GOG, MAGOG AND THE KINGDOM OF THE KHAZARS (THE KHAZAR KINGDOM'S CONVERSION TO JUDAISM)

"A warrior-nation of Turkish Jews must have seemed to the [western] rabbis as strange as a circumcized unicorn." A. Koestler

According to Benjamin Freedman the Khazars' conversion to Judaism was first precipitated by their monarch's abhorrence of the moral climate into which his kingdom had descended. Freedman has claimed, and other historians confirmed, that the "primitive" Khazars engaged in extremely immoral forms of religious practices, among them phallic worship. Animal sacrifices were also included in their rites.

The Khazar religious structure centered around a shamanism known as Tengri, which incorporated the worship of spirits and the sky as well as zoolatry, the worship of animals. Tengri was also the name of their "immortal god who created the world," and the primary animal sacrifices made to this deity were horses. 30

The actual mechanics of the Khazarian kingdom's turn to Judaism was, most historians agree, rather well thought out -- from a humanistic perspective at least -- rather than random and capricious as some have believed.

According to George Vernadski, in his book A History of Russia, in AD 860 a delegation of Khazars were sent to Constantinople (now known as Istanbul), which was then what remained of the ancient capitol of the old Roman Empire turned Christian under the Emperor Constantine. Their message was:

This appeal, in all its implications, was obviously made for the purpose of drawing the Christian Roman Empire into the debate with an eye perhaps toward a balanced argument amongst the major monotheistic religions.

Brook makes the observation that "this statement reveals that the Jews were actively seeking converts in Khazaria in 860." He also adds that "in the year 860, [Christian] Saints Cyril and Methodius were sent as missionaries to the Khazars by the Byzantine emperor Michael III .... since the Khazars had requested that a Christian scholar come to Khazaria to debate with the Jews and Muslims." 32

Inasmuch as the world has seldom (or perhaps never) witnessed any culture of people more adept at the art of religious debate than rabbinical Jews, the Khazar's conversion to Talmudic Judaism is not a surprising outcome, given that such a forum was to be the determining factor in their choice, rather than purely spiritual perceptions. The outcome was even further assured by the fact that the Christian representatives in the debate came from a church in the latter formative years of the Holy Roman Empire in which, by that time, spiritual sensitivity had become somewhat rare to nearly extinct.

It was at that period of time (about AD 740) that King Bulan of Khazaria was reputed to have converted to Judaism. In the debate amongst the Islamic mullah, the Christian priest and the Jewish rabbi, each presented to the king the advantages and truths of his own precepts of faith. This king, however, according to some accounts of history, had his own logic for determining which he should embrace. He asked each representative in turn, which of the other two faiths he considered superior. The result was that the Muslim indicated Judaism over Christianity, and the Christian priest chose it over Islam. The king then concluded that Judaism, being the foundation upon which both of the other monotheistic religions were built, would be that which he and his subjects should embrace. The Khazars, themselves being monotheistic, had also apparently expressed reservations about the polytheistic nature of the Trinity doctrine of the Christians. 33

So as not to exclude the Islamic account of these events, the following is taken by D. M. Dunlop from al-Bakri's eleventh century work the Book of Kingdoms and Roads:

"The reason for the conversion of the king of the Khazars, who had previously been a heathen, to Judaism was as follows. He had adopted Christianity. Then he recognised the wrongness of his belief and began to speak with one of his governors about the concern with which he was filled. The other said to him, O king, the People of the Book form three classes. Invite them and enquire of them , then follow whichever is in possession of the truth. So he sent to the Christians for a bishop. Now there was with him a Jew skilled in debate, who disputed with the bishop, asking him, What do you say about Moses, son of Amram, and the Torah which was revealed to him? The other replied, Moses is a Prophet, and the Torah is true. Then said the Jew to the king. He has admitted the truth of my creed. Ask him now what he believes. So the king asked him and he replied, I say that the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, is the Word, and that he has made known the mysteries in the name of God. Then the Jew said to the king of the Khazars, He confesses a doctrine which I know not, while he admits what I set forth. But the bishop was not strong in bringing proofs. So he invited the Muslims, and they sent him a learned and intelligent man who understood disputation. But the Jew hired someone against him who poisoned him on the way, so that he died. And the Jew was able to win the king for his religion." 34

Koestler presents an interesting alternative to these views. His position was that the king's conversion was essentially a political decision. "At the beginning of the eighth century," he writes, "the world was polarized between the two super-powers representing Christianity and Islam. Their ideological doctrines were welded to power-politics pursued by the classical methods of propaganda, subversion and military conquest."

It may be observed here that it is quite evident modern Christianity has well learned this same form of statecraft (propaganda, subversion and military conquest) inasmuch as they have torn a page directly from the first millennium history of the church.

"The Khazar Empire represented a Third Force," Koestler continues, "which had proved equal to either of them, both as an adversary and an ally. But it could only maintain its independence by accepting neither Christianity nor Islam -- for either choice would have automatically subordinated it to the authority of the Roman Emperor or the Caliph of Baghdad." 35

Although they suffered no want of protracted efforts by either Islam or Christianity to convert the Khazars to their respective religions, it resulted in no more than an exchange of political and dynastic courtesies (i.e., intermarriages and shifting military alliances, etc.). It was clear that the Khazars were determined to preserve their supremacy as a "Third Force" in the world, and undisputed leader of the countries and tribal nations of the Transcaucasus. They saw that the adoption of one of the great monotheistic religions would confer upon their monarch the benefit of both prelatic and judicial authority that their system of shamanism could not, and that the rulers of the other two powers clearly enjoyed. 36

J. B. Bury concurs: "There can be no question," he says, "that the ruler was actuated by political motives in adopting Judaism. To embrace Mohammadanism would have made him the spiritual dependent of the Caliphs, who attempted to press their faith on the Khazars, and in Christianity lay the danger of his becoming an ecclesiastical vassal of the Roman Empire. Judaism was a reputable religion with sacred books which both Christian and Mohammadan respected; it elevated him above the heathen barbarians, and secured him against the interference of Caliph or Emperor." 37

It would be illogical, however, to think that the Khazarian rulers had embraced Judaism blindly without intimate knowledge of what they were accepting. They had encountered the faith numerous times throughout the preceding century from traders and refugees fleeing persecution at the hands of the Romans, and, to a lesser degree, Jewish flight from the Arab conquests of Asia Minor.

Benjamin Freedman expresses differently the science behind the process of choosing a national Khazarian religion. He claims they were much more informal and random, and not nearly so intellectual in their approach.

It matters little what the mechanics were of the conversion of the Khazar kingdom to Judaism. It matters only that it happened, and that it happened with a clanging historical ring that resounds to the present age.

"The religion of the Hebrews," writes John Bury, "had exercised a profound influence on the creed of Islam, and it had been a basis for Christianity; it had won scattered proselytes; but the conversion of the Khazars to the undiluted religion of Jehovah is unique in history." 38

It is indeed a unique historical event, as Bury claims; however it is also interesting that he should refer to their conversion to Talmudic Judaism as "to the undiluted religion of Jehovah." It is evident that present-day Ethiopian Jews would disagree with Mr. Bury on this matter since they do not adhere to the precepts of the Talmud, Mishnah, Midrash or any of the extra-biblical writings that have arisen since the close of the Old Testament canon. These Jews of North Africa claim only Torah as their scriptural authority. And, unlike their distant "brothers" of the Talmud, they practice their religion quietly and with relatively no involvement in worldly politics.

According to an ancient document entitled King Joseph's Reply to Hasdai ibn Shaprut, Joseph (a later Khazarian king) stated that, "From that time on the Almighty God helped him [King Bulan] and strengthened him. He and his slaves circumcised themselves and he sent for and brought wise men of Israel who interpreted the Torah for him and arranged the precepts in order." 39

There appears to be as many historical accounts as to how King Bulan was converted to Judaism as there are historians and mystics to present them. Many of them involve visions of angels, such as the tale by a Sephardic Jewish philosopher detailing a dream in which an angel told the king that his "intentions are desirable to the Creator" but the continued observance of shamanism was not. 40 In the aforementioned document, King Joseph's Reply, its author claims that in that same dream God promised King Bulan that if he would abandon his pagan religion and worship the only true God that He would "bless and multiply Bulan's offspring, and deliver his enemies into his hands, and make his kingdom last to the end of the world".

It is believed by scholars that the dream was designed to simulate the Covenant in Genesis and meant to imply "that the Khazars too claimed the status of a Chosen Race, who made their own Covenant with the Lord, even though they were not descended from Abraham's seed." 41 [emphasis supplied]

King Joseph corroborates this in his document as he claims to have positively traced his family's ancestry back, not to Shem the father of the "Shemites" or Semite peoples, but to another of Noah's sons. "Though a fierce Jewish nationalist, proud of wielding the 'sceptre ofJudah'," Koestler says, "he cannot, and does not, claim for them Semitic descent; he traces their ancestry...to...Noah's third son, Japheth; or more precisely to Japheth's grandson, Togarma, the ancestor of all Turkish tribes."

Koestler adds a footnote to King Joseph's genealogical claims that is piercingly relevant to this study: "It also throws a sidelight on the frequent description of the Khazars as the people of Magog. Magog, according to Genesis 10:2-3 was the much maligned uncle of Togarma." Add to this that two other of the sons of Japheth, the progenitor of the Khazars, are Meshech and Tubal, central figures in biblical prophecies of the end times.

King Joseph's Reply also revealed that the successor to King Bulan, his son Obediah, "reorganized the kingdom and established the [Jewish] religion properly and correctly," bringing in numerous Jewish sages who "explained to him the twenty-four books [the Torah], Mishnah, Talmud, and the order of prayers."

This entrenchment in the Jewish religion outlasted the kingdom itself and was transplanted, whole cloth, into the Eastern European settlements of Russia and Poland. 42

Whatever the religious machinery (and/or chicanery) that was set in motion to accomplish the task, the consequence is historically undeniable that the Khazarian king was indeed converted to Talmudic Judaism. And the temporal consequences of that conversion have rung down through history like a warped and distorted bell, answering clearly to prophetic declarations of the last days of earth's history."A warrior-nation of Turkish Jews must have
seemed to the

[western] rabbis as strange as a circumcized unicorn." A. Koestler

According to Benjamin Freedman the Khazars' conversion to Judaism was first precipitated by their monarch's abhorrence of the moral climate into which his kingdom had descended. Freedman has claimed, and other historians confirmed, that the "primitive" Khazars engaged in extremely immoral forms of religious practices, among them phallic worship. Animal sacrifices were also included in their rites.

The Khazar religious structure centered around a shamanism known as Tengri, which incorporated the worship of spirits and the sky as well as zoolatry, the worship of animals. Tengri was also the name of their "immortal god who created the world," and the primary animal sacrifices made to this deity were horses. 30

The actual mechanics of the Khazarian kingdom's turn to Judaism was, most historians agree, rather well thought out -- from a humanistic perspective at least -- rather than random and capricious as some have believed.

According to George Vernadski, in his book A History of Russia, in AD 860 a delegation of Khazars were sent to Constantinople (now known as Istanbul), which was then what remained of the ancient capitol of the old Roman Empire turned Christian under the Emperor Constantine. Their message was:

We have known God the Lord of everything [referring here to Tengri] from
time immemorial ... and now the Jews are urging us to accept their religion and
customs, and the Arabs, on their part, draw us to their faith, promising us
peace and many gifts. 31

This appeal, in all its implications, was obviously
made for the purpose of drawing the Christian Roman Empire into the debate with
an eye perhaps toward a balanced argument amongst the major monotheistic
religions.

Brook makes the observation that "this statement reveals that the Jews were actively seeking converts in Khazaria in 860." He also adds that "in the year 860, [Christian] Saints Cyril and Methodius were sent as missionaries to the Khazars by the Byzantine emperor Michael III ....
since the Khazars had requested that a Christian scholar come to Khazaria to
debate with the Jews and Muslims." 32

Inasmuch as the world has seldom (or perhaps never)
witnessed any culture of people more adept at the art of religious debate than
rabbinical Jews, the Khazar's conversion to Talmudic Judaism is not a
surprising outcome, given that such a forum was to be the determining factor in
their choice, rather than purely spiritual perceptions. The outcome was even
further assured by the fact that the Christian representatives in the debate
came from a church in the latter formative years of the Holy Roman Empire in
which, by that time, spiritual sensitivity had become somewhat rare to nearly
extinct.

It was at that period of time (about AD 740) that
King Bulan of Khazaria was reputed to have converted to Judaism. In the debate
amongst the Islamic mullah, the Christian priest and the Jewish rabbi, each
presented to the king the advantages and truths of his own precepts of faith.
This king, however, according to some accounts of history, had his own logic
for determining which he should embrace. He asked each representative in turn,
which of the other two faiths he considered superior. The result was that the
Muslim indicated Judaism over Christianity, and the Christian priest chose it
over Islam. The king then concluded that Judaism, being the foundation upon
which both of the other monotheistic religions were built, would be that which
he and his subjects should embrace. The Khazars, themselves being monotheistic,
had also apparently expressed reservations about the polytheistic nature of the
Trinity doctrine of the Christians. 33

So as not to exclude the Islamic account of these events, the following is taken by D. M. Dunlop from al-Bakri's eleventh century work the Book of Kingdoms and Roads:

"The reason for the conversion of the king of the
Khazars, who had previously been a heathen, to Judaism was as follows. He had
adopted Christianity. Then he recognised the wrongness of his belief and began
to speak with one of his governors about the concern with which he was filled.
The other said to him, O king, the People of the Book form three classes.
Invite them and enquire of them , then follow whichever is in possession of the
truth. So he sent to the Christians for a bishop. Now there was with him a Jew
skilled in debate, who disputed with the bishop, asking him, What do you say
about Moses, son of Amram, and the Torah which was revealed to him? The other
replied, Moses is a Prophet, and the Torah is true. Then said the Jew to the
king. He has admitted the truth of my creed. Ask him now what he believes. So
the king asked him and he replied, I say that the Messiah, Jesus the son of
Mary, is the Word, and that he has made known the mysteries in the name of God.
Then the Jew said to the king of the Khazars, He confesses a doctrine which I
know not, while he admits what I set forth. But the bishop was not strong in
bringing proofs. So he invited the Muslims, and they sent him a learned and
intelligent man who understood disputation. But the Jew hired someone against
him who poisoned him on the way, so that he died. And the Jew was able to win
the king for his religion." 34

Koestler presents an interesting alternative to these views. His position was that the king's conversion was essentially a political decision. "At the beginning of the eighth century," he writes, "the world was polarized between the two super-powers representing Christianity and Islam. Their ideological doctrines were welded to power-politics pursued by the classical methods of propaganda, subversion and military conquest."

It may be observed here that it is quite evident modern Christianity has well learned this same form of statecraft (propaganda, subversion and military conquest) inasmuch as they have torn a page directly from the first millennium history of the church.

"The Khazar Empire represented a Third Force,"
Koestler continues, "which had proved equal to either of them, both as an
adversary and an ally. But it could only maintain its independence by accepting
neither Christianity nor Islam -- for either choice would have automatically
subordinated it to the authority of the Roman Emperor or the Caliph of
Baghdad." 35

Although they suffered no want of protracted efforts by either Islam or Christianity to convert the Khazars to their respective religions, it resulted in no more than an exchange of political and dynastic courtesies (i.e., intermarriages and shifting military alliances, etc.). It was clear that the Khazars were determined to preserve their supremacy as a "Third Force" in the world, and undisputed leader of the countries and tribal nations
of the Transcaucasus. They saw that the adoption of one of the great
monotheistic religions would confer upon their monarch the benefit of both
prelatic and judicial authority that their system of shamanism could not, and
that the rulers of the other two powers clearly enjoyed. 36

J. B. Bury concurs: "There can be no question," he
says, "that the ruler was actuated by political motives in adopting Judaism. To
embrace Mohammadanism would have made him the spiritual dependent of the
Caliphs, who attempted to press their faith on the Khazars, and in Christianity
lay the danger of his becoming an ecclesiastical vassal of the Roman Empire.
Judaism was a reputable religion with sacred books which both Christian and
Mohammadan respected; it elevated him above the heathen barbarians, and secured
him against the interference of Caliph or Emperor." 37

It would be illogical, however, to think that the
Khazarian rulers had embraced Judaism blindly without intimate knowledge of
what they were accepting. They had encountered the faith numerous times
throughout the preceding century from traders and refugees fleeing persecution
at the hands of the Romans, and, to a lesser degree, Jewish flight from the
Arab conquests of Asia Minor.

Benjamin Freedman expresses differently the science
behind the process of choosing a national Khazarian religion. He claims they
were much more informal and random, and not nearly so intellectual in their
approach.

It matters little what the mechanics were of the
conversion of the Khazar kingdom to Judaism. It matters only that it happened,
and that it happened with a clanging historical ring that resounds to the
present age.

"The religion of the Hebrews," writes John Bury,
"had exercised a profound influence on the creed of Islam, and it had been a
basis for Christianity; it had won scattered proselytes; but the conversion of
the Khazars to the undiluted religion of Jehovah is unique in history." 38

It is indeed a unique historical event, as Bury
claims; however it is also interesting that he should refer to their conversion
to Talmudic Judaism as "to the undiluted religion of Jehovah." It is evident
that present-day Ethiopian Jews would disagree with Mr. Bury on this matter
since they do not adhere to the precepts of the Talmud, Mishnah, Midrash or any
of the extra-biblical writings that have arisen since the close of the Old
Testament canon. These Jews of North Africa claim only Torah as their
scriptural authority. And, unlike their distant "brothers" of the Talmud, they
practice their religion quietly and with relatively no involvement in worldly
politics.

According to an ancient document entitled King
Joseph's Reply to Hasdai ibn Shaprut, Joseph (a later Khazarian king)
stated that, "From that time on the Almighty God helped him [King Bulan] and
strengthened him. He and his slaves circumcised themselves and he sent for and
brought wise men of Israel who interpreted the Torah for him and arranged the
precepts in order." 39

There appears to be as many historical accounts as
to how King Bulan was converted to Judaism as there are historians and mystics
to present them. Many of them involve visions of angels, such as the tale by a
Sephardic Jewish philosopher detailing a dream in which an angel told the king
that his "intentions are desirable to the Creator" but the continued observance
of shamanism was not. 40 In the aforementioned
document, King Joseph's Reply, its author claims that in that same dream
God promised King Bulan that if he would abandon his pagan religion and worship
the only true God that He would "bless and multiply Bulan's offspring, and
deliver his enemies into his hands, and make his kingdom last to the end of the
world".

It is believed by scholars that the dream was
designed to simulate the Covenant in Genesis and meant to imply "that the
Khazars too claimed the status of a Chosen Race, who made their own
Covenant with the Lord, even though they were not descended from Abraham's
seed." 41 [emphasis supplied]

King Joseph corroborates this in his document as he
claims to have positively traced his family's ancestry back, not to Shem the
father of the "Shemites" or Semite peoples, but to another of Noah's sons.
"Though a fierce Jewish nationalist, proud of wielding the 'sceptre ofJudah',"
Koestler says, "he cannot, and does not, claim for them Semitic descent; he
traces their ancestry...to...Noah's third son, Japheth; or more precisely to
Japheth's grandson, Togarma, the ancestor of all Turkish tribes."

Koestler adds a footnote to King Joseph's
genealogical claims that is piercingly relevant to this study: "It also throws
a sidelight on the frequent description of the Khazars as the people of Magog.
Magog, according to Genesis 10:2-3 was the much maligned uncle of Togarma." Add
to this that two other of the sons of Japheth, the progenitor of the Khazars,
are Meshech and Tubal, central figures in biblical prophecies of the end
times.

King Joseph's Reply also revealed that the
successor to King Bulan, his son Obediah, "reorganized the kingdom and
established the [Jewish] religion properly and correctly," bringing in numerous
Jewish sages who "explained to him the twenty-four books [the Torah], Mishnah,
Talmud, and the order of prayers."

This entrenchment in the Jewish religion outlasted
the kingdom itself and was transplanted, whole cloth, into the Eastern European
settlements of Russia and Poland. 42

Whatever the religious machinery (and/or chicanery)
that was set in motion to accomplish the task, the consequence is historically
undeniable that the Khazarian king was indeed converted to Talmudic Judaism.
And the temporal consequences of that conversion have rung down through history
like a warped and distorted bell, answering clearly to prophetic declarations
of the last days of earth's history.