Although this is getting a bit off the rails and I'd rather keep it on JWs I will respond to the post concerning my comments out of courtesy as I was addressed of it.
The interesting thing is that although it's really improbable to be able to trace to a specific lineage of one man who's DNA is not available, I never said the people would not register as a Semitic people. I said that they were Edomites which would still "appear" to be Jews based on their similarities in family lineage, my claim was that they are not from Jacob. Though they were enslaved a lot too due to not having any real organizational kingdom, being nomads, they would typically chameleon into established nations and in some cases overthrow them which is how some of them got into the governmental authority at the time according to Josephus.
As far as how Herod took over -
"But there was a certain friend of Hyrcanus, an Idumean, called Antipater, who was very rich, and in
his nature an active and a seditious man; who was at enmity with Aristobulus, and had differences with
him on account of his good-will to Hyrcanus. It is true that Nicolatls of Damascus says, that Antipater
was of the stock of the principal Jews who came out of Babylon into Judea; but that assertion of his was
to gratify Herod, who was his son, and who, by certain revolutions of fortune, came afterward to be king
of the Jews, whose history we shall give you in its proper place hereafter."
Basically Josephus is saying here that Nicholas of Damascus the "historian" of that time were basically just lying to benefit the Herodian dynasty plan, but since he was an "authoritative" figure of the time, people just took his word for it. Similar to today with some of these cartoon show historians. Things never really change. As the seasons cycle so do the courses of the history of man.
This is also probably why the more recent leaders chose the word "anti-Semitic" even though it makes no sense to use it and covers too many national families, many Arabs for example would be considered "anti-Semetic, but they come from Shem, as well as East Indian families. "Anti-Jacob" would be a more accurate term, but I'm assuming whomever constructed the idea of that term probably knew they didn't come from Jacob, but using Esau or Edom would immediately discredit them, though I think there was an announcement made by a Jewish man saying that they are Edomites, but because there was no internet when he said that and churches even today never really deal with Edom in any great detail, that comment probably didn't register at all with the masses.
Ah I have the quote -
“No one can deny that the Jews are a most unique and unusual people. That uniqueness exists because of their Edomite heritage. You cannot be English Jews. We are a race, and only as a race can we perpetuate. Our mentality is of Edomitish character, and differs from that of an Englishman. Enough subterfuges! Let us assert openly that we are International Jews.”—Manifesto of the “World Jewish Federation,” January 1, 1935, through its spokesperson, Gerald Soman.
Of course for anyone with common sense, to claim Edomitish heritage means that you denounce any lineage to the 12 tribes of Israel.
I also find it interesting that one of the latest DNA researchers they are trying to take down, Dr. Eran Elhaik, did genetic research on the Isreali Jew DNA and bones of Jerusalem ancient burials, the bones were not a perfect match in terms of DNA but they (the Iseali Jews) did match with Roman bones. I don't believe he will ever publicly publish this information though, he'd be good as dead I'm sure.
(Oh wow, as I was going back to check references and I found something new. In that in some of the Arab Islamic religious and historical texts they even blatantly state that the Romans came from Edom, it actually seems impossible for them to separate the description red and Romans).
Romans also seem to have been identified as descendants of Edom during the Roman empire by some of the Israelites. Today many Isreali Jews attempt to explain away the connection by stating it was a "code-name" but this makes no sense because according to Josephus there was a country of Idumea filled with the poorer class of Edomites. Using it as a code name would not make sense if there was an existing country of them and they were most likely referring to the ruling class of the Roman empire, as Rome was a "borg" term much like American is. I have a book on this were it mentions it not being an actual code-name, but I never just have these things right in front of me and it usually takes me hours to type messages if I grab all my materials.
The online jewish-encyclopedia also does not handle the description of Edom very honestly, actually blatantly lying towards the end of the excerpt. If you look it up online, within a Josephus reference of 20,000 soldiers helping Judah in the Roman war (not accurate in this context), they slip a false statement about Edom merging with Judah and dissolving and being unidentifiable today, but if you read the chapters of Josephus that the encyclopedia references there is not even one mention of this statement or any support of it at all, as mentioned before the events mentioned are also taken out of context in the encyclopedia. The average person will probably not have a Josephus on them, or actually spend the time reading the whole thing like I have, which makes me feel a bit pathetic actually haha. I can only theorize that they are banking on people taking their word for it like many other things I've found out by going back into history of what has been said. I think there are about two or three "official" claims to Edom just vanishing, none of them even being minimal satisfactory explanations.
I think we're going to be seeing this Edom thing pop up more and more as time goes on and things get even more crazy in the current world situation.
This part of my post did not seem to get placed in the original message I posted so I'll add this in the end here -
As for the Witnesses, I wouldn't particularly say they are exactly the same as Pharisees, many of the so-called "Christians" were also accused of being "better than everyone else" from the sources I read of Israelites that only believed the Torah and they were also bashed in 1st century Gentile critique writings for not following any of the state holidays. So the authentic followers were definitely hated on both sides.
