The Biblical DNA of the British Isles

For years critics have claimed that “DNA disproves a British-Israel ethnic connection.” No evidence is ever supplied by these detractors, and in fact the opposite is actually true: DNA has now proven that the peoples of the British Isles have a genetic link to the Mideast and Hebrew-Phoenician early colonists. An article published in December, 2020, by the website Irish Central is headlined, “Ancient bones reveal Irish are not Celts after all.” A chance discovery of ancient bones under an Irish pub in 2006 has now revealed important DNA evidence of Irish origins.

The article says, “In 2006, Bertie Currie was clearing land to make a driveway for McCuaig’s Bar on Rathlin Island off Antrim when he noticed a large, flat stone buried beneath the surface.” Currie dug beneath the stone and found an open cavity. “I shot the torch in and saw the gentleman, well, his skull and bones,” Currie said. Three skeletons were found from an ancient burial that have now been identified by DNA analysis as the ancestors of modern Irish, Welsh, and Scottish people. The bones far predate the arrival of the Celts from the European mainland, and match early Mid-Eastern DNA from Palestine.

For many years, it was believed that the early inhabitants of the British Isles were “autochthonous,” with ancestors dating back hundreds of thousands of years to the end of the last Ice Age. Others assume that the Irish people are descended from Celtic tribes from mainland Europe. This new DNA evidence reveals that, “Instead Irish ancestors may have come to Ireland from the Bible lands in the Middle East. They might have arrived in Ireland from the Mediterranean and would have brought cattle, cereal, and ceramics with them,” according to the Irish Central report.

The Proceedings of the American National Academy of Science (PNAS) also investigated the find and reported in 2015 that the bones “strikingly resembled those of contemporary Irish, Scottish, and Welsh people.” A retired archaeology professor at the highly-renowned University of Oxford said that the discovery could completely change the perception of Irish ancestry.

Such a revelation should not be a complete surprise. Historians for many years documented the early settlement of the British Isles by “Phoenician” traders and colonists. Scholars know that the Phoenician language is virtually identical to Hebrew, and the Bible confirms that Hebrews and Phoenicians sailed together to Western lands. (1 Kings 9:27; 10:22) Biblical tribes such as Dan, Asher, and Zebulon dwelled on the Mediterranean seaboard; we are told that “Asher remained on the seacoast, and dwelt by his landings.” (Judges 5:17) Zebulon’s territory was “a haven for ships” (Gen. 49:13). The Tuatha de Danaan, widespread early European seafarers who were famous in Irish prehistory, have been identified by leading scholars as the Biblical tribe of Dan. Dr. Cyrus Gordon, the foremost American archaeologist of the 20th century, definitely identified the Tuatha de Danaan as the biblical tribe of Dan. (Before Columbus, pp. 108-112). Similarly, a leading archaeologist of the 19th century, Dr. Robert G. Latham, also acknowledged the connection, writing, “Neither do I think that the eponymus of the Argive Danai was other than the biblical tribe of Dan.” (Ethnology of Europe, p.136) Scholars have also noted that since the small Phoenician city-states were dwarfed by ancient Israel and Judah, it is apparent that much of the Phoenician trade and colonization was in large part Hebrew.

As far back as the 17th century, noted historian Aylett Sammes, in his Antiquities of Ancient Britain, considered a “Phoenician” origin as certain. He wrote, “The [Irish-Welsh] language itself for the most part, as well as the customs, religion, idols, offices, dignities, of the ancient Britons, are all clearly Phoenician; as likewise their instruments of war, as slings, and other weapons, their scythed chariots, and their different names, and several distinctions. Out of the same tongue I have illustrated several monuments of antiquity found out and still remaining in Britain, which can in no ways be interpreted than in the Phoenician tongue, where they have a plain, easy, and undeniable signification.” (Preface, p.4) Many other historians concur with this, such as L.A. Waddell in his “Phoenician Origin of Britons Scots and Anglo-Saxons.”

Going back further into earliest times, the ancient Welsh Triads document three colonies coming from the continent to the British Isles in some remote age. “And the first is the Cymry, or Cymbrians; these came over from the German ocean, which they call Mor Taweh, or the hazy ocean, from the land of Hav, or the summer country, which, no doubt, was Asia. These came under the command of Hu Gadarn…he conducted the Cymry to Britain…The second was the Lloegrwys, Loegrians, or Ligurois, who came from the land of Gwasgwyn, and were sprung from the race of the Cymry. The third was the Brython, or the Britons, who came from the land of Llydaw, (Letavia, Armorica, or Bas Bretagne) and were also sprung from the primordial race of the Cymry.” (Horae Britannicae, John Hughes, 1819, vol. i. p. 12-14)

According to the early Welsh Triads, all three waves of early settlement in the British Isles involved a people called the “Cymry,” pronounced, “Khumri,” which more than a millennia later endures as the name given to the Welsh people and also coincidentally is the exact name that the Assyrians gave the Israelites. (The March of Archaeology, C.W. Ceram, p.216) The name was derived from Israel’s King Omri, with the lead vowel spoken as a guttural in Semitic. Omri was at one time famous in the ancient world for having developed an early law-code, “the statutes of Omri.” (Micah 6:16) Famed early 20th century historian and archaeologist, Archibald Henry Sayce, in his book, Higher Critics and the Monuments, adds: “It was, however, in the time of Ahab the son of Omri that the Assyrians first became acquainted with the northern kingdom of Israel, and consequently Samaria continued ever afterwards to be known to them as Beth-Omri, the ‘house of Omri’.” (p. 396)

The DNA evidence of a link between early Israel-Phoenicia and the British Isles has previously been documented in a study by Cambridge University, and published in the year 2000 in their book, “Archaeogenetics: DNA and the Population Prehistory of Europe.” This scientific study confirms an early “diffusion spanning the entire European continent from the Levant” or Mideast. Concerning DNA, we read of “haplogroup H, the most frequent in Europe and one that is also common in the Near East.” In fact, the study further states that haplogroup H is a primary “signature…type of the ancient Hebrew population…” It should therefore be no surprise that “Middle Eastern populations generally connect much closer to typical northwestern European [DNA] samples such as the Irish and Danes.” (pp. 109, 165, 175ff)

These new scientific studies confirm the reason why so many of the Bible prophecies concerning God’s people Israel have seen their fulfillment in Western European peoples during the present church age. (For a list of over a hundred fulfilled prophecies, see: Story of Celto-Saxon Israel, W.H. Bennett, appendix 1).

For the full Irish Central news article with the accompanying photos, click on “The Biblical DNA of the British Isles” button on the menu ribbon of our website: www.migrations.info.