America-Manasseh -- Fact or Fallacy

Critique of RK Phillips and RN Phillips

This critique is not based on an entire reading of "America-Manasseh -- Fact or Fallacy", because completion of the article ended with some glaring errors and the most ingenuous twisting of Scripture to arrive at preconceived prophecy this editor has ever witnessed

The gist of the argument that America is not Manasseh is based on an analogy between Scripture which shows Ishmael to live in a territory south of Jacob [read: Israelites], and the US (which is not a colony of true Israel, Britain) being a territory south of Canada, which is part of true Israel.

Such a reading requires us to believe that any country south of a British colony is Ishmael, and only British colonies are Israel.

It's nice to see the British being so proud of Israel that they claim to be the only Israel, but if the Tribe of Judah is Germany, they already lost the argument.  And if the Tribe of Zebulon is France, and if the Tribe of Dan is Denmark, and if the Tribe of Asher is Sweden, and if the Tribe of Nephtali is Norway, and if the Tribe of Isachar is Finland, and if the Tribe of Zebulon is Holland, and if the Tribe of Benjamin is Iceland, and if the Tribe of Simeon is Spain, and if the Tribe of Gad is Italy, they also lost the argument.

It also ignores that both the House of Israel and the House of Judah are represented in even greater numbers in the US than they are in their original countries.  There are 180 million Americans of German descent (Tribe of Judah), more than twice as many as the 80 million Germans in Germany.   There are 42 million Americans of Irish descent (Tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh), 12 times as many as the 3.5 million Irish in Ireland.  There are more Americans of Danish descent (Tribe of Dan) than the 5.5 million Danes in Denmark.  The same is true for every other tribe with the possible exception of the Tribe of Benjamin, which is Iceland.

The presumption is made that Ishmael always followed Israel, intermarried with the Israelites, that the Israelites never put away the mixed multitude, nor upheld the law about mamzers not being permitted into the congregation of the LORD, and that Ishmaelites and Israelites were racially indistinguishable, all of which ignores the everlasting covenant God made with Abraham through Jacob.  Had even one of these presumptions been true, this everlasting covenant would have been null and void from the beginning, because this covenant intentionally excluded Ishmael.

Why would the covenant include Abraham's grandson Jacob but exclude his own son Ishmael?  Because Ishmael was the son of Sarah's slave, Hagar?  Or because Hagar was an Egyptian, making Ishmael half Egyptian?

Phillips argues that the Egyptians were racially indistinguishable from the Israelites:

pg. 5:  "All the descendants of the line of Noah, Shem and Abraham are of the same physical appearance and we could not pick between them in a Police line-up 2. Such physical similarity, however, does not make the non-Israelite nations equal with the Israelite nations because the non-Israelites were not recipients of the promises and prophecies made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh."

How then could the Pharaoh's daughter instantly recognize Moses as a Hebrew?:

Exo 2:6 And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children.

Phillips argues that the tribes are indistinguishable from each other:

pg. 2:  "The fact is, Ephraim, Manasseh and their descendants are indistinguishable from the rest of Israel. Given the importance of the purity of Noah’s line and that Shem was alive all through Abram’s life, is it logical that Abram would father a child from an unacceptable, foreign 'Egyptian' line and then ask God to accept that son as his heir (Gen 17:18)?"

Why, after four centuries of captivity in Egypt, in the middle of the desert with no written records, were the Israelites able to distinguish Egyptians from Israelites, to identify each and every Israelite's pedigree as a member of a specific tribe, and identify the mixed multitude as a group of people separate and distinct from the Israelites?

This serious flaw in Phillips' logic causes them to go way off on a tangent.  Had the wives of Manasseh or Ephraim been the same race as Hagar, then they too would have voided the entire everlasting covenant God made with Abraham through Jacob.  But the Israelites upheld this part of God's Law, the everlasting covenant was initiated when all 12 sons and grandsons of Jacob married the proper wives, and Esau was excluded because he intentionally married the wrong wives:

Gen 28:6 When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padanaram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan;

Gen 28:7 And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram;

Gen 28:8 And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father;

Gen 28:9 Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.

Rather than recognizing that God hated Esau because Esau ignored his parents desire for him to marry someone of the proper race, and instead took Canaanite and Hittite and Ishmaelite wives, Phillips argues that Esau was trying to "earn favor with Isaac and Rebekah" by marrying Mahalath, an Ishmaelite:

pg. 15: "He remained close by Abraham’s family because only Isaac and Ishmael attended the burial of Abraham and later, Esau went to Ishmael for a wife in an effort to earn favour with Isaac and Rebekah".

Was Esau this stupid?  Could he have married the wrong women three different times by accident?  Or did he marry the wrong women on purpose?  It's written that God hated Esau, and it doesn't say that God changed His mind when he married Mahalath, so why would Phillips presume that marrying Ishmaelites was acceptable to Israelites?

Was not Esau Jacob's brother? says the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, but hated Esau; I made his mountains a waste, his heritage a desert for jackals, Mal 1:3

As it is written: "I loved Jacob but hated Esau.", Rom 9:13

Phillips goes on to speculate that Ishmaelites and Israelites lived together, intermarried, and were racially indistinguishable, all of which disputes the Scripture, violates the everlasting covenant God made with Abraham through Jacob, and raises a question about where he thinks Arabs did come from if they're not descendants of Ishmael.

There are many other errors of interpretation of Scripture, as well as presumptions not based on reality, that will not be addressed in this critique, but the following deserves one last rebuttal:

pg.7: "The more recent variant of these views is that America was Manasseh when it was founded, but like Rhodesia, has been “lost” or “diluted” or otherwise overrun/overpowered and is no longer predominantly Israelite."

We should welcome any valid critique or compliment regarding our success or failure at living up to God's Word, but this statement is factually impaired.  As bad as miscegenation in the US has become, it still cannot be claimed, and even on the current course it will be more than a century before it can be claimed, that the US is "no longer predominately Israelite".

Ishmaelites are a recognized separate race of people called Arabs, and they constitute less than 2% of the population.  Same with jews (who are less than 1.9% of the population), Asians (who are 4% of the population), blacks (who are 12.5% of the population), and Hispanics (who are 8% of the population).  At least 71% and perhaps as much as 79% of the American population are Israelites, with the unknown being the 8% who are Hispanics.

We recognize the need to correct this failure to uphold God's Law, and just as Israelites in our glorious history, we are now finally coming to our senses and preparing to do the same thing they did:

Ezra 9:1  Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.

Ezra 9:2  For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass.

Ezra 10:3  Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law.

Nehemiah 9:1 Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackcloth, and earth upon them.

Nehemiah 9:2 And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers.

Nehemiah 9:3 And they stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of Jehovah their God a fourth part of the day; and another fourth part they confessed, and worshipped Jehovah their God.

Nehemiah 13:3 Now it came to pass, when they had heard the law, that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude.

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