Colossians 3:11 Proves Europe’s Scythian Ancestors Were Israelites Of The Dispersion

Ironically, one of the New Testament verses that Christian universalists often gleefully quote to “prove” that Christ came for “everyone” is Colossians 3:11:

“…There is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, slave, and free; but Christ is all and in all.”

These “big tent”, feel-good egalitarian Christians believe that this verse provides a “second witness” to Paul’s similar words to the Galatians:

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

—Galatians 3:28

However, as we have proven many times before, Paul counted the Galatians among the 12 tribes of Israel scattered abroad — and therefore, he was merely admonishing the Galatians to not discriminate among their fellow Israelites, regardless of their social status.

See our articles on this subject:

Did Paul Write The Book Of Galatians To Israelites Or To Everyone?

A Christian Response To ’10 Reasons Why Racism Is A Sin’ By The Gospel Coalition

Like the Galatians, the Colossians were also “lost” Israelites of the dispersion — and Paul makes this fact abundantly clear in a number of verses in this epistle.

Directly addressing the Colossians in chapter 1, Paul describes their history when God divorced their Israelite ancestors and sent them into Assyrian captivity where they had become alienated from — and actual enemies of — the southern kingdom of Israel:

“And you — once being alienated, and enemies in the mind, in the evil works, yet now did he reconcile…”

–Colossians 1:21

Paul would not describe the Colossians as having at one time been alienated from God and Israel if they hadn’t been at an earlier time with God and part of His chosen people.

Here the word “alienated” comes from the Greek word apallotrioó (Strong’s #526) which Paul well-knew meant,

“It conveys the idea of being separated or cut off from a relationship or community, often due to sin or disobedience.”

—Strong’s Lexicon #526

Likewise, Paul uses the exact same word — apallotrioó — to describe the “uncircumcised” Ephesians who, in former times, were part of Israel under God’s covenant:

“For this reason, remember, that you [were] once the nations in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that called Circumcision in the flesh made by hands, At that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, not having hope and without God in the world.”

–Ephesians 2:11-12

Many deceptive English renderings of this verse — such as in the King James Version — translate apallotrioó as “aliens from” — in order to falsely suggest that the Ephesians — and all other non-Israelite “gentiles” — that is, racial aliens — are welcome in the New Covenant under Christ.

And even Strong’s Lexicon pushes this universalist doctrine in its definition of Scythian — from the Greek Skuthés (Strong’s #4658) — which they render as meaning,

“a Scythian, as typical of the uncivilized”

So, Strong’s claims that Scythian here is merely a type — like a Barbarian (Strong’s #915) in the same verse — an uncivilized person — and has no real racial or ethnic connotations — as they describe its usage:

“In the New Testament, “Skuthés” refers to the Scythians, a group of people known for their nomadic lifestyle and often considered barbaric by the more settled civilizations of the time. The term is used to illustrate the inclusivity of the Gospel message, emphasizing that in Christ, cultural and social distinctions are transcended.”

How odd that Paul would be redundant in the same verse and use two words – Barbarian and Scythian — that mean the same thing.

Strong’s then doubles down on the universalist meaning of Scythian and gives its supposed historical and cultural context:

“The Scythians were a group of ancient tribes of nomadic warriors who originally lived in what is now Southern Siberia. They were known for their skills in horseback riding and archery. In the Greco-Roman world, they were often stereotyped as uncivilized and barbaric. Despite this, the mention of Scythians in the New Testament highlights the radical inclusivity of the early Christian message, which broke down barriers between different ethnic and social groups.”

Strong’s takes a phrase right out of the cultural Marxist textbooks — “radical inclusivity” — which is in complete opposition to the radically exclusive direct words of Christ:

“I was sent only to those being lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

–Matthew 15:24

Not only that, Strong’s claims that the Scythians were from “Southern Siberia” which is completely misleading and false — as we shall see below.

That said, only the “lost sheep of the House of Israel” could possibly be “alienated from” the main body of Israel as a whole — and that’s exactly what happened when God sent them into Assyrian captivity.

Thus, from the perspective of the faithful Israelites of the southern kingdom in Judea — aka, the “Circumcision” — the “alienated” 10 lost tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel were called the “Uncircumision”.

Only an Israelite can be deemed “uncircumcised” in this context — non-Israelites are never referred to as the “Uncircumcised” — because circumcision was a sign of God’s covenant only with Israel — and no other people.

Returning to Colossians 3:11 cited above, if we read the next verse, which most Christians, for obvious reasons, choose to ignore, we see Paul includes the Scythians among this fellow Israelites:

“…Put on, therefore, as chosen ones of God, holy and beloved, yearnings of mercies, kindness, humble-mindedness, meekness, long-suffering..”

Colossians 3:12

Therefore, the Scythians mentioned in the preceding verse — in Colossians 3:11 — must be “uncircumcised” Israelites, who at one time were “alienated” from God and Israel proper, but are now accepted once again among the “chosen ones of God, holy and beloved” under Christ, as promised in the prophecy of Jeremiah:

“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

-–Jeremiah 31:31-33

And so the Scythians would certainly fall under Paul’s parable of the “wild olive branch” of Israel — and Christ’s parable of the Prodigal Son — which we describe in our essays,

The ‘Wild Olive Branch’ Of Romans 11 – Who Can Be Grafted Into Israel And Who Cannot

The Prodigal Son Identified – The Lost Tribes Of The House Of Israel

However, even if this is true — that Paul counts the Scythians among the lost tribes of the House of Israel — how do we know that the Scythians are among the ancestors of the European peoples?

The Celts who originally settled Scotland, for example, knew they were descendants of the ancient Scythians — as attested to in their 1320 Declaration of Arbroath:

“Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today.”

At the time of this declaration, the Scots had already embraced Christianity — in fact, archeological evidence proves that Christianity had reached Scotland in the 5th century AD, prior to the the official formation of the Catholic Church in Rome.

See our article:

Ancient Burial Site Reveals the Dawn of Christianity in Scotland

Thus, the Scots of the 14th century — when writing the Declaration of Arbroath, would have known that their Scythian ancestors were specifically mentioned in Paul’s epistle to the Colossians.

Furthermore, we have previously written about how certain Israelite tribes sojourned in Spain before crossing the sea in the north to settle in the British Isles — see our article,

Israelite Migrations From Tarshish Spain To Britain, Scotland And Ireland

In the book, Our Scythian Ancestors Identified With Israel, J.C. Gawler connects the Scots to the Israelite Scythians while sojourning in Spain:

“The people were called Scoti in Spain before they came to Ireland, and regarding this, one legend is that their chief married a daughter of Pharaoh named Scota, and her account called his people Scoti; another Irish legend states that they were called Scoti “from their leader Ebur Scut, or Ebur the Scythian, latinised Scoti.”

–J.C. Gawler, Our Scythian Ancestors Identified With Israel, p.12

Of course, the Scythians arrived in Europe by different routes — not just through Spain — as Gawler points out — they also migrated over land up through the Caucasus Mountains and then west through Europe.

Gawler finds evidence of Scythian ancestry in both the closely related Saxons and Goths. Of the Saxons he writes,

“Spelt from the Latin with a “C,” they are often called Sacæ, which is not the proper pronunciation. The letter used in the Greek is the κ . This word Σακαι, or Saccæ, is fairly, and without straining or imagination, translatable as Isaacites. It has been pointed out by Wilson and others that the initial I, or Hebrew י, is only a prefix. The Hebrew for “laughter” is “tsahhak,” and this conveys Sarah’s meaning (see Genesis 21:6) as accurately though not as forcibly as Itsahhak. The י before a verb denotes a tense, and before a noun it indicates “permanence,” “strength,” “excellence.” But, supposing it were not so, people would very soon for brevity’s sake drop the initial I and call them Tsaki, in preference to Itsaki.

Of the Σακαι [Sacæ] Herodotus says (Book 7. chapter 64), ‘The Persians call all the Scythians Sakai.’ By other writers the Σακαι are frequently called Sakans, Saccassani, Saccassuni, and Saxones.” (pp. 5-6)

Gawler cites the 16th century Dutch geographer, Abraham Ortelius, who observed that the Goths descend from the Getae, another Scythian tribe:

“The inhabitants of Dacia, the Greeks call Daci, the Latines Getæ, as Pliny, Dion, Stephanus, and others do testify: (this also Cottiso, sometime the king of that nation, doth confirm; Horace calleth him Dacum a Dake:) item Iornandes saith that the Romans indifferently called them Daci or Gothi. I do observe that Herodotus and the writers about that age generally, comprehended them under the name of the Scythæ, Scythians; to whom also the aforesaid Iornandes doth wholly assent and agree.”

–—Abraham Ortellius in his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, as quoted by Gawler, p.8

The historian Sharon Turner confirms this point:

“The Scythian tribes have become better known to us in recent periods under the name Getæ or Goths.”

—History of the Anglo-Saxons, Vol.1, Book 2, Chapter 1

But clearly the Scythians are not exclusively associated with only the Anglo-Saxon peoples — as the gold Scythian comb pictured at the top of this article was found among a trove of Scythian artifacts in the Ukraine — suggesting that the Slavic peoples also have Israelite ancestry.

If you are interested in studying this subject in more depth, we highly recommend you read Gawler’s concise book, Our Scythian Ancestors Identified With Israel found in our library.

See also:

The Affinity Between The Hebrew Language And The Celtic by Thomas Stratton

Ancient Israel in Spain and Britain by Pastor J.S. Brooks

Answers to Sixty Anglo-Israel Difficulties by John Wilson (cited by Gawler)

The Archer and the Steppe or The Empires of Scythia by F.R. Grahame (Scythians among the Slavs)

Cimmerians and Scythians by W.H. Fasken

The “Lost” Ten Tribes Of Israel…Found! by Steven M. Collins