The simple facts are that after the death of Solomon, the Kingdom of Israel was divided into two kingdoms. The Northern Kingdom - composed of ten (10) tribes, with the capital at Samaria, called "Israel," and the Southern Kingdom - composed of only two (2) tribes (Judah & Benjamin), with the capital at Jerusalem, called "Judah." Both of these Kingdoms went into Captivity to Babylon within a few short years of each other, due to Israel’s sins of pride and rebellion. Contrary to what most teach and believe, the following Biblical giants were never "Jews."
* ABRAHAM - was a Hebrew (racial)
* ISSAC - was a Hebrew
* JACOB - was a Hebrew
* MOSES - was a Levite (tribal)
* PAUL – was a Benjaminite and BECAME a devout and religious JEW BY CHOICE!
* JESUS – was/is The Son of God, a strict adherent of His own Law, but never a JEW!
SAUL THE PHARISEE/JEW
Saul was a racial Israelite, a Roman citizen - born in Tarsus and studied the “Traditions of the Elders/Fathers” (Gal 1:14) under the Pharisee, Gemaliel, in Jerusalem in his youth and became the “golden haired boy” of the controlling Jewish establishment. At this time, prior to his conversion, Saul was a vicious, Babylonian Talmudic Pharisaic Antichrist that persecuted the followers of “The Way” to their deaths, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison whenever the opportunity arose. Paul wrote: "You have heard of my earlier CAREER in Judaism - how furiously I persecuted the Church of God, and made havoc of it; and how in devotion to Judaism I out-stripped many men of may own age among my people, being far more zealous than they for the tradition of my forefathers" (Gal 1:13, 14, Weymouth Translation)
Clearly while in Judaism, Saul persecuted Christians due to his intense hatred for believers, because of his total commitment to the fraternity holding to the “traditions of the fathers.” Paul at that time, was a Jew BY RELIGION ONLY!
Please carefully read it again, “And profited in the Jews' RELIGION above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.” (Gal 1:14 KJV)
When Paul became a Christian, HE CEASED BEING A “JEW” as such, simply because Pharisaism (Judaism, Jewry) TOTALLY CONTRADICTED EVERYTHING he now stood for as an Apostle of Christ.
In fact, this very system of religious/cultish legalism called "Jewry" was something of which even Jesus Himself would NOT walk. This is so incredibly important to understand!!! “After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would NOT WALK IN JEWRY, BECAUSE THE JEWS SOUGHT TO KILL HIM.” (John 7:1) These "Jews" that were determined to KILL Christ were the cozy, religious (freemasonic) establishment of the Scribes and Pharisees that held considerable political power during the time of the brutal Roman occupation of Palestine, where Jesus openly condemned their status-seeking and carnal, ego-centric attitudes.
Despite the occupation, the Babylonian Talmudic Pharisees were given near total autonomy in dealing with all so-called “religious” matters, where after the death of Herod the Great, Judea was reduced to a Roman province under a procurator. It was under the fifth procurator, Pontius Pilate, that Jesus Christ was crucified, by order of the Pharisees of whom the Sanhedrin were the supreme ruling/decision-making body. It was these JEWS who ordered the death of Christ. The “Jews" referred to, meant the high priests, the Sanhedrin, the scribes and the Pharisees, all of whom earned the scorn of our Lord because of the total abuse of their authority. The religious establishment saw The Lord Jesus as a threat to their power base because he was becoming popular with the people, who had several times sought to make him their king.
Hence the term "Jew" refers to the followers of this Pharisaic system of religionised law based on men’s traditions and upon generations of subjective interpretations of God’s Law/Word that ultimately became "Talmudic Judaism.” It was and still is, a powerful, influential and liberal religious sect where only a select and privileged few were invited to join. "Judaism denotes the Jewish faith in its extravagant form of blind attachment to rites and traditions, and national exclusiveness. This must have been prevalent in the time of Christ, because of His constant exposure of their formalism and self-assumption, and because in John's Gospel 'the Jews' is used as synonymous with opposers of Christ and His teachings." (The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. II, (1901), p. 999).
ISRAEL - THE JEWS AND GENEALOGY
When asked the question, "Who is Israel? - Who is a Jew?" the Israeli Government's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) answered thus:
"The term Israelite is purely Biblical. An Israeli is a citizen of Israel, regardless of religion. A Jew is a person anywhere in the world born to a Jewish mother, or converted to Judaism, who is thus identified as a member of the Jewish people and religion.”
Notice here that the Jews themselves clearly imply that the term "Israelite" and "Jew" are separate and distinct and where Jews have no relation whatsoever with the Biblical Noahatic bloodline. In fact, under the heading "A Brief History of the Terms for Jew," in the 1980 Jewish Almanac, is the following incredible admission:
"Strictly speaking it is incorrect to call an ancient Israelite a "Jew" or to call a contemporary Jew an Israelite or a Hebrew".
A JEW IS NOT TO BE CONSIDERED AN ISRAELITE!
Today, to trace anyone's descent to ancient Palestine would be a genealogical impossibility. The Jewish racial myth flows from the fact that the words ‘Hebrew,’ ‘Israelite,’ ‘Jew,’ ‘Judaism,’ and the ‘Jewish people’ have been used synonymously to suggest a historic continuity, but this is a gross misuse. The descriptive name Judaism was never heard by the Hebrews or Israelites; it appears only within modern Christianity. The English abbreviation, 'Jew,’ is recent and does not correspond to anything denoted by the Aramaic, Greek or Roman terms for 'Judahite' or 'Judean,’ which were in use during the lifetime of Jesus. In fact, according to Reporting Guidelines for the Australian Press Council, General Press Release No. 49 (issued June 1982) with reference to the word "Race" as applied to Jews.
“The Press Council wishes to alert editors to a common mistake. There is no "Jewish race". Judaism is not a race but a religion. There are Caucasian Jews, Mongolian Jews, Oriental Jews, Semitic Jews and so on - terms defining both racial origin and religion. The Council asks all editors and sub-editors to watch for this error . . . .”
During Christ’s lifetime, no persons were described as "Jews" anywhere. This very important FACT is supported by sound theology, suppressed historical truth and science. When Jesus was in Judea, it was not the "homeland" of the ancestors of those who today style themselves as "Jews". Their ancestors never set-foot anywhere near Judea. They existed at that time in Asia, their true "homeland", and were known as Chazars, or Turkish Mongols. Banned author Douglas Reed, in his superbly researched classic, “Controversy of Zion,” writes:
"No authority, Judaist or other, would support the claim to blood decent from Judah for the so-called Jews of today." In fact, the Palestinians would have more claim to the racial description, 'Semite', than any within modern Jewry who are of Eastern-European stock and trace their lineage back to the ancient Asiatic kingdom of the Chazar”.