British Israelism

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British Israelism (also called Anglo-Israelism) is a pseudohistorical belief that the people of Great Britain are "genetically, racially, and linguistically the direct descendants" of the Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel. With roots in the 18th century, British Israelism was inspired by several 19th-century English writings such as John Wilson's 1840 Our Israelitish Origin. From the 1870s onward, numerous independent British Israelite organizations were set up throughout the British Empire as well as in the United States; as of the early 21st century, a number of these organizations are still active. In the United States, the idea gave rise to the Christian Identity movement. The central tenets of British Israelism have been regarded as pseudoscientific and refutable by archaeological, ethnological, genetic, and linguistic research by mainstream sources.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Colonel John Garnier (1838-1929), Public domain