A Mostly Theoretical History of How the “Who Is a Jew?” Argument Became

A Mostly Theoretical History of How the “Who Is a Jew?” Argument Became
Jews today don’t know much about their ancestors. It’s not for lack of study though. All that is known to the family trees of Judaism has been lost to the tribe. What is known from the DNA is that most Jews descend from four different women. Right there, it is seen that Jews do not know if they descend from Judah, the son of biblical Jacob. Descended of a woman and a title of Jewish theoretically shouldn’t mix.
Okay, let’s get the words straight. I said Jews, and yet I write about how I am a Jew, more accurately quasi-Jewish. I know of no ancestral mother of mine that belongs specifically to the group of people commonly known as Jews. What I have done is to look at the ancestral charts and determine that if the Bible is true, then the European nobility and American Presidents are from the tribe of Judah. Judah was supposed to have the scepter, according to Genesis, and that means it was to be a tribe of rulers. These people are my relatives, so I say I am quasi-Jewish.
Huh? Why not be a pirate with the word Jew, and steal it all for myself. The word Jew comes from the word Judah though there is no J in Hebrew. My ancestors lost the Hebrew, so I’ll give the status of full Jewish to the people commonly known as Jews, and I’ll settle for quasi-Jewish. I doubt anyone will ever actually call me that though! There is something to be said for letting a bean slip here or there in counting, regarding the use of the word Jew. In the Talmud, a virtually endless bean counting commentary on the Jewish Bible, the Talmud itself sometimes settles disputes saying, “For heavens sake.” I’ll remember that one bean though, and say I let it go for heavens sake. Most people that call the British monarchy Jews are British Israelists, and they are a minority compared to the minority of Jews that most people know of as Jews. I’ll go with the majority there and forget the root meaning of the word Jew, where I would be likely called a Jew and Rabbis would be called quasi. Really, it is arbitrary who is a Jew. That word, Jew, can essentially be obliterated with reason. It is better to answer that question with whoever calls themselves a Jew is a Jew.
Possibly only a handful of the Jews actually don’t descend from converts. I say this because traditionally Judaism is conferred by matrilineal inheritance. According to Judaism, a female is Jewish simply because her mother is Jewish, but if the father is Jewish and intermarried, he doesn’t have Jewish offspring. This means Jews have lost their males over the years, and possibly for good reason. Possibly, this branch of Judaism had male converts, and their sincerity was questioned. Historically the Bible, the Jewish Bible, knows of no male converts. The story of Ruth in the Bible is about a woman convert.
Tribal identity is associable with male inheritance, but nobody knows what tribe of Israel they are from with any accuracy today. The information just simply isn’t available. Likewise, the Cohen to Levite ratio is outrageous. Though there are guidelines that generally accept this tribe and its families as legitimate by the standards of the oral tradition of the Mishnah, but it is likely that many errors are made in doing so. This is okay by me. I am in favor of leniency. Should there be a third Temple where Cohenim become very important again, I am not super concerned with this birthright and its importance for Temple positions. However, there should be far fewer Cohenim by the Bible than Levites, as the Cohenim are but one family of this Israelite tribe, but instead there are far greater numbers of them, and none of them can produce a reliable ancestry.
Another guess of mine is that initially male conversion was highly questionable. It was automatically assumed that if you were from the tribe of Judah, that Judah was your paternal ancestor. Consequently, in order to maintain tribal identity it became more important that the mother was sincere.
Judaism has long recognized that few converts actually take to the religion. Historically, it is likely that Jews may have only had for convert women in the entire history of Judaism that were sincere, including Sarah! That is Abraham is the first Jew, and his wife Sarah was the first convert. Really, the Bible says it was Abraham that founded the nation, so it should be highly questionable whether or not any male other than a descendent of Abraham can actually be Jewish. This might have changed with R. Hillel (~500 BCE) or with times of more liberal doctrine, such that males were allowed to convert.
Ruth could have been allowed to be a ger, a convert, because there was no tribal inheritance with her. However, the male descendents of Israel all had a male inheritance. The early ancestries seem to infer that the nation of Abraham was only continued by the son Isaac, not Ishmaelites for the purpose of religion. The same is true for Jacob, the father of the Israelite tribes, but not for his brother Esau, a rather despicable person whose descendents are to perish when the Jewish messiah or moshiach comes. Thus, it is easy to find a place for a female convert among the Israelites, as there need not be an inheritance associated with her in the Bible, as that was a male thing. That is there was no room for male converts. A convert male would have no place among the Israelites for lack of inheritance by the Torah.
Despite this, times have been very different for at least the group of people called the Jews. They have gone through several exiles, and have been bullied by many other nations historically. This may have been because the male tribal identity had become so strong that only maternal inheritance was acceptable to keep down the male population. This works great for polygamy. However, in neglecting male inheritance, and liberal acceptance of male converts, possibly all the original males married out, such that tribal inheritance became completely lost in times of exile. This might explain why the Jews, as we know them today are said to have descended from four women. My guess is that these women are Sarah, Rebecca, Laban’s wife, and Ruth. I say Laban’s wife because Rachel and Leah are said to be sisters, and would have one mother. Other women such as Keturah, Bilhah, and Zilpah were probably lost through the years. Maybe, with some lenience they will return. Surprisingly, all this is great for genetic diversity, which is something the nobility and the Jews seem to lack!