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lectures > lectures autumn 2002

Genetics and the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel

Speaker: Tudor Parfitt
9th November 2002

The quest for the Lost Tribes of Israel, like the quest for the Holy Grail, for Prester John, or the Ark of the Covenant is one of the enduring motifs underlying Western views of the wider world.

As will be shown, the myth of the Lost Tribes is one of the great universal myths. Its power to persuade is colossal. It has proved not only potent but persistent, and has allowed itself to be recruited to all sorts of causes, in every continent and just about every country. It has even been suggested that the Lost Tribes were involved in the destruction of Atlantis.

Countless peoples, from the Zulus to the Maori, from the American Indians to the Japanese, have been identified as Lost Tribes. Scholars have been sceptical, if not contemptuous. Yet what did happen to these tribes? Did they just disappear? Modern genetics is now opening new doors into the past, and we glimpse signs of a history which had otherwise disappeared.

Tudor Parfitt is Reader in Modern Jewish studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He has written many books ­ two of travel ­ and documentaries set in Africa, the Middle East and particularly the Yemen. His latest book, The Lost Tribes of Israel, was published in September by Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Parfitt has come to international attention through his work using DNA as a tool of historical research. A Channel 4 film two years ago charted his quest for the origins of a Judaising African tribe. Other genetic anthropological work has cast new light on the origin of the Israelite priests and more recently on the origins of the Jews of India.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/losttribes.html