More Than Free: Exposing the Lies Hidden in History

By James Jensen

About the Book
More Than Free: Exposing the Lies Hidden in History is a unique look at 4000 years of history through the eyes of the author’s family tree. This text builds the case for a new world view whose foundation is that of truth and morality never described in another publication. It shows us that our history is not what we’ve been taught and indoctrinated to believe. In fact, we are supposed to believe that we don’t know where we came from and who our ancient forefathers and mothers really were. People are hungry for the truth, and this book delivers plenty of it.
We have to ask ourselves why? Why was our history disconnected to anything that was taught to us in high school and college? What is the root cause of hiding and obfuscating our past? And who did these things? How did the settlement of Europe happen, and where did these people originate? Why did they migrate, and who expelled or chased them? How did America become the land of exceptional people with a unique and free perspective? Where did the idea of personal freedoms originate, and how did the people of America regather in this land? This book explores all of these questions, and upon exhaustive examination, research, and sagacity, a mind open to connecting the dots has found and documented the answers.
About the Author
James Jensen was born in Rapid city, South Dakota. He currently resides in Weatherford, Texas where he runs a small hay farm. He is also an archer, upland game hunter, a researcher, and a writer. Jensen has four children and eight grandchildren. He is retired from the practice of landscape architecture in a global engineering and environmental consulting business focusing on utility-scale electrical projects. Jensen achieved technical writing expertise in preparing dozens of Environmental Impact Statements and related public-review documents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: Nov 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798890276193

Book preview

Acknowledgements

I am forever grateful to my many decades long friend, Jon Chafin, who inspired me to understand the mysteries and hidden facts of ancient history, and the wonders of the heavens and the earth. Further enhanced with a DNA ethnicity test, Jon’s natural curiosity shaped and pushed my intellect in unexpected directions to research More Than Free. My brother John always challenged me to take the hard-nosed facts where they lead, and damn the torpedoes. I am grateful to my brother John and son Ross for reading and editing rough drafts. My Bible teachers, Arnold and Dennis Murray of Shepherd’s Chapel, brought simplicity and clarity to the inspired Word of God, which guided my every thought, word and sentence in this book. Bea Fowler taught me how to write and how to appreciate great literature. My sister, Joanne, best understood the lies and mysteries I found in my research, and cheerfully added insightful comment. My Danish cousin, Henry Bleeg, reviewed the Danish sections for accuracy and was my biggest supporter. Finally, my wonderful wife, Kathy, gave me the strength and courage to keep going. She encouraged me to never give up, and to not always expect answers to the little miracles that endlessly add quality and texture to our lives.

INTRODUCTION

North of Aarhus at Hobro we cut northwest towards the Limfjorden, the inland waterway across continental northern Denmark. I fed gas to the little Japanese rental car, and we sped north along the single-lane paved road, past farmsteads and villages whose homes were normally framed with splashes of bright colors from flower boxes and emerald green lawns and trees. This summer was different. The yards were filled with dead, brown flowers and dying trees and shrubs. Lawns had long ago turned brown and dingy.

I thought to myself that the people of Denmark aren’t used to periods of no rain or having to run hoses to their flowers and gardens to keep them alive. Americans understand irrigation, that is, channeling water to where it can be productively used. There is plenty of water in North America, but it’s usually in the wrong place. American agriculture will transport water 500 miles or more from where it’s plentiful to where it’s needed.

This summer was unusual, too hot, too dry in northern Europe. They never get used to their farms being short of rainfall, but sometimes it happens. The drought and heat were crushing the harvest this year in Denmark, Germany, France and England. Here in northern Europe in mid-July, the small grain crops were stressed and thin. In my view of Danish history with my American eyes, it seems the Danes were probably never really prepared for drought, famine, invasion or epidemics, but they were creative, tough and hardy individuals who could and did survive, and ultimately recovered from each of the hundreds of disasters the little nation suffered over time.

The Limfjorden had been very important to settlers who arrived in this land around 3500 years ago. From the Bronze Age explorations and migrations to Viking times it was the safest ship route from the North Sea on the west to the Kattegat Sea on the east side of the Jutland peninsula, and thus was also protected by the Danites and others that settled there through time. Today, the landscape has changed, the climate has changed. Centuries of silt and sand accumulation prevents through passage from the North Sea to the Kattegat, yet the Limfjorden remains a popular inland waterway for recreational boating.

Earlier in the day we drove into the Jutland peninsula from the eastern coast town of Fredericia, a former military fortress that have tall earthen ramparts that still push up against the coast. As we drove north, we noticed patches of forests, called plantations, that the road passed through. Today, Danish forests make up about 10% of Denmark’s land mass.

While the mid-day sky was cloudless and blue, and the sun was hot, we drove into the immediate darkness of the dense stands of pine forests that cast deep shadows. I had to take off my shades to see the road. We slowed through the forest to enjoy the peace and dark and coolness, when suddenly a large buck Crown deer and his several does lumbered from the edge of the roadway into the forest. The big buck’s chest and head had an elk shape that I had never seen in American deer species, and I learned later their common name.

Within the half hour we arrived at our hotel, the Klim Bjerg, and had gotten into the room. There was the usual wifi in the room, but it was at this moment we first realized that hotels in Denmark don’t have air conditioning. They don’t need it, normally! But the room was unbearably hot.

I had booked this room weeks before, not really realizing that it was out in the middle of a rural area of meadows, low shrubs, and patches of trees, and no other signs of civilization for miles in any direction. It was a wide spot in road, as we say in America. Kathy gave me the look that let me know my judgement was in question for picking solitude and quiet over an urban hotel in Aalborg with air conditioning and a Starbucks down the street. The saving grace was the four-star rating of the hotel restaurant, whose service was superb, and the wine plied a smile from our lips by the time we were done with supper. As dusk approached the temperature began to ease.

Are you happier now? I asked, as I laid down my American Express card for the wonderful, yet pricey, supper at the four-star restaurant attached to the hotel, both run by a reputable chef and restauranteur. People obviously drove from miles around to come here to eat, because you could say this place was out in the middle of nowhere.

Yes, but the room is too hot and they don’t do a very good job of cleaning. It’s not like the Germans. She referenced how much she appreciates the fastidiousness of the Germans. It’s hard to argue the point. It wasn’t exactly the same here. Cobwebs and spiders are tolerated, as are yellow-jackets.

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Figure I.1 - Oudrup-Rønhøj Plantage

Yeah, I muttered back knowing she was right, but tried to remain cheerful.

How’re we gonna sleep in this heat?

Let’s open the windows and get out of here for a bit. Hopefully, it will cool down after dark.

We drove in air-conditioned silence the short distance, about three miles, to the North sea coast just in time to see a stunning sunset over what the Danes call the Western Sea. We were Americans uncomfortably returned to the land of my fathers.

In the coolness of the morning we got out of the hotel after breakfast ready to explore the North Sea coastline, the Limfjorden, and the dozens of Bronze Age and Viking sites in the north of Jutland. The churches of Denmark are known to be cultural treasures holding the history of the little country and the Danish people, and there were a lot of them on my agenda for the trip. Without wasting any time, we drove south and west to Thisted where some Jutish great grandparents had lived in the 17th century (Figure I.1).

The Kirkes Thisted gamle kirkegård stands proudly on the northern edge of Thisted, and is remarkable for its size, complexity and history. It is strongly contrasted by the simplicity of the small Jutish village that it stood for centuries to protect. The church was first constructed as a small Catholic church from oak timbers in the longhouse style during the Viking period, around 1000 AD, more than two centuries after Christianity was first preached in Denmark by Ansgar the Frankish monk in 826 AD, a single generation after the first Viking raid in England at the Lindisfarne monastery in 793 AD.

Because native stone suitable for building doesn’t exist in Denmark, the church was later rebuilt of calcareous tufa, which proved over time to be unsuitable for corners and high walls. Granite rock brought in from Germany were used for corner stones and plinths, and were shaped into standard-sized units known as ashlar. Sandstone for carving objects were shipped on the Army Road along the spine of Jutland from the Weser River in Westfalen, Germany to Viborg.

In the middle of the 13th century, building craftsmen in Denmark discovered the versatility of the brick. Finally, Denmark had its own masonry material. Suitable native clays fired into hardened brick became the standard building material from this time forward in Denmark. The church was expanded and the spire was added using native monastic red brick shipped by wagon from Viborg. Like most of the churches in Denmark, a few original granite walls of German stone were incorporated into reconstructed and expanded brick buildings. For the first time in centuries, building materials were no longer in short supply in Denmark.

Inside the church we found some of the symbols in carvings and art that I expected. I first noticed here in this church a model of a Danish war ship hanging by wire from the church ceiling, and this became a common thread in the 30 or more churches we visited. Each church had its own unique ship, but they all have them.

Adjacent to the church lay the foundations of an iron-age village and several large burial mounds from the Bronze Age, which provide proof that the area around Thisted has been continuously occupied for more than 3600 years, since approximately 1500 BC.

From Thisted, we drove south and east along the Limfjorden to Viborg, and had lunch and a locally-brewed ale before visiting the Viborg Domkirke first built on this site in 1130 AD as a Catholic church. The modern Lutheran cathedral was completed later in 1876.

Next stop was to visit the Iron Age museum and village Hvolris Jernalderlandsby. The sun sank lower in the sky as we left the village late in the afternoon, so we pushed the little car down the road towards the small hotel at Klim Bjerg. The light of the sun late in the day was mostly blotted out as we passed through a larger forest called the Oudrup-Rønhøj Plantage, and I noticed Kathy then became unusually quiet as we drove the final 15 miles into the Klim Bjerg.

Before we reached the hotel, Kathy remarked quietly, You’re gonna think I’m nuts.

Why? What are you talking about?

I was afraid to tell you because you always make fun of me when I’ve had a weird thing happen to me, you know, a God wink.

I thought to myself, Oh boy, here we go again. Over the years she had repeated a strange encounter that happened after her dad had died some 20 years ago. Sometime after returning home from the funeral, she was driving down the street when there appeared on the side of an intersection a young sailor dressed in white sailor pants, a red shirt and carrying a white canvas sack. She claimed that was her father that was trying to comfort her just days after he had died. She turned the car around and went back, but the sailor was gone. She got something out of this encounter, I suppose, and I don’t doubt that it was real.

She went on, When we were in the forest back there, I saw three people peering out of the forest at us as we passed.

I remained completely quiet for a moment with my eyes focused on the road ahead to Klim Bjerg. I had learned to be respectful and listen to what I would term, weird experiences, and try not to judge or mock too much, which I admit is hard for me given the size of the opening. This kind of experience was impossible for me to imagine, or believe, especially because these things just don’t happen to me, or at least not up to this point in my life.

As we turned into the Klim Bjerg, she described the people’s faces and dress. There were two men and a woman. The sunlight and heat were curiously intense in Denmark, and this was a particularly hot day. Nevertheless, my curiosity and skepticism were simultaneously peaked.

I suggested returning the 15 or 20 miles back to Oudrup-Rønhøj Plantage, the forest plantation where these three images had appeared.

Let’s go back. I want you to show me the place. Maybe they will still be there.

No way. I’m hungry and we’re here. Anyway, it’ll be too dark soon.

Kathy was eager to get back into the four-star restaurant for a glass of wine and the chef’s special. The topic was closed for the night, although not gone from my mind.

CHAPTER 1

I Am: 2166 BC to 2000 BC

I Am the LORD: that is My name: and My glory will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images (Isaiah 42:8). And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, ‘The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you;’ and they shall say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, ‘I AM hath send me unto you’" (Exodus 3:13-14).

Fertile Crescent

2121 BC

The earliest known written records outside of China date back to the cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr around 3300 BC. Cuneiform writing was in practice in the Fertile Crescent by 3000 BC. By 2300 BC groups of Semitic peoples originating from the family of Shem had moved into the central Fertile Crescent on exploratory missions looking for farmland and to flee from their enemies in the plains east of the Euphrates River.

In these early days of civilization, God sent angels to earth to offer knowledge and technology to humans to increase their use and enjoyment of the resources of the earth. This transfer of technology was well underway, but the plan hit a glitch when some of the angels who were sent to earth to do the teaching became enamored with earthly women, and they taught them wickedness. These angels took human form and came unto women, and their union produced offspring that were terrible creatures, giants, known as Geber (Genesis 6:4). This event became known as the influx of the fallen angels.

Also at this time there were Kenites living in the land of Nod. These people were of the seed of Cain, who departed Eden after he murdered his brother Abel. Indeed, Cain lived for hundreds of years under the name Sargon the Magnificent, a man who possessed enormous powers of evil, and could perform unnatural acts. As we know from the first two chapters of Genesis, Adam and Eve were seduced by the serpent, Satan, and Eve produced offspring that were twins. Adam was the father of one twin, Abel, and Satan was the father of the other child, Cain. Here the epic battle of good and evil was set, and we are the players.

Sargon spread his seed widely among the people he settled with in Nod, and the Kenites, i.e., the progeny of Cain, built cities (Genesis 4:16). In the years before the Great Flood there were already Kenites living in the Fertile Crescent, but they were fugitives and vagabonds, traders, and worshippers of the god, Sargon. The land became cursed to Cain when he became a murderer, and it would not yield fruit to his seed, the Kenites. They are not able to this day to be farmers.

The word Kenite is found in The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1995, 1996) by Thomas Nelson Publishers, and is identified as word number 7014, as follows: Qayin, kah’-yin: the same as 7013 Kajin, the name of the first child, also a place in Palestine and an Oriental tribe. Cain, Kenite. From this definition we derive that Kenites are the blood line of Cain. To understand the Bible to the end, we must first understand the beginning.

Seth was born to Adam and Eve, and he continued the pure genetic line from Adam that was, in a dozen generations, passed to Noah. Noah lived in a time a great depravity in the land because of the success of Sargon and the city builders. The worship of Satan was indeed their purpose. Noah was a man of God, and always remained faithful and obedient. He built the ark as instructed by God that saved his family and their farm animals from the flood. Some scholars believe that the flood was regional in lower regions of the Tigres and Euphrates rivers, but God’s purpose was to wipe out the wickedness brought to the land by the Geber and the Kenites, all of which were living in this region.

Noah and his three sons and their families and the farm animals went through the flood in a large watercraft and all survived. The enormous deluge of rainfall upstream and the ensuing Great Flood wiped out large numbers of people in the Fertile Crescent, and it lived in the conscience of the survivors for generations as the greatest story of all time. The Great Flood was recorded in Babylonian records as a second witness to the Biblical account. And after the flood there were new beginnings.

Shem was one of three sons of Noah, and he was the father of what became known as the Semitic people. Semitic is not a language, but a genetic line, at first a family, then a tribe, and finally a race. Shem was responsible for continuing the perfect lineage of Adam through Seth, and worshipping Elohim, God the creator of all things. All descendants of Shem are called ‘Semites,’ and as will be demonstrated, all 12 of the Tribes of Israel are Semites, not just the Jewish people (Tribe of Judah) as many would want you to believe. The Semites primarily settled along the Euphrates River (see Figure 1.1).

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Figure 1.1 - Descendants of Noah 2300 BC

Another son, Japhath, also became a successful and large tribe, and the people migrated north and west from the Fertile Crescent founding nations in Asia Minor and the Aegean. Some followed the Danube into Europe to mine salt, trade and settle. These were the early Celtic people that developed a sophisticated lifestyle in central Europe at the foot of the Alps, and they traded along the Danube River and into the Black Sea.

The third son, Ham, and his family left to the southwest to found the Egyptian people. As recounted in Genesis 9, Ham had an unholy union with his mother, and a child was produced known as Canaan. The Canaanite tribes settled in the eastern Mediterranean coast (modern Israel and Lebanon) play a large role in the story of Semitic peoples and the history of Israel and Palestine. Other sons of Ham also settled in this area.

Killed in the Great Flood, the Geber bodies washed downstream to the sea and yielded their molecules back to the clay. Yet, some of the wicked Kenites survived the Great Flood.

Within a few generations, Sumer was threatened again by freakish giants. The Geber joining forces with a growing population of surviving Kenites, that were and are the determined and eternal foe of the Semites, the counterpoise people in God’s plan.

Of the surviving Geber, some were of superhuman stature, had a warlike, cruel intellect, and exaggerated nose and forehead. Some of these giants were over nine feet tall and had rippling muscles and broad shoulders as wide as any two men. Most feared nothing, including death. They were terrible beasts.

Subduers of people and builders of cities, the Akkadians were largely led by Kenites, and their populations were bolstered with those conquered. They thrived in the cities where the people could be controlled and manipulated, and from their center of power they kept watch over the rural populations whose talent it was to feed the city with their grains and livestock, and to pay taxes. They used the Geber to intimidate and subdue the people on a normal basis, and they were used as the front line warriors in open battle.

These newcomers from the south were brutal and cruel, and their movements north were resisted by the Semites, who attempted to keep them out of the rich rural, agricultural lands in the central Fertile Crescent and Sumer. Nevertheless, within a matter of a dozen years, the Akkadian army took by force the agricultural areas surrounding the city. Their superior weapons technology, fierce and gruesome nature, and the enormous size of their fighting Geber gave them advantages when on the attack into the agricultural lands and vineyards.

The cities took a few more years to subdue. The Akkadian forces employed siege techniques on the fortified wooden walls, and once walls were compromised, they used the great force of the Geber and their superior weaponry and warriors to smash and take the the cities. Sargon founded the Akkadian Empire by force and was the first King. It was the first empire of which Semitic peoples became an unwilling part. Uruk and Jemdet Nasr fell to Sargon, and most of the people were slaughtered. Sumer was conquered by 2270 BC, at which time the wanton destruction of the accumulated knowledge from early Semitic scholars began.

Important facts about early civilization have been obfuscated and confused with time. Sargon the Magnificent was indeed the murderous brother Cain from the chapter two of Genesis in the Bible. As is explained in this account, Cain murdered Abel, his twin brother. A supporting fact about Cain’s father in the Bible is that Cain is not in the Biblical genealogy of Adam. Cain is never mentioned again by name in the Bible after Genesis. And as has already been emphasized, Cain’s race is the Kenites who survived the Great Flood of Noah’s time.

Sargon the Magnificent mixed with the people of other nations (the ethnos) in the Fertile Crescent, and started a new race by spreading his genes widely throughout the population of the region and the people he ruled. Cain’s seed was great and included the likes of Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Methusael, Lamech, Jabal, Zilla, and Tubal-cain, and yet the Great Flood nearly wiped them out. The names of Enoch and Lamech, although the same name, are not the same individuals those that are in the genealogy of the Semites.

Akkadians thrived and expanded, and became the builders of cities and trade routes. It was during this time of migration of enemies into the Fertile Crescent that early out migrations began, with some Semitic tribes going north and west, and some going south and west. Fewer went east, as this was in the direction of the Akkadian migrants. The Akkadian dynasty lasted another 200 years.

In those years writing had been developed that allowed recording the ancient stories, such as the Great Flood, as well as the more mundane activities of managing a Bronze Age empire, like accounting for the growth and taxing of grains and livestock, and the potential for long-distance trading with far away empires for essential items. The Akkadians established a trade outpost on the upper Tigris River, which later would become the great city of Nineveh in Assyria. The Akkadian Empire faded as the Assyrians prospered and grew.

The Assyrians took over management and trade with the salt mines of Halstatt in the northern Alps of Europe, as salt was the most essential mineral known at the time, mainly to flavor and preserve meat, the substance of life. It is these people who established the early western European continental culture at the foot of the Alps and along the Danube River. These were the early Celts in western Europe.

Abram was born in Ur of the Chaldees in 2166 BC in the Semitic blood line of Shem. When he was 15 years of age the Akkadian Empire was suffering from continuing corruption as the rich and powerful upper-class Akkadian Kenites enriched themselves through slave labor and crippling taxes on the farmers and merchants of the southern and central Fertile Crescent. The farmers and formerly free men quietly conspired.

Abram had focused his passions on his uncle’s trading business that was sanctioned by the Akkadian king, and showed enough promise as a business mind, warrior, and trader that his uncle, on his death bed, unexpectedly bequeathed him the trading business and his private troop of warriors needed for protection from thieves along the trade routes into the Levant and the eastern Tyrrhene Sea. With the inheritance of the established trading business, Abraham was recognized by the Akkadian King’s court, and received official status for his trading expeditions.

Abram left the Fertile Crescent in 2150 BC on his first trading mission to the west. While it was generally against local law and tradition to kill a trader, the law was often enough ignored. Traders took their own precautions.

Abram’s pack camels and carts for provisions, and warriors traveled about 15 miles a day under normal circumstances, and when they weren’t harassed by thieves or crossing rough ground and rivers. Abram fell in love with the countryside, and remembered the ancient stories passed down by his family elders and recorded in fable with cuneiform texts on clay tablets. The King of the Battle and the Great Flood were popular stories in the Bronze Age empires of the time (Figure 1.2).

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Figure 1.2 - Ancient Empires of 2200 BC

Abram returned four months later after trading with the Hittites with a camel train laden with the cargo of tin and gemstones, and was from this time known as the ‘fighting merchant prince’ or ‘the Hebrew.’ This first trading mission earned him enough money to be fabulous incentive for more journeys and more business. Abram used the concept of down payment and pending payment, which was an early form on contract and credit. Abram learned that to be a trusted merchant one had to be strong, but honest (Figure 1.3).

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Figure 1.3 - Abraham’s Trade Routes 2140 BC

During his trading journeys, Abram would spend hours by himself after supper. He loved the silence of the desert at night, and he worked at understanding the zodiac, the significance of the sun and star movements in the changing sky. He observed the position of the heavenly bodies as had been taught in Sumer, and he studied the sky for signs and seasons.

Abram loved everything about his early trading missions. He loved the desert, the journey west, the negotiations, and even the brief, sometimes bloody, battles with the wretched and desperate road robbers. They were generally ill-prepared for what they came up against in Abram. He was a ‘can-do’ person, and he knew how to get the job done. He believed in being prepared and using overwhelming force against a foe. Abram believed in one omnipresent and living God, and was disgusted by the worship of the statue of Sargon the Magnificent, whose image was ubiquitous throughout the empire.

Abram prayed to Elohim, God the Creator, on one very cold night in 2141 BC, and later Abram had a vivid dream where God made a covenant with him that his seed would be as numerous as the stars in the sky (Genesis 12:2 and 13:16).

Under the right lighting conditions from Mount Carmel in the land he wanted to buy in the Levant, especially mid-morning in mid-summer, Abram could see in the southwest distance the Great Pyramid radiating the light of the sun in the distance. Abraham hadn’t traveled to Egypt in his early trading missions, but after seeing the Levant and the pyramids shining in the distance, he knew he would travel to Egypt to see the pyramids and trade with their kings.

In less than 10 years, he made 12 trading missions to the region of the eastern Tyrrhene Sea to trade with the Hittites and the Egyptians, each time traveling back to Ur and the surrounding cities to fulfill contracts and collect gold and other precious commodities in exchange. However, after the 12th trading trip, he had made enough money that he returned west to the Levant and bought from the Hittite king and for his family the land where from the mountain tops the pyramids radiated the sun. Abram moved from the land of the Akkadian Empire to the land on the western shore of the Tyrrhene Sea (Mediterranean Sea) that he had purchased.

When Abram was 90 years old, God (YHVH) came to him to explain the covenants that He promised him. In Genesis 17:5, God changed Abram’s name to Abraham by adding ‘ha’ to his name. The letter ‘h’ in Hebrew stands for the number 5, which in Biblical numerals means ‘grace.’ At the same time, God made another covenant with Abraham that his seed would forever possess the gates of their enemies (Genesis 22:17).

At the age of 90, his wife Sarah was told one day by her husband, Abraham, that God promised for her womb to be opened and she would bare him a son. When she heard those words she laughed at how ridiculous they sounded. Nevertheless, the conception came to pass. Abraham was 100 years old when his son, Isaac, was born. His name translated is ‘let him laugh.’

Isaac married and settled on the land bought by his father near the crossroads of the north-south Egypt-Hittites trading routes and the east-west routes from the Tyrrhene Sea east to Babylon and Nineveh. The place was called Shechem, and it was located between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal.

During the time of Abraham and Isaac, the Hittites of Canaan and Asia Minor, and the Minoans of the House of Javan in the Aegean had reached their zenith of development and civilization. Their trading empires were enormous and their countries were wealthy with agriculture and trade.

In the next generation, during the life of Jacob, builders in Britain and Ireland arranged a variety of megaliths including the Stonehenge on the Salisbury plain in southern England. Druid priests prayed to God and looked for signs from the sun, moon and stars, and the arrangement of the stones often produced alignments of light at winter or summer solstice. Hu Gadarn, the first colonizer, was a contemporary of Abraham, and was believed to have brought Druidism to Briton. Druidic laws have been always justly regarded as the foundation and bulwark of British liberties (Morgan, 1860).

Hebron and Shechem

2166 BC - Generation 1

Jacob was born to Isaac and Rebekah in 2006 BC, and was the grandson of Abraham (Table 1.1). He was the second born of twins. The twins struggled with one another in the womb. God came to Rebekah and told her that the twins would father two nations, but that the older would serve the younger. His brother Esau was born first. Esau was born all covered with thick red hair like a hairy garment (Genesis 25:25), and as he was born, Rebekah continued in labor. The second child, Jacob, immediately followed in birth with his hand grabbing Esau’s heal. Thus, the younger son was named Jacob, the ’heal grabber.’

Table 1.1 - 2166 BC to 1950 BC

Nevertheless, the two continued to tolerate each other as the years passed and Isaac became old and his eyes began to fail him. He beckoned for Esau to prepare for him some of the savory venison that he loved to eat, and then to receive the blessings of the inheritance of the oldest child of the twins, the birthright. By the time that Esau had returned with the meats prepared for the old man, Jacob and his mother Rebekah had tricked Isaac into giving the blessings of the birthright to Jacob. The story goes that Jacob wore Esau’s clothing and Rebekah placed animal skins on his arms and neck to give the feel of Esau to the blessing hands of his father. Jacob thus received the inheritance birthright and the blessings of the same from Isaac.

After having been tricked by Jacob and his mother, Esau hatched a plan to kill his twin brother just as soon as Isaac died, and secure his birthright land that Abraham had purchased in the Levant a generation before. Rebekah helped Jacob secure an escape plan to her brother Laban, a herdsman in Haran. He hurriedly prepared to leave for Haran, and was blessed by his father, Isaac, before he left for Haran.

Jacob was God fearing like his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac before him, and had a gentle, family countenance. Esau had a very rough nature, and had little regard for anyone that got in his way or challenged his authority. Esau was not well-suited for agricultural or husbandry, and didn’t have the patience for it. Esau was a hunter, and therefore the nation he fathered would be forced to constantly pursue life. The descendants of Esau later became the Edomites, and ultimately the basis of the white Russian population and government today. Remember that most of Russia is north of the arctic circle and away from the fat of the land necessary to feed its own people.

During the early part of his flight from Esau, Jacob walked to Beer Sheba then north along the road to Haran in northern Syria along the western bend of the Euphrates River. The first day out of Beer Sheba, Jacob ended his day in a particular area where he arranged the rocks for his pillow. Jacob fell asleep against the Stone and had a dream of God’s blessings. He dreamt of a ladder to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it (Genesis 28:12). In the dream, God gave Jacob and his seed the land forever. He told Jacob that his seed would be as numerous as the dust, and they would spread to the four directions. And through his seed, all nations would be blessed. Jacob awoke early in the morning and was afraid of what his dream had informed him. He believed that the place was truly a sacred house of God and the gateway to heaven. He set the Stone upright and anointed it with oil, and called the place Bethel.

Jacob would return later to retrieve the Stone, and this Stone would become an important part of the identity of the children of Jacob, the Israelites to this day. The Stone has survived as a revered object of the past for 38 centuries and 121 generations hence. The Stone today has been present at the coronation of kings and queens of Britain for millennia, and is currently housed for public inspection with the Scottish Crown Jewels in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Within a couple of weeks, Jacob arrived in Haran at the House of Laban where he immediately spied a lovely young woman drawing water from a well for her livestock. It turned out to be Rachel, the daughter of Laban, and young Jacob knew he had met the woman he wanted to marry. Within a couple weeks he had made a deal for employment with his uncle, Laban, and earned his right to begin his own herd (Genesis 29), and after seven years of contracted labor to marry Rachel.

After seven years Laban gave his daughter unto marriage, but after the wedding night with the bride, Jacob discovered that he had been deceived by Laban. He had married Laban’s older daughter Leah, who was said to be of plain looks. Jacob was enraged but only able to plead with Laban, who took full advantage of the situation and offered another 7-year contract for Rachel. Jacob loved Rachel, so he took the deal.

Jacob remained with Laban for 21 years, and had grown a large herd and a large family with his two wives and two handmaidens Zilpah and Bilhah. Jacob approached Laban and explained to him that he wished to return to the land of his inheritance with his wives, concubines, children and livestock. Laban would not let him take the livestock that were of his herd’s normal color and markings, so Jacob devised a plan to separate his cattle and goats and flocks from Laban’s.

There came an opportunity during the next breeding season for Jacob to manage the large herd, and through the first recorded act of animal husbandry, Jacob selectively bred the strongest female animals of a certain color with others to produce speckled and spotted cattle. In this way, Jacob clearly identified his own stock much as a brand does today, and also gave him the hardiest stock of the herd. The weaker animals were bred to other males in Laban’s herds. Jacob, thus, separated his own herd of livestock from Laban’s. And then early one morning, Jacob assembled his livestock and flocks, and placed his family on camels for the journey south towards Shechem. It was time to cut and run. No one said a word to Laban about it.

When Laban arose in the morning there was a strange quiet in the camp, and when he learned of the clandestine departure of Jacob’s party it was a shock indeed, and the rage burned within him. Laban also found the golden images, the strange gods, that he worshipped were missing, and this did indeed send him into a frenzy. Believing that Jacob had stolen his images, after three days Laban assembled a posse to chase Jacob, and after another week of pursuit they had caught up to the slower-moving assemblage of flocks, goats, camels, men, women and children, and cattle (Genesis 31). Laban was mostly angry about his missing strange god, and Jacob, of course, denied everything. Without anyone knowing, Rachel had been the one who stole the golden image from her father, and hid them in her camel’s saddle.

Rachel’s sat upon the saddle hiding the strange gods while her father conducted the search. Finding nothing, Laban’s anger subsided, and the exchange then became more friendly. Jacob and Laban broke bread, made a covenant and offered a sacrifice, and they enjoyed the family fellowship the rest of the night. Laban left for Haran on good terms the following morning and Jacob and company continued their journey south.

Before Jacob entered the land of Seir in the nation of Edom, his brother Esau’s land, he stopped his journey and sent a messenger of peace to Esau to ask permission to cross on the southern border of Mount Seir.

Jacob set aside part of his herd to offer as a sizable gift to Esau in exchange for safe passage. On the night before Esau was to arrive, Jacob spent the night by himself to prepare for meeting Esau. He feared meeting with his brother the next day, and through the night he is said to have wrestled with a man until the break of day. Jacob realized that he was wrestling with God, and before he would let go, Jacob asked God to bless him. God blessed him and changed his name to Israel in that moment; And He said, thy name shall be no more called Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed (Genesis 32:28). During the fight, Jacob’s hip was thrown out of joint.

Esau arrived with 400 men, and Jacob, remembering the wrath of his brother some 21 years before, expected the worst. Instead, Esau ran to meet him and embraced Jacob, and they both wept and had a joyous reunion. Jacob introduced his assembled family of two wives and two concubines to Esau, and then when offered, Esau refused the gift of part of Jacob’s herd, saying I have enough, my brother; keep that thou has unto thyself (Genesis 33:9).

Esau instructed Jacob to slow his journey to protect his family and herds, and he left men to help Jacob’s family build booths, or carts, to ease the journey. This place they called Succoth. Thereafter, Esau and his warriors departed for Seir, and Israel and his family and their herds and flocks passed through their land on their route south with no further incident.

Table 1.2 - The Sons of Israel

After possessing the land of his inheritance in Shechem, Israel returned to Bethel to establish an altar to God, and remove and possess the Stone that was sacred from his dream some 21 years earlier. He set up the Stone as a pillar as a religious relic to remind his family of the power and grace of God.

Israel fathered 12 sons and 15 daughters. His two two wives were Leah and Rachel, and his two concubines, Zilpah and Bilhah. The sons of Israel are listed in order of their birth by mother in Table 1.2. Israel was insightful in most life skills, and was likewise prescient in seeing the strengths and weaknesses of his sons. He organized the family and gave each son a unique identity.

My sons are talented men. They will be farmers, traders, and warriors, he told his wife Rachel. They must learn their individual skills, preserve the family traditions and lands, and love and honor God above all else. Rachel died in labor giving birth to Benami in Bethlehem. The name means ‘son of my sorrow.’ After Rachel died, Jacob renamed him Benjamin, or ‘son of my right hand.’ He was the second son of his beloved Rachel.

Two generations of successful farmers and traders made the family increasingly rich, and their success made them complacent, unable to imagine that things could change. They did change, and for years on end there was a great droubt, and there were no crops, no stores of grain, and eventually few sheep or cattle left to eat. They began to panic about feeding their growing families over the long term.

Israelites

1877 BC - Generation 2

God promised Abraham and Isaac and Jacob that their seed would become as numerous as the stars in the sky, and that they would be the fathers of many nations. The Bible in many places refers to the 12 Tribes of Israel as God’s people.

There is no tribe named for Joseph, but rather tribes were named for his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who Israel adopted as his own sons while the family was in Egypt. Joseph was given first birthright and a double portion because there were two. This added two tribes.

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Figure 1.4 – Tribe of Reuben

However, the descendants of Levi were the hereditary priests and civil servants of the Israel nation, and were not counted as a tribe. The Levites’ duties required that they be dispersed among the other tribes, and thus they received no portion of land as an inheritance, except that they were generally given land around the cities of Israel for their homes and farms.

Each of these tribes had its own family symbols, coats of arms, or heraldry. The purpose of heraldry is to identify and to prove continuity of people, families, tribes and jurisdictions. The symbols given to the sons of Israel are significant because they survived in northern European culture and history, and can still be seen in tribal, family, and national symbols today. The Israelite Tribes are described as ancestors in this book.

Reuben, was the oldest son, who like Ishmael before him, should have inherited his father’s wealth, but Reuben was arrogant and complacent, and couldn’t control himself. He defiled his father’s bed, and his inheritance was lost and given to Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph.

Reuben’s affair with one of his own father’s wives, was revealed by young Joseph, which set up events that transpired later. Though the indiscretion was not with his mother, Israel said that Reuben would always have a weakness of the flesh, and would be as unstable as water. He was primarily a man, strong and handsome, but sensual and weak morally. His character is also changeable. The two symbols of Reuben are the face of a man as the primary symbol, and waves on the water as the secondary emblem (see Figure 1.4). He lost his birthright for his moral failure, but Reuben would be a great warrior and founder of nations. Reuben’s influences are found today throughout Europe from Ireland and Spain to France and Denmark.

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Figure 1.5 - Tribe of Simeon

Simeon was called a warrior whose strength and ferocity would give glorious advantages during times of aggression and exploration, and the ability to build and defend during development and civil expansion. Simeon’s symbols are the sword and castle, which are commonly found throughout the arms of Europe (Figure 1.5). The Basque coat of arms contains both. The arms of Spain and County Cork and Dublin, Ireland contain the castle. It’s found in northern Europe, including the arms of Aarhus and Copenhagen, Denmark; Hamburg, Germany; and Bergen, Norway.

The third-born was Levi was dealt with similarly to Simeon, as an instrument of cruelty because in their anger slew a prince of the Hivites (Genesis 49:6) who had raped their sister, Dinah. Also, Levi and Judah were so incensed that they slew all the males in the town with the edge of their swords (Genesis 34:25). Levi was later given responsibility by Israel for the Mosaic Tabernacle and for the family’s worship of God, but was given no physical inheritance. His talents were devotion to God and a great gift for the arts and music. His symbol is the breastplate of the 12 Tribes, the covenants represented by the unity of the Tribes under one God (Figure 1.6).

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Figure 1.6 - Breastplate of Levy

Levites found their way into feudal Europe in service to the kings of Europe, all of which were in the line of Judah. The court jester, or fool, was a type of clown associated with medieval times, and were likely Levites. They wore bright colored clothing and distinctive hats called coxcomb. A jester usually carried a mock scepter, known as a bauble. They entertained the royals, but also kept their genealogy and history, and taught the schools for their children.

The fools, sometimes like the bards and Druids of ancient times, were professional poets and prophets who were well-educated in history and the bloodlines of the Israelites. Fools also recited epic poems and maintained the culture and traditions of the people, and they carried the traditions of the Israelites. Today, many descendants of the Levites are in the ministry or perform arts and music.

Jacob’s 4th son, Judah, received a special blessing in that the royal bloodline of the House of Israel would come from this tribe. Judah is the bloodline that would rule as king of his brothers wherever they might be found in the world, and is the bloodline still found today in the royalty of all of north and western Europe, and in fact, represents the bloodline of many of the presidents of the United States. Judah’s primary emblem is the tawny couchant lion (Figure 1.7). Judah’s secondary emblems are the royal scepter, three passant lions, and grape clusters.

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Figure 1.7 - Lion and Scepter of Tribe of Judah

While still living in the hills of Shechem and Hebron, Judah had twin sons by his daughter-in-law, Tamar. Her husband and Judah’s son, Er, was killed by God. Judah’s relationship with Tamar is famously called Tamar’s tryst (Genesis 38). The twin sons born to this union were Zarah and Phares.

Zarah’s birthright as the first born was proven by the clever mid-wife who tied a red cord around baby Zarah’s wrist when he was partially born, as reported with one arm protruding. Just before the birth, the twins were said to have battled in their mother’s womb for supremacy, and Phares finally emerged first. Yet the red cord was around baby Zarah’s wrist, in fact, lending proof of him being first. The ‘red cord of Zarah’ would go down in time forever as a symbol of Zarah and his adventuresome family.

Being the first born, Zarah represented the highest royal bloodline. When the family was still in Egypt, the Pharaoh threatened the royal family of Zarah, and they fled Egypt for the Aegean and founded Sparta and Troy. The primary emblem for Judah’s son Zarah is the red rampant lion and the secondary is the red hand (Figure 1.8). The red hand of Zarah is found throughout Ireland, and the rampant lion is found in royal bloodlines and coats of arms in the cities and towns across Europe, and in Sweden, Denmark, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Canada, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

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Figure 1.8 - Rampant Red Lion of Zarah

Judah’s son Phares remained in Egypt after Zarah fled, and this line of Judah entered the promised land with Joshua. In the line of Phares was David, who was crowned king of Israel some 430 years later in 1010 BC, and was the first king of Israel from the line of Phares. Jesus was from the line of Phares and David. David’s everlasting symbol is the harp because he was a gifted player in the court of King Saul, first king of Israel, a Benjamite. The blood line of Phares would, in 25 generations, pass to David, Israel’s 2nd king, and whose rule changed the world.

The bloodlines of Zarah and David were joined together to make up the royal houses of Europe. The sign of David is the harp. A good percentage of Jewish people are generally from the blood line of Phares, that is, those Jews that are actually Semitic and descended from the Tribe of Judah. One version or another of the emblem of the lion, either couchant or rampant, is common in nearly all sections of the Celto- Saxon people (Bennett, 1976).

Israel’s 5th son was Dan. He identified Dan as a great explorer, fearless seamen, conqueror, and developer. Dan was tasked by Israel to find new homelands for the Israelite families from their captivity on the Nile delta of Egypt. Dan’s primary emblem is the snake, and Dan would leave a marker wherever he traveled like a snake leaves a trace of its path in the sand. In Europe the symbol of the snake was largely supplanted by the secondary emblem of the horse (Figure 1.9). The horse usually appears as white and sometimes with a rider. It was the primary emblem of the Saxons before the invasion of Britain (Bennett, 1976).

During the Exodus from Egypt, the Brigade of Dan first used the symbol of the Eagle in their standard of the north camp during the Exodus, and this has become another symbol of Dan. Dan’s brigade consisted of the Tribes of Dan, Naphtali and Asher. When the United States was choosing a national emblem, the snake was strongly considered, but the eagle was chosen. The eagle emblem bears no relation to the double-headed eagle seen in many parts of Europe, which is derived other than from Israelite heraldry (Bennett, 1976). The double headed eagle is also believed to be symbol of the highest degree of Freemasonry (Dice, 2014).

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Figure 1.9 - Emblems of the Tribe of Dan

Dan’s family explored Europe’s rivers and the coastlines of the Mediterranean and northern Europe, and they gave names to hundreds of rivers and places using their ancestor Dan’s name. Dan’s influence on the fate of the Israelites was mighty. Dan’s symbols are found in local jurisdictions throughout northern Europe, Scandinavia and Scotland. The eagle was one of the emblems of the Norse when they arrived into Scandinavia from Asia, and this emblem was continuous in Norway until about 1200 AD.

Naphtali was given the symbol of the leaping hind. He was the 6th son of Israel. This emblem is generally not found in family crests or coats of arms, but is accepted to be the people of Sweden who arrived in the late migrations from Asia well after the Scythians and Parthians in the late migrations.

Gad is a troop of horsemen, but is normally shown in heraldry as a knighted warrior on horseback carrying a flag. This emblem is scattered among European from the British Isles to central Europe. Moses likened Gad to a lion when they were in the wilderness, but this symbol was never used. Gad was sometimes represented by a number of tents indicating a troop. Gad is largely the ancestors of the German people, and they were subject to being stirred up, as has been the case with Germany. He was the 7th born son of Israel.

Asher was the 8th born son of Israel, and his emblem is a metal vessel, a covered cup or goblet. While this symbol is not widely used among the Celto-Saxons it appears in some jurisdictions in Scotland and England, and in some family coats of arms.

Isaacar’s emblem is a laden ass. As the 9th born son of Israel, Isaacar is not seen in the heraldry of Europe, Scandinavia, Britain or Ireland. Isaacar was with Brigade of Judah in the Exodus, and it may be that the tribe used the standard of the Brigade of Judah, which is the lion or that their identity was absorbed into other tribes after the Assyrian dispersion.

Zebulun was the 10th son born to Israel, and his emblem is a ship upon the waters. It is in the ancient arms of Holland, and appears in England, Wales, Scotland and Denmark. Paris, France and County Cork, Ireland include this symbol, and is the symbol in many families’ coats of arms. Danish churches all have a ship hanging from their ceilings.

Joseph was the 11th born son. Joseph is the fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall: the archers have sorely fried him and shot at him, and hated him: but his bow abode in strength and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, said Israel in Deuteronomy 49:22-24). Joseph is likened to the bough of an olive tree, a part of the Tree of Life understood to be the Tribes of Israel (Romans 11:24). Genesis 49:23 says that arrows are shot at Joseph, and there is an implied relationship of Joseph with arrows. Moses blessed the descendants of Joseph and equated him to an ox and a unicorn. There is an implied relationship to a horn. These symbols were inherited by the sons of Joseph and divided between them (Figures 1.10 and 1.11).

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Figure 1.10 - Tribe of Manasseh / Joseph

Joseph was the little brother that had a special intellect that Israel recognized and loved, and thus received his father’s favor. Joseph’s brothers didn’t always feel that way about him. Joseph had frequent dreams that he would discuss with his father. One warm night in late summer when Joseph was 12 years old he had a dream where the sheep were bowing to him. He told his father, these sheep are my brothers, and they will bow to me. His brothers heard of the dream and hated Joseph’s arrogance. As a consequence, Joseph was disliked among the family, despite being his father’s favorite.

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Figure 1.11 - Tribe of Ephraim / Joseph

Joseph’s sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, were adopted by Israel as his own children while in Egypt, and he ranked them number one and number two in the family. On his deathbed, Israel reversed the order and gave Ephraim the greatest blessing and inheritance. However,

Manasseh also received high praise and blessings from Israel, and his descendants multiplied into many nations, most famously the USA. Manasseh is represented by a bough or a bunch of olive branches, and a bundle of arrows. Manasseh symbols are found on the Scottish arms and the city of Dublin, Ireland and Paris, France seals. Most famously, the symbols of Manasseh are extensive in the heraldry of the USA.

The symbols of the bull and the unicorn are primary emblems for Ephraim, and the horn is a secondary emblem. The unicorn and the crowned lion of Judah are the two prominent features of the British arms, and is similarly prominent in the Scottish, Welch, Saxon coat of arms. The bull is prominent in the Norwegian and Romanian arms.

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Figure 1.12 – Benjamin

Benjamin was the 12th and last-born of Israel. Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil (Deuteronomy 49:27). In this Biblical account, Benjamin is likened to a wolf, so a wolf became the emblem derived (Figure 1.12). The symbol is found in England and Spain, and throughout continental Europe and Norway. One of the Viking tribes used wolf skins in their war dress and heraldry. In the Exodus west camp, the Brigade of Ephraim consisted of Manasseh, Ephraim and Benjamin.

CHAPTER 2

Lost Freedom: 2000 BC to 1700 BC

"For this they are willingly ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing,