Israeli paratroopers stormed the gate to take control of Jerusalem in 1967 AD.  Lastly, he learned that the gate was on the eastern wall near the north east corner and was where the road went out that led to the King's highway from Jerusalem.

That shook up The Reluctant Jew!  So, he decided to do some research to find out if what his sister-in-law had told his mother was true.

First, The Reluctant Jew verified the route that the ancestors of the father of his grandfather had told him was accurate.  In fact, there was a trail of evidence all the way back to 800 AD that included cities along the route that were named after a variation of their family name appropriate for each location.

When The Reluctant Jew got to beginning of the journey that his grandfather told him about, it was in the same country as his sister-in-law.  However, at that time Jews had different surnames than the natives of that country.  One of those surnames was that of his grandfather.  He also learned that these Jews had moved in from another country far to the east at that time to escape persecution.  Everything that his sister-in-law had said was true!

The Reluctant Jew also learned that the family of his grandfather had a sharp division over religion along the route in America around 1840 AD.  His part of the family had kept their surname, but the rest of the family changed their surname to "Israel".

Next, The Reluctant Jew learned that the maiden name of his mother was in the Book of Truth not once, but five times!  The surname of her father was simply how that Hebrew name was pronounced in the European country that they had immigrated into.  The Book of Truth not only gave the genealogy of the ancestor that gave them their surname twice, but also told what tribe their ancestor was from and that a city in the land of that tribe was built in his name.

When The Reluctant Jew looked up the location of the ancient city in Israel named for this ancestor, he found that it was about three and a half miles (six kilometers) to the northeast of the walled city of Jerusalem along the road that lead to the King's highway.  If one left that city towards Jerusalem, then they would see the Sheep Gate and the walls of Jerusalem!

So five years after his mother had told him what his sister-in-law said, The Reluctant Jew reluctantly accepted that he was Jewish.  He could no longer deny the evidence.  It was simply overwhelming.

The Reluctant Jew realized that it had been the Spirit of Truth (Ruach HaQodesh aka The Holy Spirit aka The Holy Ghost), which had witnessed to him that what his sister-in-law said was true as soon as he heard it.

Now that The Reluctant Jew knew the truth, he asked the Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD) what he should do.  Immediately he heard the Spirit of Truth say, "Do not go around telling people that you are Jewish.  Keep it secret.  That will allow you to be put in a position help the Jewish people when their persecution arises in America.".

That is the same thing that happened with Queen Esther.

Mordecai the Jew raised his orphaned cousin, Hadassah the Jew, but called her by the Babylonian name "Esther" outside of his home (Esther 2:5-7).

When Esther was forced to become part of the harem of King Ahasuerus, she kept her Jewish identity and relationship to Mordecai the Jew secret, as her cousin had commanded (Esther 2:8-11).  Even after King Ahasuerus chose Esther to be his queen, she continue to obey the command of Mordecai the Jew to keep her Jewish identity and relationship to him secret (Esther 2:12-20).

When Mordecai the Jew saved King Ahasuerus from an assassination plot by warning Queen Esther, she only told King Ahasuerus that Mordecai the Jew had warned him - without mentioning his relationship to her (Esther 2:21-23).

Four years later,  Mordecai the Jew invoked the wrath of the new Prime Minister of King Ahasuerus, Haman the Agagite, by refusing to bow before him (Esther 3:1-5).  In fact, this made Haman the Agagite so angry that he was determine to destroy every single Jew in the vast Persian Empire (Esther 3:6).

So, Haman the Agagite determined to destroy the Jews at the end of the year by casting lots, and convinced King Ahasuerus to sign a law calling for the extermination of all Jews in the Persian Empire at that time (Esther 3:7-12).  Then the law was published throughout his empire (Esther 3:13-15).

When Mordecai the Jew and all of the Jews throughout the Persian Empire heard the news, they began weeping in sackcloth and ashes (Esther 4:1-3).  When Queen Esther heard the weeping, she sent her servant to ask Mordecai the Jew what was going on (Esther 4:4-6).

Mordecai the Jew sent back a message to Queen Esther, that she must go and plead to King Ahasuerus for her people (Esther 4:7-9).  Queen Esther sent back a message to Mordecai the Jew, that she could be killed for coming into the court of her husband uninvited (Esther 4:10-12).  Mordecai the Jew sent back a message to Queen Esther, that her secret identity as a Jew would be found out and she would be certainly killed, if she did not go (Esther 4:13-14).  So, Queen Esther sent back a reply, for all of the Jewish people to fast and pray with her for three days, and then she would go to plead before King Ahasuerus uninvited, even if she was killed for doing so (Esther 4:15-16).   So, Mordecai and all the Jews did as she requested (Esther 4:17).

When Queen Esther went to King Ahasuerus uninvited, he spared her life and promised to give her whatever she wanted (Esther 5:1-3).  So, she invited her husband and Haman the Agagite to a banquet with her for two days, and promised to tell him what she wanted at the second banquet (Esther 5:4-8).

Then Haman the Agagite went home to share his joy of being the guest of honor at the second banquet and made plans to have Mordecai the Jew hung outside his home (Esther 5:9-14).

That night King Ahasuerus could not sleep, so he had the chronicles of his reign read to him and learned that Mordecai the Jew had never been rewarded for saving his life (Esther 6:1-3).  Then Haman the Agagite came into make his request to have Mordecai the Jew hung, but the king asked him first, how to show honor to someone he highly valued (Esther 6:4-6).  So Haman the Agagite told the king what to do, but to his horror, the king commanded him to do all of these things for Mordecai the Jew (Esther 6:7-10).

After doing all of these things for Mordecai the Jew, Haman the Agagite was whisked away to the second banquet of Queen Esther (Esther 6:11-14).

At the second banquet, Queen Esther finally revealed that she was a Jew, and requested that King Ahasuerus save her and her people from the plot of Haman the Agagite to destroy the Jews (Esther 7:1-6).  Then her husband had Haman the Agagite hung on the very gallows that he had prepared to hang Mordecai the Jew on (Esther 7:7-10).

After that, Queen Esther revealed to her husband that Mordecai the Jew had raised her, so King Ahasuerus made him the new Prime Minister to replace of Haman the Agagite (Esther 8:1-2).  Then she pleaded again with her husband to save her people from the plot of Haman the Agagite (Esther 8:3-6).  So, he had Mordecai the Jew make a law that allowed the Jews, their friends, and his army to destroy those who sought to destroy the Jews, and had the law published throughout the vast Persian Empire (Esther 8:7-17).

So, the Jewish people were saved from their enemies and celebrated their deliverance (Esther 9:1-19).  After that, Mordecai the Jew established annual holiday to remind the Jews of their deliverance from destruction (Esther 9:20-25).  So, Purim celebrates how the Jews were saved from destruction by Queen Esther hiding her identity as a Jew (Esther 9:26-32).

So, it was wise of The Reluctant Jew to hide his identity as a Jew, for these days in America are not that much different than the days of Esther in ancient Persia.  

Mordecai began hiding the Jewish identity of Esther as soon as he gave the Babylonian name of Esther to use outside their home, instead of calling by her Jewish name of Hadassah.  There was no visible danger to the Jewish people at that time, but Mordecai could see that things were beginning to change.

Esther kept her Jewish identity secret as Mordecai commanded, even from her husband for almost five years, until it was time to reveal her Jewish identity to save her people.

In like manner, people like The Reluctant Jew need to recognize the signs of the times that they live in, and act accordingly.  America has not answered the call of 9-11 that should have woke it up.

The Spirit of Anti-Jewism is rising in America.  There have been more attacks against Jews in the last few years than any other time since the Pilgrims created a safe haven for Jews in North America.  The level of attacks against Jews in America, both verbal and physical, is at about at the same level that existed in Germany ten years before Hitler rose to power.

The stupid thing is, that the most anti-Israel and anti-Jewish politicians in America carried the Jewish vote in their election to office.  Even today, Bernie Sanders, a Jew by birth only, is the most anti-Israel candidate in the Democratic primary.

Most American Jews need to wake up and stop putting their animosity against the Law of Truth (Torah aka The Law) above their own survival.

Most American Jews should value their own lives more than the sick and twisted "right" of a woman to have her own unborn child brutally murdered.  They should be supporting the death penalty for those serial killers who perform abortions. 

Most American Jews should stop promoting the perverted alphabet of sexual choices condemned by the Law of Truth.  They need to remember that the Father of Truth has already cast His vote, that these are never the right partnership for love, when he cast down destruction on those married in Sodom.

This rise in attacks against Jews in America is directly tied to rise of the Spirit of Antichrist in America.  Christians are under attack in every area of American life, since the Spirit of Truth has ceased to be the American Spirit.  The only hope of making America great again, is for Americans to return to basing their laws on the Law of Truth.

Otherwise, America will turn against the Jews to destroy them.  That will make the death of America certain.

It certain that America will turn against the Jews at some point, for all nations will do so in the near future (Joel 3:1-3).

So, the best thing that a person can do when they discover that they have Jewish ancestry, is to keep it secret!

The Reluctant Jew is not only person with a hidden Jewish ancestry that they did not know about.  There are many more.  In fact, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel issued a statement that there may be more people who do not know that they have Jewish ancestry than there are people who do know.

One reason for this is, that there are many people whose ancestors were part of the lost tribes of Israel.  No entire tribe was actually lost, for many of those carried away by the Assyrians were moved into the cities of the Medes (2 Kings 18:11).  The Medes joined with the Persians in forming the Persian Empire (Esther 1:19).

Still, many descendants of Israel were scattered among the Gentiles by the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Roman empires.  They intermarried with Gentiles, and never revealed their Jewish ancestry to anyone.  So, their Jewish ancestry was hidden from their descendants.  These are the hidden ones.

Even though their Jewish ancestry is hidden from them, the Father of Lies (HaShatan aka Satan Aka The Devil) also knows who they are, and raises up senseless hatred for them in other people, just like he does for all descendants of Israel (Psalm 83:2-4).  It is for this reason, that Hitler had so much effort made to discover anyone with unknown Jewish ancestry among the people of Germany.

It is due to this hidden Jewish ancestry that they can never fit in, and are often singled out for harassment, every place they live (Deuteronomy 28:64-66).  They do live by different rules than the people of the host nation that they live among, and so are hated for being different (Esther 3:8).

However, in the diaspora of the Jewish people, the Father of Truth has always provided them little sanctuaries to preserve them (Ezekiel 11:16).

Those little sanctuaries have been through the Gentile Children of Truth (those who obey The Father of Truth because they love Him).  They have joined themselves to the Jewish people, just like Gentiles did in the days of Queen Esther (Esther 9:27).

When the Gentile ruler of a nation is joined to the Jewish people, then their government will protect the Jewish people (Esther 9:1-3).

However, no nation has continued to treat the Jewish people well for more than about 400 years.  So, time is almost up in America.

This is why so many of the American Children of Truth, like The Reluctant Jew, are having their hidden Jewish ancestry revealed to them.  It has been hidden for generations, so it could be revealed to them for such a time as this!

Those who keep their Jewish ancestry secret, will be able to be placed in positions where they can help the Jewish people in the coming time of American persecution.  The hidden hand of the Father of Truth will place them in the right place at the right time.

It is all part of the plan to bring about the end of anti-Jewism.

The Jewish people have been sent to the ends of the Earth and back again.  The Father of Truth is returning them to the Impossible Country.  When the Jewish people completely return to Him, then He will complete the plan by returning them completely to the land of Israel (Deuteronomy 30:1-3).

So, why do many of the Children of Truth start acting weird when they discover that they have Jewish ancestry?

It is because they have been led to believe that Jews are better than Gentiles in various ways.

There is simply no truth to this.

Jews are no better than Gentiles - both are equally guilty of sinning against the Father of Truth (Romans 3:9-19).  Both are justified by faith (Romans 3:29-30).  Both are called to salvation (Romans 9:24-27).  Both are part of the same body and have been given the same Spirit of Truth (1 Corinthians 12:12-14).  Both have been joined together as one new man by the reconciliation that came through the cross (Ephesians 2:14-16).  Both have became a new kind of person, who has been forgiven through the Man of Truth (Colossians 3:10-13).

The Father of Truth commanded that we are not to show respect between people in applying the Law of Truth (Deuteronomy 1:17).  In like manner, He has never shown respect between people (2 Samuel 14:14).  He accepts everyone, who will walk in His ways (Acts 10:34-35).  He will reward both Jews and Gentiles equally based on what they have done (Romans 2:6-11).   Whoever does what is right in His eyes will be rewarded with inheritance in His kingdom, but whoever does what is wrong in His eyes will be rewarded with the punishment that they deserve (Colossians 3:24-25).

Jews do not have some sort of different deal with the Father of Truth.  The Deal that the Father of Truth offers to the Jews is the same one that He offers to the Gentiles.  The Man of Truth is both the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the Gentiles.

The only advantage that Jews have over Gentiles, is that the Word of Truth was given to their ancestors (Romans 3:1-2).  They are the people, who the Father of Truth committed everything to that pertains to Him on this Earth, and they are the ethnic group of the Man of Truth (Romans 9:3-5).  The entire world being restored to life depends upon them coming into the House of Truth (Romans 11:13-15).

The Gentile Children of Truth were grafted into the tree of Israel - not the other way around (Romans 11:16-18)!   They became part of the people of Israel that the Father of Truth always intended (Galatians 6:14-16).  They became part of the nation of Israel (Ephesians 2:11-13).

Some of the Jewish people were broken off of the tree of Israel due to their unbelief, so that some of the Gentiles could be grafted in due to their faith (Romans 11:19-20).  However, some of the Gentiles have been broken off the tree of Israel when they fell into unbelief, and some of the Jewish people have been grafted back in when they came to faith (Romans 11:21-23).

Many things did not come naturally to Gentiles when they were grafted into the tree of Israel, but when Jews were grafted back into the tree of Israel, those things came naturally to them (Romans 11:24).

So, doing things like throwing a Purim party to remember the deliverance of the Jews through Queen Esther and Mordecai, will come less naturally to people without Jewish ancestry.  However, it will come more naturally to people with Jewish ancestry, like The Reluctant Jew.

The fact is that celebrating Purim is not just a Jewish thing!  The commandment was also given to everyone who has joined themselves to the Jews through faith (Esther 9:26-28).

So, the Children of Truth should not concern themselves with rather or not they have hidden Jewish ancestors, like The Reluctant Jew.  The truth is that it just does not matter one way or the other.  It is coming into the House of Truth that matters (1 Corinthians 7:18-20).

If they have Jewish ancestors, then the Spirit of Truth will reveal it to them at the right time. 

The truth is that many of the Children of Truth are like The Reluctant Jew.  Their Jewish heritage has been kept hidden from them, but is now being revealed.  They are also reluctant to accept it.

Their adoption into the Jewish family has been hidden from most of the Gentile Children of Truth, but it is now being revealed.  The Gentile Children of Truth are Jews as much as The Reluctant Jew.  In fact, they are more Jewish that those who are Jews by birth only, like Bernie Sanders.  It is living to please the King that truly makes one Jewish.

These Gentiles actually became Jews, just like in the days of Esther (Esther 8:17).

The Father of Truth said that when people return to Him, then He would circumcise their hearts, so they could obey the Law of Truth (Deuteronomy 30:6-8). The true Jew is anyone who has had their heart circumcised (Romans 2:25-29).  This is the circumcision not made by the hands of man, which came through the death, burial, and resurrection of the Man of Truth (Colossians 2:10-12).

This commandment of repentance that leads to obedience is not far away, but in the mouths and hearts of those, who hear His Word (Deuteronomy 30:6-8).  This commandment of repentance that leads to obedience is not far away, but in the mouths and hearts of those, who have confidence in His Word that leads to action (Romans 10:6-8).

It is making the Man of Truth your king, because you believe that the Father of Truth raised him from the dead, that brings you into the House of Truth (Romans 10:9-10).  Both Jews and Gentiles become true Jews, when they come into the House of Truth (Romans 10:11-13).

Come into the House of Truth!