Heroes of Faith: Philo-Israel
In Honor of the 200TH Anniversary of His Birth, and 120TH Anniversary of His Death.
Judge Edward Wheler Bird, known as “Philo-Israel,” or “Friend of Israel,” is considered one of the three original leading lights of the British-Israel movement (along with John Wilson and Edward Hine). He was borninTiruchchirappalli (Trichinopoly), Tamil Nadu, IndiaApril 16, 1823BirdandMary Dodson.father was a respected member of the Judicial Branch of the Indian Civil Service. He and his wife Catherine (nee Groube) Bird.passed awayMay 21, 1903Woodcot Villa, Clifton, Bristol, Gloucestershire, England. His family descended from Margaret, daughter of Phillip III, King of France, and wife of Edward I, King of England in 1298 A.D., and he considered himself of Norman-Benjamin stock.
Philo-Israel was the esteemed editor of The Banner of Israel for the first nearly 27 years since its inception, and is credited with much of the growth in the early British-Israel cause. His Christian upbringing “saturated my mind and memory with God’s Word,” and he “set himself to prove, in writing, what were to him then difficult problems from the Scriptures as, for example, the Divinity of Christ, the equality of the Holy Ghost with the Father and with the Son, and the like.” (BOI 27:225) His early Christian training included “writing out from self-made notes the sermons I used to hear Sunday by Sunday in the Church which we all attended. The habit gave me in later life immense facility in rapid writing, in concentration of thought, in realization of the matter to which I listened, and in correctness of diction.” As a result, “the ability to write long, and accurately, and with care for the Banner, became a burden light and easy to bear…All these life-long benefits I attribute to the fact that as a boy I had for years my regular Sunday task.”
His scholarly aptitude won him a place in the Indian Civil Service, after besting thirty or forty competitors in the examinations. He arrived in India in 1842, just after the massacre at Gundamuck and the Jugdallak Pass, near Jellalabad, where his elder brother perished. He soon acquired proficiency in three native languages—Hindustani, Telugu, and Tamil, and was employed as an assistant examiner for the Civil Service Commission. From 1842 to 1868 he served as magistrate and judge in various districts in northern India, and later in Madras to the south. He recalled, “The constant employment in judicial investigations induced a judicial frame of mind which forced me always to approach everything I entered upon as a judge, to investigate and try all matters as though important judicial results depended on the issue. With me it was always—especially as to the Identity— “prove all things,” and without substantial proof I was not in the habit of accepting any proposition whatsoever.”
He retired from the Indian Civil Service in 1868 “after twenty-six years of arduous toil, with health unimpaired, and with a vigorous mind ready for fresh work, which soon God gave me to do.” In 1874 a sister gave him a copy of one of John Wilson’s books and asked what he thought of the subject? “I had never so much as heard of it before, and after a superficial investigation I declared, with a laugh (God help me!), that the idea of our identity with Lost Israel was absurd; the philological argument being a decisive bar to the assertion of Mr. Wilson!”
Like so many Christians of our own day, he admitted “my knowledge of the Old Testament was limited. I knew not the Scriptural distinction between Israel and Judah; and as to the prophecies, I had hardly read them through consecutively. Of their contents I knew nothing more than what some of the preachers in our pulpits tell us regarding the spiritual meaning of picked texts, without reference to contexts. The special bearing of the New on the Old, and the Old on the New Testaments, I was entirely ignorant of. But of the New Testament, and of our Lord’s history and words, I was a diligent careful student.”
He had a life changing experience after reading Edward Hine’s “Forty-seven Identifications” and “forthwith studied them with care, made copious notes of the contents of the book, collated it, and, in fact, wrote its argument out in my own way, and in my own (what I deemed) clearer order of reasoning.” This he published with the title, “The Inquiry,” and as was a popular custom at the time, used a pseudonym: “Philo-Israel.” He went on to write several books and pamphlets, the most popular being “A Resume of the Scriptural Argument, proving the Identity of the British Race,” (seventy-three thousand copies issued); “An Inquiry Establishing the Identity of the British Nation with the Lost Tribes,” (seventeen thousand); and the “History of the House of Israel: How They were Lost and how They were Found (told for the Children),” of which sixteen thousand copies have been sold. His other works were “The Geography of the Gates” (three reprintings); “Our Identity with the House of Israel;” as well as a series of letters reprinted from the Clifton Chronicle, and several other pamphlets and leaflets. He also prepared the two volumes of “Monthly Comments” for Israel’s Scripture and Prayer Union, each containing 160 closely-printed pages forming a commentary on the Bible.
A close friend was the Rev. Robert Turlington Noble, first missionary to the Telugus of the Church Missionary Society, and he was an active member of the Evangelical Church, Honorary Treasurer of the Bristol Auxiliary of the Church Missionary Society, the South American Missionary Society, Religious Tract Society, and the Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews; Honorable Secretary of the local branch of the Church Association, and on the Committee of the Bible Society; also Honorable Treasurer of the Waldensian Society; he was on the Council of the first Metropolitan Anglo-Israel Association, and also of the Bristol and Clifton Branch Association.
Philo-Israel described himself as “a student of the Word of God, a daily searcher into the mind of Christ.” He added, “I placed my hopes of salvation on the Rock of Ages I knew was cleft for me. I trusted in the blood-shedding of the Lamb of God for me; and that Refuge I have never left since. Israelism, I protest, is no substitute for it. All the promises of God to Abraham can be no substitute for it; and I have never made the mistake our opponents say we do, and leant on Israelism instead of on Christ, for pardon, peace, or salvation.”
The Memorial to Philo-Israel:
A brass tablet has been fixed in the Parish Church, Clifton, Bristol. The brass is a handsome one, being 3 feet by 2 feet, 2 inches, mounted on a slab of grey marble, with a border showing about 2.5 inches wide all round. The inscription is in black lettering, with enlarged red initial letters to the principal sentences, and Mr. Bird’s name and nom de plume. Round the edge of the brass is an ornamental bordering, and surmounting the inscription is a triangle with the word “Jehovah” inscribed in Hebrew. The inscription is: “To the Glory of God, and in loving memory of Ed. Wheler Bird, Esq., J.P., Late Madras Civil Service, born April 16th, 1823, died May 21st 1903; this tablet is erected by the Imperial Council and Members of the British-Israel Association, of which he was Founder in the year 1878, and eventually President. For the last 27 years of his life he, as Philo-Israel, was editor of the Banner of Israel, and author of many works relating to the House of Israel. ‘Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified’ (Isa. 49:3).” – BOI 27:536, 1903
