Religious Implications of the Carthaginian Theory
by Lawrence Erickson
“A Brief Summary of the Carthaginian Theory”
“For those who have not read the article, the Carthaginian theory perfectly solves a strange puzzle with regard to modern Jewish origins. Unz summarizes the puzzle as follows:
“Most mainstream experts seemed to quietly concede that Sand was correct in arguing that by the time of the Roman Empire the overwhelming majority of the Jews living along the shores of the Mediterranean were probably of convert stock, having little ancestry from the Israelites of Palestine. Yet the genetic evidence painted a very different picture for the major subsequent Jewish populations.
As mentioned, the Ashkenazi Jews seem to derive from Middle Eastern males who took European wives in the centuries after the Fall of Rome. Meanwhile, the Sephardic Jews of Muslim Spain are also of Middle Eastern ancestry, and they were the wealthiest and most numerous component of Jewry throughout much of the Middle Ages prior to their 1492 expulsion by Ferdinand and Isabella. So, if only a small fraction of Jews had roots in Palestine, it appears quite odd that these would have become the progenitors of both the Sephardic and male Ashkenazi lines. Genetic evidence seems to conflict with strong literary and historical evidence.”
These seemingly contradictory bodies of evidence are brought together by the Carthaginian hypothesis. The Carthaginians/Phoenicians were a Canaanite people, closely related to the Judeans, and so the difference between the two would not be picked up by our insufficiently precise genetic testing. Carthage also had a massive empire of roughly four million people, and so it would’ve provided an ample source of converts around the Mediterranean. After the destruction of Carthage by Rome, the defeated and stateless Carthaginians would’ve found the religion of their devout cousins very attractive, given that it prophesized a messiah that would save their people. The Carthaginians were also known for being excellent merchants and urban-dwellers, similar to modern day Jews, but quite different from the peasants of Judea. As we will examine below, this theory would also connect modern Jews with the Canaanite ancestors of the Carthaginians.”
UNZ Review
May 10, 2024