Ever wonder about the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel?

I was surfing around and decided to read on the current Pope. Then Google comes up with links to articles about the prophecies about the popes, and I clicked on one which happened to be published on the Christian Churches of God website. It was a long article and eventually, the reader becomes aware that the denomination is anti-pope and disagrees with many things Roman Catholics do.

You could even say the group gets a small drop of satisfaction that the prophecies from Malachy, Book of Revelation, John Bosco and Nostradamus point to the eventual destruction of the Roman Catholic church.

I haven't heard of this group so I decided to go to the home page of the site and Lo and behold, a large button at the top of the page links you to a discussion about the lost tribes of Israel.

Now, when I was a kid, my father used to watch Herbert Armstrong's show on TV, ordered some of his books (we got the ones that prove why the Catholic holidays are pagan), and even had a subscription to the magazine "Plain Truth". Not that my father believes him 100%, it's just that my father likes to read/know about everything, from the occult like astrology to other religions like islam. He still remains a Catholic, and when he noticed I inherited his appetite to know about the same stuff, he asked me (short of making me promise) that even after learning all the negative things about our religion, to remain a Catholic and to have faith that Rome will change and steer the ship to the right direction. If you're wondering, it might help to know he was a young man during Vatican II and still keeps the hopes of that era alive in his heart. In contrast, someone I know has a son who joined a denomination whose main wish is to go back to the era before Vatican II - they even have their mass said in Latin.

If you're reading/listening to Armstrong's show, he makes sense most of the time - including the bashing of the Catholic holidays of Easter and Christmas. One day though, as I was listening to his show, one claim raised big questions in my head... that the Anglo Saxons are the lost tribe of Israel. I was a kid and still at that age, I found something fishy with the logic that Saxon sounding like Isaac's Sons means you're the missing social division mentioned in the bible stories.

That one claim is the root cause of why I ended up:
1) pouring over the Bible during that summer break and creating a very long family tree written at the back of old, large calendars (they make good writing paper - thick, glossy, with more writing space);
2) wondering how the end of the family tree in the bible could be expanded to prove the line ended with the Anglo-Saxons (which I have given up on);
3) looking up the lineage of Britain's royal families;
4) realizing they're just the last of a long line of europe's ruling dynasties;
5) I got interested in mapping out how the dynasties are interconnected;
6) I spent my High School and College "dull time" (i.e. stuck in the house during summer and semestral breaks) making another large family tree, this time of european royal families starting with the Merovingian dynasty.

My "family tree" stopped right after World War 1 started - I remember because I was reading about how the assasination of one man plunged Europe into war. Things got messier after that with royal families dwindling into oblivion.

The college library had books that introduced me to other claims like the Merovingians being Jesus's descendants. If the two would dovetail, you'd have a theory that not only were the Saxons Israelites, but their rulers, who at some point or another are related to Merovee, are descendants of Jesus, the "King of the Jews". Wow, that would mean Israel and Judah are reunited once more. I had to reach for a salt shaker and take a grain.

Where do those theories leave the world's other nations, you may ask?

This Christian Churches of God have expanded the Saxon=Israelites theory to include the territories and people conquered by Britain, and its former colony, the United States. Come to think of it, I think this is similar to Armstrong's group with a more global flavor. I had to grin when I saw my country highlighted in their map as one of those lucky enough to be partake of the "birthright inheritance" promised to Abraham. Does this mean I'm supposed to thank God my country was colonized?