Giants, Gods, Dragons, Watchers, Genesis 6

 GIANTS, GODS, AND DRAGONS: THE WATCHERS AND GENESIS 6

October 29, 2020 by Derek Gilbert

 Blog Post Date:  10-30-2020

Mount Hermon is the highest, most majestic peak in the Levant. At 9,200 feet above sea level, it dominates the Golan Heights on the border between Israel and Syria, anchoring the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. It has been considered sacred for most of human history.

Mount Hermon was a holy site as far back as the Old Babylonian period—the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, nearly two millennia before Christ, and maybe even earlier.

In the Old Babylonian version of the Gilgamesh epic, which dates to the eighteenth century BC (roughly the time of Jacob and Joseph), “Hermon and Lebanon” were called “the secret dwelling of the Anunnaki.” The Ninevite version of the poem, written about six hundred years later, describes the monster slain by Gilgamesh, Humbaba (or Huwawa), as the guardian of “the abode of the gods.”

The Anunnaki were the seven chief gods of the Sumerian pantheon: Anu, the sky-god; Enlil, king of the gods; Enki, god of the earth; Ninhursag, mother goddess of the mountains; Inanna (Babylonian Ishtar), goddess of sex and war; Nanna (Sîn in Babylon), the moon-god; and Utu (Shamash), the sun-god. They are mentioned in texts found in what is today southeastern Iraq that date back to the twenty-seventh century BC. So, it’s possible that the more recent versions of the Gilgamesh story from Babylon and Nineveh remember more ancient traditions.The name “Hermon” appears to be based on a root word that means “taboo,” similar to the Hebrew word kherem, or “devoted to destruction.” The word is often translated into English as “under the ban.”

The first appearance of the word in the Bible is Exodus 22:20:

Whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the Lord alone, shall be devoted to destruction [kherem]. (Emphasis added)

Exodus 22:20 KJV  He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed.

But this condemnation, or “the ban,” wasn’t just invoked against disobedient Israelites. Some of the inhabitants of Canaan were also declared kherem by Yahweh—specifically those that were giants or descended from giants.

That begs the question: Where did the giants come from? A curious episode is recorded in the first four verses of Genesis chapter 6:

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. (Genesis 6:1–4)

Scholars have debated the meaning of the term “Nephilim” for millennia. Most believe it comes from a Hebrew root, naphal, meaning “to fall” or “cast down”—literally, “fallen ones.”

However, Bible and ancient language scholar Dr. Michael S. Heiser (author of the excellent book Reversing Hermon), argues that this cannot be the case:

The form nephilim cannot mean “fallen ones” (the spelling would then be nephulim). Likewise nephilim does not mean “those who fall” or “those who fall away” (that would be nophelim). The only way in Hebrew to get nephilim from naphal by the rules of Hebrew morphology (word formation) would be to presume a noun spelled naphil and then pluralize it. I say “presume” since this noun does not exist in biblical Hebrew—unless one counts Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33, the two occurrences of nephilim—but that would then be assuming what one is trying to prove!

However, in Aramaic the noun naphil(a) does exist. It means “giant,” making it easy to see why the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) translated nephilim as gigantes (“giant”).

In short, the Jewish scholars who translated the Old Testament into Greek about three hundred years before the birth of Jesus clearly understood that the Nephilim were giants, not just men who “fell away” from God.

Likewise, the Hebrew words translated “sons of God” in the passage, bene elohim, refer to divine beings, not mortal men. Now, that hasn’t been the consensus among Christian scholars since about the fifth century, thanks to the great theologian Augustine. He popularized the “sons of Seth” theory to explain away the weird supernatural element of the passages above. In short, the Sethite view is that the sons of God were men from the godly, righteous line of Seth who began intermarrying with women from the corrupt, wicked line of Cain.

Frankly, this defies logic on several points:

How likely is it that all the Sethite men were good while all the Cainite women were bad?

Cainite men never married Sethite women?

Why would these unions produce Nephilim, understood to be giants by Jewish rabbis and early Christians alike?

Why would these unions lead to wickedness so great that God had to wipe out everything that walked the earth except Noah, his family, and the creatures in the ark?

 Every other use of bene elohim in the Hebrew Scriptures refers to divine beings.

Problems with the supernatural understanding of the text usually focus on whether angels and humans could successfully produce children. But the apostles Peter and Jude make it clear that the sin of the “sons of God” was sexual:

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly…(2 Peter 2:4; emphasis added)

And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 6–7; emphasis added)

If there was any doubt about what the angels did that such deserved punishment, Peter and Jude clarified things by specifically linking their rebellion to the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah.

It is significant that the phrase translated “cast them into hell” in 2 Peter 2:4 is the Greek word tartaroo, a verb meaning “thrust down to Tartarus.” This is the only time in the New Testament that the word is used, meaning it requires special attention. Our Western concept of “hell” is vague and one-dimensional; we think of it as little more than an underworld domain with lots of fire and demons. But this is far different from the concept known to the Greeks. To them, Tartarus was an entirely separate domain from Hades, a place of torture and torment much lower than Hades in Greek cosmology. In fact, it was believed to be as far below Hades as earth is below heaven.

Let that sink in for a minute. Tartarus might be called the very center of the earth!

And Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, chose that specific word, tartaroo, to describe the punishment reserved for angels who engaged in illicit sexual relations with human women.

The extrabiblical books of I Enoch and Jubilees expand on this story, adding extra detail and context not found in the Bible. Mount Hermon is where two hundred Watchers, a class of angelic being mentioned in chapter 4 of the book of Daniel, descended and began cavorting with human women. From these unions came the Nephilim, the giants of Genesis 6.

The Watchers, according to Ist Enoch, were led by Semjâzâ, whose name is thought to be a combination of shem (meaning “name”) and azaz (possibly meaning “rebellion”).

Some list Semjâzâ as one of the archon class of elohim, a ruler. But whatever his name meant in heaven, his choice to descend to Mount Hermon certainly made him infamous.

Apparently, this former ruler in heaven worried that his companions might soon regret their rebellious choices and allow their leader to take the fall for what they’d all proposed to do. After all, each of them knew how the Lord of Armies had dealt with Chaos, and they’d probably heard God pronounce judgment upon the nachash in the garden, vowing to one day crush his head, just like the heads of Leviathan will be crushed.

Here is the excerpt from the Book of Enoch:

And Semjâzâ, who was their leader, said unto them: “I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.” And they all answered him and said: “Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.” Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended ⌈in the days⌉ of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon. (Book of Enoch 6:3–6a; R. H. Charles, trans.)

The gift these Watchers offered for sexual favors was forbidden knowledge, the same deal the nachash offered Adam and Eve in Eden. As payment for the pleasures of the flesh, Semjâzâ and his rebellious companions offered charms, enchantments, astrology, metallurgy (read that as weaponry for warfare), cosmetics, and writing, among other things—presumably arts that humans would have developed or discovered on their own, given time.

However, the products of these illicit unions were giants, the Nephilim, whose stature and abilities far surpassed their human relatives. Believing themselves gods, these “men of renown” pillaged the earth and endangered all of humanity. The Nephilim consumed everything that men possessed; when that wasn’t enough, they began to eat people, and they finally turned on one another. Enoch describes these cannibalistic colossi as creatures of insatiable desire who threatened to pollute and even terminate the bloodline of the future Messiah by violence—but also by corrupting the human genome. It was a military move by the fallen realm, who thought to remove any possibility of defeat by polluting human DNA, while at the same time, creating their own army of superhumans. 

They probably thought themselves pretty clever—but the Lord of Armies had seen their ploy long before, for He knows all and sees all, even from the foundation of the world.

But wait, as they say on television, there’s more! Did you know that these giants didn’t completely perish—that they are still with us today? The physical forms of the Nephilim certainly died, but their illicitly begotten spirits became what we now call demons:

And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men and from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; they shall be evil spirits on earth, and evil spirits shall they be called. (I Enoch 15:8–9; R. H. Charles, trans.)

The church today doesn’t deal much with the topic of demons, but it’s clear the early church understood that they were real and distinct from angels. The term “angel” implies a mission, but those who live within the unseen realm are generally called elohim, written with a small e to distinguish them from the uppercase E in Elohim, one of the names of Yahweh. Whenever the elohim appear in the Bible as messengers from God, they are described as looking like men. Other classes of elohim, like the nachash, cherubim, and seraphim, are entities of a different kind; these also possess a “nonhuman” physicality—that is, an outward appearance that can be observed and described by the prophets.

Demons, on the other hand, have no innate physical presence. They are spirits only, but they seek physicality through possession. The consensus view among Jews and Christians until the time of Augustine (the late fourth/early fifth centuries) was that demons are the spirits of the dead Nephilim, who now roam the earth (boldface added for emphasis in the excerpts below):

PHILO: “And when the angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, they took unto themselves wives of all of them whom they chose.” Those beings, whom other philosophers call demons, Moses usually calls angels; and they are souls hovering in the air.” — Philo, On the Giants 6

ORIGEN: “In my opinion, however, it is certain wicked demons, and, so to speak, of the race of Titans or Giants, who have been guilty of impiety towards the true God, and towards the angels in heaven, and who have fallen from it, and who haunt the denser parts of bodies, and frequent unclean places upon earth, and who, possessing some power of distinguishing future events, because they are without bodies of earthly material, engage in an employment of this kind, and desiring to lead the human race away from the true God.” — Origen, Against Celsus 4.92

JUSTIN MARTYR: “God…committed the care of men and of all things under heaven to angels whom He appointed over them. But the angels transgressed this appointment, and were captivated by love of women, and begot children who are those that are called demons… — Justin Martyr, 2 Apology 5

Justin Martyr not only understood that the Nephilim were the source of the demons that plague mankind, he also clearly knew that the rebellious members of the divine council were the false gods of the pagan world.

The takeaways here are:

·        Rebellions lead to judgments, which then lead to rebellions, leading to judgments, and so on.

·        Prisoner Zero’s first rebellion caused the earth to become “void.”

·        The Nachash’s temptation of Eve and Adam led to their expulsion from Eden and the judgment upon the Nachash.

·        The Watchers descended to Hermon, taking human wives and creating the Nephilim.

·        The inevitable judgment came again through a worldwide Flood.

·        But neither the Watchers nor the spirits of the Nephilim were destroyed, only restrained—the Watchers in Tartarus and the Nephilim as the demon spirits venerated as Rephaim by the Amorites, and as the demigod heroes of Greece and Rome.

And the Hebrew prophets foretold their ultimate destruction—the death of the gods.

 

Your Father is the Devil

Your Father is the Devil 

12-21-2011

John chapter 8 records a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees.  It concludes with Jesus telling the Pharisees that their father is the devil (Satan?), and by insinuation or genetics, that they are liars and murderers.

John 8:44  Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

It is my position that the direct words of Jesus (non-parabolic) are to be taken literally and without equivocation.  Can it be shown that the Pharisees were genetically liked to the devil or similar angelic entity?

THE SONS OF GOD
The “sons of God” who mated with human women in Genesis chapter 6 and spawned giants or nephilim, among other things, are now imprisoned in Tartarus.  (See II Peter 2:4 and Jude 1:6)  Enoch called these ‘sons’ Watchers and stated there were 200 of them who descended on Mt. Hermon during the days of Jared.  Everyone else died in the flood except Noah, three sons, four wives, and select animals.  Genesis 6 also states there were giants after this as well.  What is the origin of these ‘after that’ giants?

There is no mention of ‘sons of God’ mating with human women in the Bible after the flood, although that doesn’t mean it didn’t occur.  It is possible that someone other than Noah, who was proclaimed genetically pure, was carrying Watcher DNA.  Very little of the background of Noah is recorded either in the Bible or non-canonical literature.  Noah could have had more wives than the one who accompanied him on the ark.  Each of the three sons could have had a different mother.  What is known is that Noah’s genetic makeup was untainted by Watcher DNA as was Shem’s mother and Shem because the Messiah, Jesus, appeared through the linage of Shem.

Gen 6:9  These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect (without blemish; undefiled) in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

It has also been theorized that demonic possession can alter the genetic code.  Keep in mind that demons, the soulless spirits of dead nephilim, did not exist until after the flood.  The author, Douglas Hamp, has written a book entitled, “Corrupting the Image,” which discusses the possible connection of the ‘fall’ of Adam to DNA corruption.

NOAH, HAM, AND CANAAN
There is an enigmatic passage in Genesis 9 concerning Ham and Noah.  The text reads that Ham “saw the nakedness of his father” and upon awakening, Noah knew what Ham had done and cursed his grandson, Canaan, the son of Ham.

Gen 9:22-25  And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.  (23)  And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.  (24)  And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.  (25)  And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren

This passage has been variously understood to mean that Ham: merely saw his father unclothed; had sexually relations with his mother; sodomized Noah; or castrated Noah.  It is doubtful that the first explanation would have solicited any response at all.  Plus, Noah would not necessarily have to be drunk for this to take place. 

The incestuous explanation would not have resulted in the cursing of Canaan, but more likely the stoning of Ham. It has been suggested that Canaan was the product of an incestuous act but Canaan must have already existed for Noah to curse him.

Does the sodomy conviction have any merit?  It is my supposition that sodomy and other sexual deviancies are a product of fallen angel genetics but that is a subject for another post.  When Noah realized what had happened, he cursed one of the four sons of Ham listed in the Biblical record: Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.

Why Canaan?  As we will see later, the Canaanites, the descendants of Canaan, mostly settled in and around the area of the Promised Land which was the area that the giants, discussed in the Biblical record, resided.  Whatever the explanation, Canaan and his descendants were infected with nephilim DNA.  This ‘alien’ DNA was diluted as compared to the first generation of giants prior to the flood.  The book of Enoch (non-canonical) refers to giants much larger than Goliath or Og of Basham.

After the exodus from Egypt, the reason the Lord God commanded the Israelites to destroy all the inhabitants of the Promised land is because it was a central hotbed of Watcher DNA corruption.  They were not to even take their livestock, but to destroy them.  Of course, the job never was fully completed.  David and his men killed the last of the obvious giants, but as we will see, a diluted form of the corrupted genetics remained.

The sons of Canaan as listed in the Biblical record are:  Zidon, Heth, Jebusite, Girgashite, Hivite, Sinite, and Hamathite.  Heth was the father of the Hittites. Esau, the fraternal twin brother of Jacob, took three wives of the Hittites producing the tribe known as the Edomites.

ESAU AND HIS LEGACY
What is the story of Esau and why should we care?  Many church people tend to relegate Old Testament history as interesting stories that one learns in Sunday school but of little or no relevance to modern New Testament people.  It is my opinion these people are wrong.  The Biblical descriptions of these Old Testament characters and their actions are there for a reason, and that is to inform today’s people why the world is as it is.  The actions and in-actions of these patriarchs have had far reaching consequences that have affected the flow of the history of God’s people.

In Romans 9:13 Paul summarized the Lord God’s statement made in Malachi, “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”  Why did the Lord God hate Esau?

Mal 1:2-3  I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob,  (3)  And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

Esau was the first born and as such was entitled to the birthright inheritance.  Esau forfeited the birthright to Jacob for a bowl of soup and then Rebekah and Jacob tricked Isaac into bestowing the inheritance upon Jacob.  You can read the entire story in Genesis 25-26  Afterward when Esau realized that he had given up a fortune in inheritance, he cried and pleaded with Isaac to give him some sort of a blessing.  Then Isaac, acting as a prophet of God, gave Esau a blessing of sorts that is shaking the world today and will eventually invoke the wrath of God.

Gen 27:39-41  And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above;  (40)  And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.  (41)  And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob.

In literal English, Esau’s dwelling would derive from the fatness of the earth.  He would live off of that produced by someone else.  His life would be characterized by violence and treachery.  He would initially serve his brother, Jacob, but at some point his descendants would dominate those of Jacob.  Esau hated Jacob and swore in his heart to kill him and this attitude will continue until the end.

Hebrews 12:16 describes Esau as a fornicator.  

Thayer Definition of "fornicator":
1) a man who prostitutes his body to another’s lust for hire
2) a male prostitute
3) a man who indulges in unlawful sexual intercourse, a fornicator

Hebrews 12:16  Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.

What did Esau do to earn the title of fornicator?  He married outside of his seed line and took three wives from the Hethites.  Heth was one of the sons of Canaan, the cursed grandson of Noah.   He did not just adulterate his seed line by marrying out of his race, but with marrying into the cursed seed or the seed of the serpent.  This cursed his descendants with destruction, and is what broke the hearts of his parents, Rebekah and Isaac.

This dynasty founded by Esau became the Edomites.  When Esau was born he was covered with red hair like a garment.

Genesis 25:25  And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau (hairy).

The soup he ate in exchange for his birthright was red pottage and his name was changed to Edom, which means ‘red’.

Genesis 25:30  And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.

The color ‘red’ has come to be associated with the Edomites.  The dragon described in Revelation 12:3 having seven heads and ten horns is red.  Communists are known as “Reds”.  This association will be discussed later.

THE EXILES
After the death of Solomon, around 930 BC, the nation of Israel was split into two nations.  The southern nation retaining Jerusalem for its capital was called Judah.  The majority inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah were the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and the Levite priests.  The majority inhabitants of the northern kingdom of Israel were the remaining ten tribes.

The northern kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria around 721 BC and the majority (but not all) of the population were deported to northern Assyria.  After a generation or two they started migrating north, northeast, and northwest toward Europe and Russia, eventually losing any knowledge of their original identity.

The southern kingdom of Judah was eventually conquered by the Babylonian empire and many of the inhabitants were deported to Babylon.  Prior to Babylon the Assyrians, under Sennacherib attacked Judah around 701 BC and is stated to have carried into Assyria some 200,000 captives, but otherwise left the nation intact.

There were three phases of the Babylonian deportation.  The first one included Daniel and other members of the royal court.  Two more deportations followed leaving only the very poor and elderly behind. The last occurred around 586 BC
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During these invasions and exiles, the Edomites actually assisted the invading armies.  They killed fleeing Israelites, stole their property, and occupied their towns.  Through Obadiah, the Lord God delivers a scathing accusation and condemnation of these Edomites.

Obadiah 1:8-14  Shall I not in that day, saith the LORD, even destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau?  (9)  And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed, to the end that every one of the mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter.  (10)  For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever.  (11)  In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.  (12)  But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress.  (13)  Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, thou shouldest not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity;  (14)  Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of his that did escape; neither shouldest thou have delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress.

THE MACCABEAN PERIOD
The Babylonian invasion and subsequent mass exile of the southern kingdom of Judah left the area mostly unpopulated.  Historians tell us that large numbers of Arabs had immigrated into Edom whereby the native Edomites moved into the area vacated by Judah.  This area of former Judah became known as Idumea and its inhabitants called Idumeans.  (NOTE:  the word translated ‘Jew’ in the New Testament is actually ‘Idumean’)  Ezra and Nehemiah give accounts of the conflicts the returning Judahites had with the Idumean-Edomites. It is to be noted that only a small number of Judahites returned from exile.  The vast majority remained in Babylon.

The Maccabean revolt was the final reaction of the Judahites against the actions of Antiochus IV.  The Idumeans were hostile to the Maccabean revolt, and in 112 BCE Hyrcanus , a Maccabean king, conquered Idumea and gave them a convert or die ultimatum.  In the words of the historian, Josephus:

“Hyrcanus took also Dora and Marissa, cities of Idumea, and subdued all the Idumeans; and permitted them to stay in that country, if they would circumcise their genitals, and make use of the laws of the Jews; and they were so desirous of living in the country of their forefathers, that they submitted to the use of circumcision, and of the rest of the Jewish ways of living; at which time therefore this befell them, that they were hereafter no other than Jews.”( Antiquities of the Jews - Book XIII chap. 9)

Herod the Great, the Jewish king who rebuilt the temple, creating the splendid edifice described by Josephus and the Talmud, was a descendant of Idumean converts.  The Idumeans gained great political and religious power and became known as the Pharisees and Sadducees.

In other writings, Josephus makes a clear distinction between the Pharisees and Sadducees who were Idumeans and the Essenes who were of the tribe of Judah.

For there are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of the first of whom are the Pharisees; of the second the Sadducees; and of the third sect, who pretends to a severer discipline, are called Essenes. These last are Jews (Judah) by birth, (Josephus, Wars 2:8:2)

The following four ‘Jewish’ witnesses confirm that the Edomites were the “Jews” of the New Testament and well as today.

…in the days of John Hyrcanus (end of the second century B.C.E.) … the Edomites became a section of the Jewish people. "EDOM," Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, Israel: Encyclopaedia Judaica Company, 1971) Vol. 6, p. 378

They [the non-Israelite Edomites] were then incorporated with the Jewish nation…. "EDOM, IDUMEA," The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York & London: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1904) Vol. V, p. 41

…from then on they [the non-Israelite Edomites] constituted a part of the Jewish people, Herod [King of Judea] being one of their descendants. "EDOM (Idumea)," The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1977) p. 589

…they [the Edomites] were hereafter no other than Jews. Flavius Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews (Grand Rapids, MI: Dregel Publications, 1960) Book XIII, Chapter IX, Verse 1, p. 279

Again, let me say that the word translated ‘Jew’ in the New Testament should be written as ‘Idumean’ and an Idumean is a converted Edomite. The King James Version (by accident?) and various other versions have done a great disservice to the Church by confusing the identity of the present day Edomites.  The Scofield study Bible has been instrumental in propagating this misconception.  By calling them Jews and linking them with Israelites (all 12 tribes) many doctrinal areas of the Bible, especially the New Testament, have been misunderstood. 

The ‘Jews’ of today, who are descendants of these Edomite converts originally migrated toward Turkey, North Africa, and Spain after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD.  They are the primary constituents of the Sephardic Jews, from which the Orthodox Jews emerged.  Their primary ‘holy’ books are the Babylonian Talmud and various commentaries on the Talmud, as it was in Jesus’ day, not the books of Moses (Pentateuch).  This is confirmed by the Jews in their own writings:

“The Jewish religion as it is today traces its descent, without a break, through all the centuries, from the Pharisees. Their leading ideas and methods found expression in a literature of enormous extent, of which a very great deal is still in existence. The Talmud is the largest and most important single member of that literature.” Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. VIII, p. 474 (1942)

THE KHAZARS
The main mass of today's "Jews" (92%-95% [number disputed]) are called the Ashkenazi Jews which are the Khazar Jews.  They were the (7th - 11th century AD) Turko-Mongoloid Khazars from the Northern region of the Caucasus Mountains between the Black and Caspian Seas (in modern day Russia), having migrated from eastern Asia.  In Turkic speaking countries the Caspian Sea is known as the Khazar Sea.

Genetically, the Khazars were an admixture of the Uigur, Magyar, and Hun tribes, mixed with the early Turks who were descendants of Noah's son Japheth and not Shem.  According to Wikipedia the name 'Khazar' is related to a Turkic verb form meaning "wandering.”

As stated above only a small number of Judahites returned from exile with the vast majority remaining in Babylon.  A Khazar king sent for the rabbis of the Talmudic academies of Pumbedita and Sura in Babylon and these rabbis converted the whole Khazar tribe to Judaism, and they took on the identity of the "Jews" that the rabbis in Babylon were calling themselves.

It has also been stated that a large number of Edomite Jews migrated to the Khazar empire after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, although no documents can be found to corroborate this assertion.

These same Khazar "Jews" flourished for a period spanning four centuries until being finally flushed out of Southern Russia by the hoards of Genghis Khan (one of their ancient blood relatives) and migrated into Eastern Europe and mixed and blended in with the Polish and other eastern European peoples, as well as later on with the German true-Israel people, often taking on their names and dropping their traditional Jewish (Khazar) names thus becoming Crypto-Jews.

Notably, the great crypto-Jew dynasty family was the Rothschild's who Germanized their Jewish name from Bauer to "Rothschild" (German for "red shield") and pretended to be a German people, becoming crypto-Jews (secret Jews).

“Mayer Amschel Rothschild (February 23, 1744 – September 19, 1812) was the founder of the Rothschild family banking empire that would become one of the most successful business families in history. In 2005, he was ranked 7th on the Forbes magazine list of the The Twenty Most Influential Businessmen Of All Time. The business magazine referred to him as a "founding father of international finance".[1] The famous saying: "Give me the power to issue a nation's money, and I care not who writes the laws" has been attributed to him.[2]

    He was born Mayer Amschel Bauer in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany to Moses Amschel Bauer. He changed his name to Rothschild (Red Shield in English) from Bauer, the previous family name, in reference to the red shield that was the official house sign and thus logotype of the family business, a bank and pawnshop founded by his father Moses.”  — Source

Although not the only person writing on this subject, Arthur Koestler and his book, The Thirteenth Tribe, is generally recognized as the authority on the Eastern European, Khazar, Jew connection. 

The Thirteenth Tribe  THE KHAZAR EMPIRE AND ITS HERITAGE
by Arthur Koestler

...but that does not alter the fact that the large majority of surviving Jews in the world is of Eastern European — and thus perhaps mainly of Khazar — origin. If so, this would mean that their ancestors came not from the Jordan but from the Volga, not from Canaan but from the Caucasus, once believed to be the cradle of the Aryan race; and that genetically they are more closely related to the Hun, Uigur and Magyar tribes than to the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Should this turn out to be the case, then the term “anti-Semitism” would become void of meaning, based on a misapprehension shared by both the killers and their victims. The story of the Khazar Empire, as it slowly emerges from the past, begins to look like the most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated. ― Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe; pg.17.

According to Koestler (and others) the Khazars adopted Judaism as their state religion in 740 AD.  Their King at that time (740 AD) invited a group of Edomite Jews to teach the people the religion of Judaism, which at that time was the Babylonian Talmud.  The majority of Eastern European Jews are Khazar and Japhetic in origin, not Semitic and he refers to the 1973 Jewish Encyclopedia and A. N. Poliak, Professor of Medieval Jewish History at Tel Aviv University as confirmation.
 
Some Arab historians are of the opinion that Gog and Magog are the Khazars.  Khazars were re-exporters of foreign goods, middlemen, inspectors of trade, goldsmiths, and silversmiths; and they exacted 10% tax on all trade. The Khazar King, in a letter, traced his people in Togarma and Japheth, the ancestors of all the Turkish tribes.

Friedman also points out that a large number of Edomite Jews migrated to the Khazar empire after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, although no documents can be found to corroborate this assertion.  This large group of Khazar Judaics are considered to be the Ashkenazi Jews. 

Other points made by Koestler:

• In A.D. 864 a monk wrote "there exists a people under the sky in regions where no Christians can be found, whose name is Gog and Magog, and who are Huns; among them is one called Gazari [Khazari?], who are circumcised and observe Judaism in its entirety."
• Russian communists tried to hide their Khazar-Jewish connection!
• The Khazar kingdom known as a kingdom of "Red" Jews.
• Interchangeable names --Khazar, Zhid (or Yid), and Jew
• The majority of Jews in the Middle Ages were Khazars.
• Jews were mint masters, royal treasurers, tax collectors, and money lenders. Their principal source of income was foreign trade and the levying of customs dues.  They practiced communal life.
• They lost the name of Khazars and became known as Jews. During the Dark Ages commerce largely in Jewish hands, including slave trade.
• Gives origin of Yiddish language. It is NOT Hebrew!
• "The Jewish dark ages may be said to begin with the Renaissance." (Reviews comment: This remark by the Jew Cecil Roth, coupled with other information, is a sorrowful admission that the Jews were supreme in the Dark Ages but lost their dominion over Europe when the Light of God's Word brought about the Renaissance!)

John 8:33  They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?

The above is a true statement.  The Pharisees are related to Abraham through Isaac and then through Esau not Jacob.  Jacob’s descendants were in bondage in Egypt.  Esau’s descendants were living in the area of Canaan at the time.  When the children of Israel came out of Egypt and entered the Promised Land (Canaan), the Lord God commanded them to destroy all the inhabitants (Canaanites, Edomites, and others).  What a different world we would be living in today if they had been completely obedient.