We stated in our last post that Revelation 17 and 18 showed us that there appears to be a case of mistaken identity—an imposter scenario—in which true Biblical Israel is impersonated by someone who is not true Israel. In this post, we explore the case of a curious group of people from Central Asia, whose connection to the modern state of Israel has often gone unspoken. We highlight this group’s connection to what we now know is Mystery Babylon. We furthermore take a journey to learn how that connection applies to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
Khazaria: An Origin Story
Khazaria was a central Asian kingdom that existed from the year 650 to 1259 AD and emerged from the Western Turkic Khanganate. At its broadest, the kingdom’s geographical borders included eastern Ukraine, Crimea, southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, and northwestern Uzbekistan. Ethnically, the residents of Khazaria, the Khazars—were a Turkic people. Based on Genesis 10 in scripture, we consider the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth to be the progenitors of all people groups on the earth today; the Khazars are descendants of Japheth. The Khazars were a nomadic warrior-type people who were successful in battle and their military strength is credited with curbing the expansion of the Arab Islamic empire into eastern Europe during the Middle Ages. Because of this empire’s vast geography, it included key trade routes that impacted significant Islamic and Byzantine trading centers; this included the Silk Road. Due to Muslim obstructions, traders traveled through Khazaria to reach the Silk Road and conduct their business.
One of the most notable figures in Khazarian history is King Bulan, who ruled Khazaria in the mid-8th and 9th centuries. Historical accounts credit him with being the first person to introduce Judaism as the national religion of Khazaria, as well as initiating educational, religious, and name changes that altered the culture of the people forever. To help unify the nation amid the Khazarian empire’s growth, As historians’ accounts suggest Khazarians originally practiced Tengrism, a form of animist-shaman beliefs, Bulan reportedly set out to identify and institute one national organized religion.
Bulan: Khazaria’s First Jewish King
In the year 861 AD, Bulan selected Judaism as the national religion after hearing the values and benefits of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism from representatives of the respective faiths—according to a letter written by future King Joseph of Khazaria. Historical accounts suggest Bulan preferred Judaism since its power structure at the time would not challenge his authority; it lacked the degree of socio-political control seen in Christianity with the Byzantine emperor Constantine and the Roman pope and in Islam with the Muslim Caliphate in Iraq.
Judaism’s influence on Khazaria expanded from the top down. The upper levels of Khazarian society—the nobility—accepted the religion first. Then the nation’s masses adopted it. After Bulan’s rule, rabbinical Judaism spread and Khazarian leadership established synagogues and schools which taught the Babylonian Talmud, Torah, Mishnah, and Judaic ritual practices such as circumcision and sabbath observance. This became integrated into the culture, and as a result, Khazarians began adopting Hebrew names like Levi and Aaron.
After the Rus (ancient Russian) leader Rurik formed the Russian nation in the Novgorod region of Russia in 862 AD, the Rus Vikings increased in military power and expansion capability. In 965 AD, the Rus prince of Kiev, Svyatoslav I from the neighboring area, defeated Khazar warriors and was able to capture the major Khazar fortress of Sarkel. In 987 AD, Rus Prince Vladimir I of Kiev–who married the Byzantine emperor’s sister–converted himself and the Rus people to Orthodox Christianity in the late tenth century. In 1016 AD, a joint Russian-Byzantine Christian military effort defeated the Khazars and began the decline of the empire. After this, some Khazarian people who had adopted Judaism migrated into various parts of eastern Europe (such as Poland and Austria), western Europe (such as Germany), and even the United Kingdom until the much later formation of a Jewish homeland in 1948.
Modern Israel: This Has Been Another UK/League of Nations Production
From 1517 to 1917, the land of Palestine was under the control of the Ottoman Empire. Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand I and the start of World War I, in 1914, Great Britain declared war on the Ottoman Empire. As a result, Britain began planning the long-term future of Palestine’s land. As we mentioned previously, some Khazarian converts to Judaism migrated from Khazaria to various parts of Europe including the United Kingdom between the fall of the Khazar empire and 1948.
Herbert Samuel, a member of the British war cabinet suggested Britain could gain the support of Jewish people in the broader war by supporting Zionism, a movement that began in the late 1800s to create and maintain a homeland for Jewish people. Though Zionists considered multiple areas for their homeland, including Uganda, Madagascar, and the United States, they eventually chose Palestine.
The Path to Palestine
On November 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour sent a letter to British Jewish leader Lionel Walter Rothschild expressing Britain’s support for the creation of a national homeland for Jewish people in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration expressing this concept was officially published a week later on November 9, 1917.
In 1918, the Ottoman Empire was defeated and in September 1923, the League of Nations implemented the Mandate for Palestine, which gave the British government administrative power over the land of Palestine and Transjordan (modern-day Syria and Jordan). This mandate also allowed Britain to implement the Balfour Declaration, which brought the progressive influx of European adherents of Judaism to the land, alongside the existing Palestinian Arab people. The joining of these populations into one land resulted in protests, clashes, and rebellions and prompted emergence of two nationalist movements, one Jewish and one Palestinian.
Before the Mandate for Palestine ended on May 14, 1948, on November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution for the establishment of an independent Jewish State in Palestine. On November 30, 1947, the Mandatory Palestine War began between the Jewish and Palestinian residents of Palestine and ultimately gave rise to the Jewish victory following their successful “Plan Dalet” military strategy to take control of the land. The head of the Jewish agency, David Ben-Gurion, declared an independent state of Israel on May 14, 1948. US President Harry S. Truman also acknowledged the new nation that day.
Russia-Ukraine War: A Continuation of Ancient Hostilities?
In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine and the Russia-Ukraine war began. One of the most widely agreed upon reasons is that amid increased NATO/United States influence over Ukraine since 2014, Russia grew more concerned about NATO expansion near its territory. The increased western influence signaled that Ukraine soon could become part of NATO, posing more of a strategic threat to Russia’s military and geography. However, as we consider the aforementioned history of Khazaria, we also see a resurgence of the 10th and 11th century territorial conflict between the Rus (ancient Russian) people and the Khazar people—many of whom still reside in their ancestral lands that includes much of Ukraine. Furthermore, amid the reported Albert Pike WWIII prediction featuring Israel and Iran we referenced in Pt. VI, it is rumored that the other purpose for the Russia-Ukraine war is to drive out the current residing populations and use the land to create a new state of Israel, which will also house Israeli refugees after the land of Palestine is destroyed in the planned third world war.
Ashkenaz and the Table of Nations
Ashkenazi Jews are today characterized as adherents to Judaism who migrated and have resided in France, Germany, and in eastern Europe—including Poland and Russia. Israeli geneticist, Dr. Eran Elhaik, who earned his molecular evolution Ph.D at The University of Houston, has claimed that the word Ashenaz originates from Ashguza – the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian name for the Iron Age Eurasian steppeland people, the Scythians. A 2016 news article noted Elhaik’s research supported this claim by naming three remaining Turkish villages located on the western part of an ancient Silk Road route—Iskenaz, Eskenaz, and Ashanaz. He noted that northeast Turkey is the only place worldwide where these location names exist.
In a 2017 National Institutes of Health and Frontiers in Genetics journal publication, Elhaik along with researchers Ranajit Das, Paul Wexler, and Mehdi Pirooznia asserted that their geographic population structure (GPS) traced most Ashkenazi Jewish genomes along major ancient trade routes in northeastern Turkey near villages that sound similar to the name Ashkenaz (including the three aforementioned ones). Their research suggested an Irano-Turko-Slavic origin for Ashkenazi Jewish genome was possible, and the common dialect of Hebrew spoken by Ashkenazis—Yiddish—likely derived from Slavic origins. Their findings further indicated the Ashkenazi genome is unlikely to have derived from the Levantine (modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan).
We also note Elhaik reported in a 2013 study on Jewish European ancestry in the journal Genome, Biology, and Evolution, Vol 5, Issue 1: “Our findings support the Khazarian hypothesis and portray the European Jewish genome as a mosaic of Near Eastern-Caucasus, European, and Semitic ancestries, thereby consolidating previous contradictory reports of Jewish ancestry.”
Shem, Ham, and Japheth
When we look at Genesis 10, Moses lists the table of nations who descended from Noah’s sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth after the flood. In most Christian circles, Shem is thought to be the progenitor of the Semitic people groups, typically understood to be located in the Middle East. Shemitic = Semitic. Ham is thought to be the progenitor of Africans, but in particular the Cushitic people (Ethiopians, Eritreans, Somalians). Meanwhile, Japheth is though to be the progenitor of Europeans. In Genesis 10:3, we see Ashkenaz mentioned as a son of Gomer, whose father is Japheth. If based on the research we mentioned, those of Ashkenazi Jewish descent originate from northeast Turkey or ancient Khazaria, those individuals would be children of Japheth, not Shem, and thereby, not Semitic.
NOTICE: **We do not condone the use of this information or any of our other posts to justify discrimination, hatred, violence, or maltreatment against any people groups, nations, or individuals. As believers in Jesus Christ, we believe all humans are made in the image of God and are deserving of basic respect and are eligible to receive salvation by grace through faith in Christ.
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