bceHellenist/Babylonian historian, was in fact Arzareth.And he indicated the
resemblance among the words kong, ko ̈nig, andking—all Gothic words
signifying royalty—and the Hebrew wordcohen(priest),^105 a compelling case,
in his view, for the ten tribes ancestry of the Scythians, the fathers of Europe.
This new approach to the ten tribes was a result of the quest for the ethnic and
racial genesis of Europeans, which was gaining momentum at that time. Just
as the ten tribes had been attached to debates about the origins of peoples in
America, they now became attached to debates about the origins of Europeans.
The long history of European imaginings about the Scythians, and the fact
that Postel and Ortelius had already located the ten tribes in Scythian territory,
encouraged the reception of these theories. We can assume that Rudbeck was
not alone in assigning a Scythian relationship to the ten tribes, though his
training as a scientist and his Swedish background must have given his ideas
special purchase. In 1727 , Rudbeck Jr. further developed his ideas in the essay
“Of the Origin of the Estonians, Finns, and Laplanders,” published in theActa
Literaria Suecia,Sweden’s first scientific magazine. These three peoples were
“referable to the remains of the tribes of Israel.” Claiming that “no historian
since Esdras” had written on the matter, he continued: “I know not whither the
Israelitesbetook themselves unless to that part of the north, where mankind
never inhabited; and that journey from theEuxinesea [Black Sea] to Lapland
requir’d, on account of their children, flocks, effects, &c, the time, he [Esdras]
mentions, of one year and a half.”
Despite the claim that “no historian” had written about the ten tribes since
Esdras, it is evident that Rudbeck Jr. had been reading what Ge ́nebrard, at least,
had to say about them. Calculations about the time it took the ten tribes to get
from the Black Sea (the original Scythian Sea) to Arzareth were considered key
to accurately locating them. He listed a number of names of locales in Finland,
Estonia, and Lapland that corresponded with the names of locales in Asia,
“traces left by [the ten tribes] betweenPersiaand Finland.” He provided
(laughable) examples of Hebrewisms to be found in Scandinavian dialects
and cultural practices that could be traced back to the Israelites:
The customs of the ancient Hebrews in entering upon an inheritance,
in saluting, in embracing, in crossing their legs sitting, and in other
respects, swell the number of my arguments....theLaplanders
worship the deity by sacrifices, falling down on their faces, by
anointing, by building temples and by calling their GodsJumala,
Thor,&c. in all of which, they imitate theHebrews.^106
Rudbeck Jr. did not comment as to whether the famous red-bearded Thor,
god of thunder in Norse mythology, and the Finnish god Jumala were also