Thread by @1FreeInhabitant

Trying to make sense of the fact that Jacob's sons were essentially rich kids of the Pharaoh's Vizier that went on to settle the known world.

Not known then, mind you... But known NOW!

Greece, Ireland, etc...

This paleo-Hebrew inscription says "for Judah"—unearthed in America.

2) The really strange this is that it's dated to around the time of Christ...

The House of Judah was late to the game... 2,000 years late.

America was already settled & claimed...

Several times over.

3) Oh yes! America was the gem of the ancient world.

Everyone came... Egyptians, Minoans, Phoenicians, Hebrews, Scythians, Romans, the Danes...

Is there any proof?

And the real mystery here is why weren't we told?!

And why has the Smithsonian spent 200 years covering this up?

4) Why did they all come for the last 5,000 years?

Quite simply... Copper.

The best in the world. Not as ore that exist in the strata of the ground, but an actual mountain made of the purest copper on the planet.

And this made the treacherous trip worthwhile for all comers.

5) Take a look at these maps as to where this mother load of copper is located...

The upper Peninsula of Michigan, on the Great lakes.

6) This is my attempt to aggregate many sources, and form one, plausible explanation to this forgotten chapter of our history.

The Bible, hieroglyphics, cuneiform, phonetics, anthropology, archeology, linguistics, genetics, geology, myth, etc.

Possible?

A quick refresher...

7) First...

We have the age-old argument with regards to the Bible, the first man, the creation story, etc...

vs.

Science, genetics, carbon dating, etc.

HARD to reconcile both. So, I will be coming from the scientific context, using the Bible for clues, verification, etc.

8) First things first...

The Middle East is a hell of a lot older than you thought.

Göbekli Tepe is twice as old as Egypt's 1st dynasty.

The City of Jericho had a tower that stood 7,000 years BEFORE Joshua blew his horns.

The Stone Age.

9) Things picked up when copper was used for the first time in prehistory.

Copper was the first major technological advancement that gave a tribe an advantage over another using stone weaponry.

It ushered in easier agriculture w/ the plough.

The oldest was in Jordan—4,000 BCE

10) The knowledge of this new material, and how to gather ore & purify it through smelting, traveled fast in the ancient world.

The land of Canaan sits right between two great ancient civilizations.

Egypt and Sumer... Copper built empires.

Mesopotamia—4000 BCE
Egypt—3500 BCE

11) Interesting side note: If we cross check those dates with the (non-canonical) Book of Enoch, we can see that "In the days of Jared" the watchers came down to mount Hermon.

"Azazel (satan) taught them the secrets of war—magic, metallurgy, and weaponry, and jewelry.

3,500 BCE

12) We know where the early copper mines were because of recent (and old) archaeological discoveries, and through the words of the earliest historians, in both hieroglyphics and cuneiform...

Mostly in the Sinai and the Red Sea side of Arabia...

13) I was really, really trying to keep this thread on the shorter side... As a kind of prequel.

Because I wanted to save my "King Solomon's Mines & Stone of Scone thread," But dammit—It's all flippin' connected... All of it.

This is going to be a monster thread.

Fair warning.

14) Now that I made the decision to merge threads, I don't have to tip-toe around this next group of mysterious people that made all this possible...

Before Phoenicia was Phoenicia (of King Solomon's time 1,000 BCE), there were indeed a sea-going coastal people in modern Lebanon

15) Byblos is as old as Jericho...

Neolithic remains date it to 8,800 BCE. Eusebius said Byblos was the oldest city in the world, founded by Cronus himself!

And Byblos is on the coast.

RIGHT in the middle of all the ACTION.

Sea trade. Land trade... Since day 1.

16) Want to know what else made Byblos the historic center of our sea-going tales of old?

It had an even bigger advantage than copper.

The Cedars of Lebanon.

The best wood in the world for ships—Rot resistant, insect-proof (resin), fine grain, good smell, and workable.

17) Despite the shore-hugging trips of the early Canaanites, they most likely did NOT travel much beyond the Mediterranean & Black Sea.

It took the migration of another people to the same lands of Canaan that would bring the sea technology needed to make Canaan into Phoenicia.

18) Before they packed up and moved into the coastal area of Canaan, the greatest ancient sea-faring people came from Bahrain—a small island in the Persian Gulf.

The DILMUN

They WERE the sea traders between the Indus Valley, the Mesopotamian, and the Egyptian cultures.

19) It's debatable which group of people invented the sail. The earliest depiction of a sail was found in Kuwait—the painted discs.

Whether is was the Ubaid culture or the Dilmun, one thing is for sure. The Dilmun mastered ocean-going vessels.

Not the reed boats of the Tigris.

20) Sometime between 2,500 BCE and 2,000 BCE the greater part of the Dilmun tribe left Bahrain and made the same journey from Ur to Canaan as did Abraham.

Instead of continuing to Egypt, however, they stopped just south of Byblos...

And founded Tyre.

The birth of Phoenicia.

21) "These people, who dwelt on the shores of the Erythraean Sea, migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began AT ONCE, they say, to adventure on LONG VOYAGES, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria."

— Herodotus

22) In fact, Strabo also felt that the Phoenicians were originally from Tylos.

Tylos was the name used by the ancient Greeks to refer to Bahrain.

Strabo was a Classical greek historian.

23) Before we depart from Bahrain, I'd like to point your attention to the following photographs. Please make note.

These ancient mounds are found all over the Island of Bahrain.

This will come into play later in our story.

24) Correction: Strabo was a Greek historian in classical ROMAN times... Herodotus was from the Classical Greek period.

25) Ok... Let's recap...

Canaanites were there since the beginning...

The Dilmun came in waves from Bahrain and founded Tyre on an older, smaller ruin—right next door to Byblos and equally positioned to use those precious cedars.

Then comes Abraham from Ur... Interesting mix.

26) Talk about MIXES!

For a Biblical perspective, it appears the cross section for all the Sons of Noah overlap the area in question.

Right smack in the middle... The (later) promised land.

27) The ebb and flow of kings, kingdoms, and peoples in the middle East is staggering. And because writing—in all its forms—was still primitive, we only have glimpses of these great migrations from the records of these kings.

28) If there ever was an ancient "melting pot" it occurred in two places—both Dilmun:

- Bahrain Dilmun: (Micronesia, Indus/Harappa, Mesopotamia, Ethiopia, Arabia, Egypt)

- Canaanite/Dilmun: (Canaan, Hittites, Assyria, Black Sea Tribes, Mittani, Minoans, Egypt, Libya)

29) It stands to reason that a sea people such as the Dilmun would need to learn communication skills quickly, if they were to be successful in trade and commerce.

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics based on the sounds of human speech, born in Phoenicia—in later years later.

30) Let's set the stage for a part of the story where we may introduce the FIRST lost tribes of Israel. 1,200 years before Nebuchadnezzar II the "destroyer of nations" sent the Israel's tribes far to the North, before coming back for (predominantly) the tribe of Judah in 587 BCE.

31) The very FIRST Diaspora was NOT as slaves, but as Kings—with more money than Pharaoh himself...

Precisely why they were forced out of Egypt, 150 years before Moses lead the less financially fortunate remainder of the Hebrews from the land of Goshen and Tanis, into the Sinai.

32) Abram, Isaac, Jacob... Whose roots lie in the land of Chaldea (Abram's home in Sumer) and VERY familiar with their former neighbors to the South—the Dilmun?

From 1,800 BCE to 1,650 BCE Jacob's Sons became like Pharaohs, and they discovered the world on Dilmun ships.

33) History doesn't remember these peoples as Jews, or Hebrews, or even Phoenician's... Too early.

They were the Hyksos Pharaohs...

And they were a motley crew of Dilmun, Canaanite, Mitanni... and of course—Thanks to Joseph—The Israelites.

Not the face of a Nubian Pharaoh.

34) Keep in mind, before the Hyksos were forced out of the Nile delta region, they did NOT have the Torah, as Moses hadn't been born.

They had Abraham's God, and Noah's Laws (Noahide Law).

But they also had Egypt's God's, and Canaan's God's, and thought themselves as such.

35) Sound crazy? Any proof?

Oh yeah... baby... Lots, and lots...

BUT. We have to use multiple sources to "stitch it all together."

Bible -> Hieroglyphs -> Cuneiform, etc.

Before we get into the details of the FIRST Diaspora, let's backtrack and refresh our memories.

Joseph.

36) Jacob's favorite son.

Sold into slavery by jealous brothers, who tricked their father into thinking Joseph had perished by producing a torn and bloodied coat.

You know the story... Joseph and his coat of many colors.

These brothers, I tell you...

37) Joseph was sent to serve under Pharaoh. And apparently, he was a good looking man. Pharaohs wife had the hots for him.

She tried to bed him... He politely refused. She told Pharaoh that he tried to come onto her, and that SHE refused...

Now get this. Pharaoh knew the truth.

38) Pharaoh knew that Joseph was a righteous man... A good man. And he knew his wife.

For reasons even familiar today, Joseph had to do some "time," despite his innocence.

No worries... Things were about to change.

39) "Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh.

And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it..."

Genesis 41:14

40) Joseph, having spent the last 12 years in prison—known for his ability to interpret dreams—told Pharaoh that his dream of 7 fat cows and 7 starving cows meant that Egypt was to endure 7 years of great plenty, followed by 7 years of great famine.

41) And that if Pharaoh was wise enough to save the excess seed and grain from the years of plenty, Egypt would be spared—even prosper—during famine.

Remember, Pharaoh already liked Joseph from the incident w/ the wife... And Joseph was wise enough to not call her a liar.

42) Do you remember what Pharaoh did then? He basically said, "Great. You run it."

And Joseph did.

And it came to pass that his interpretation did in fact happen, thus strengthening his own position and status w/ Pharaoh.

Joseph—by all accounts, righteous—ran Egypt as Vizier.

43) Other surrounding nations and empires did not fare so well during this time of famine. In fact, Joseph's own family—The Tribe of Israel (Jacob)—were greatly affected...

And thus begins one of my favorite stories in the Bible.

The brothers come to Egypt.

44) I told you this was going to be a monster thread... I'm not going to skip over important parts of this journey, because it's in some of the DETAILS that we find our answers.

So, before I go into what Israel told his sons, we need some perspective...