Moses led the Biblical Exodus from India to Israel, but the question arises whether there is any genetic proof that Indian people have any connection to the Israelite people.
According to the traditional location of the Exodus, it is believed that they went from Egypt to Israel, but we say that they went from India to Israel. The special thing is that both Egypt and India are not named in the Bible. In the Biblical Exodus story, some places are named, like Moses started the Exodus from a place called “Mitsrayim” or started from “Rameses”. But there is no mention anywhere in the Bible about where Mitsrayim and Rameses were located.
The story is that around 1400 BCE, Moses led the Exodus from India to Israel. Solomon built the first temple there around the 10th century BCE. In 586 BCE, Assyrian kings destroyed that temple and took the Jews captive to Babylon. The Jews stayed in Babylon for about 60 years. Then there was a king named Cyrus who allowed them to return to Jerusalem. It appears that some Jews did not go back to Israel. Some settled in Isfahan in Iran and some returned to India.
So, there were two migrations—the first migration from India to Israel, and the second migration involved traveling first from Israel to Babylon and then from Babylon to India. We have to understand these two migrations together.
Research by Abraham Benhur
Abraham Benhur is a researcher from Kerala. He studied the graves of Jews and found that their graves have a special shape called Dolmen. These Dolmens are found in a continuous chain from Israel to India, which indicates that this reverse migration happened.
Genetic connection
Now let’s see its connection with genetics. Our genes are very long. There is a special R2 gene. This R2 gene is found in about 10% of the people of India and about 1% is found in Ashkenazi Jews. About 80% of the Jews are Ashkenazi, and 20% are from Sephardi or other groups. We can say that if an R2 gene is found in 80% of the people, then it can be assumed in almost everyone. So, the question is how did the R2 gene reach 1% Ashkenazi?
In this picture, you can see that the concentration of the R1a gene parallel to the R2 gene is high in India, and as we move west, its concentration decreases. This indicates that the R2 gene found in Ashkenazi Jews may have originated in India.
Many studies suggest that the center of the R2 gene was in India. Sengupta said in a 2006 study that their origin is in the Asian subcontinent. Zhao said in a 2009 study that this R2 gene is found in different castes and religious groups in India, not in any particular class, but is found in almost all groups. Chennakrishnaiah found in a 2011 study that this R2 gene is found in Lingayat and Vokkaliga of Karnataka. Shinde studied an Indus Valley skeleton in a 2019 study, and he said that there is no indication of West- Asian origin in the R2 gene.
Study of the genes of Jews and non-Jews
Klyosov did a study in which the genes of 121 Jews and 1166 non-Jews were studied, and it was found that the genes of the Jews who were in Israel were superimposed on the genes of the local people, meaning there were two levels – one level of the old local genes and the other level of the Jews. This indicates that these people came from outside and were not local. Keep in mind that a story in the Bible tells that these people went from Canaan to Egypt and came back from Egypt. So, if these were people from Canaan and they came back, then there should have been a match in their genes, there should have been no layering. But because their genes are layered in two levels, it shows that they were not local and their roots were somewhere outside – whether in Egypt or India, but they were from outside.
Relationship of the genetic structure of Jews with Indians
In the same study it was told that the genetic structure of the Jews of India matches that of the Indian people, there is no layer in it. That is, the Jews who went from India to Israel in 1400 BCE and those who came back to India around 600 BCE, their genes were the same, and when they came back, there were no layers in their genes.
Now the question arises, what is the significance of 1% R2 among the Jews? If 10% of the Jews had the R2 gene, then in four generations it would be reduced to 1.2% genes. 10% to 5% in the first generation, 2.5% in the second, and 1.25% in the third. So, in four to five generations, only 1% of Jews will have this gene left. Now let us compare this to Exodus. The Exodus happened around 1500 BC, and today is 2000 AD, that is, 3500 years have passed. If we consider the time of one generation as 25 years, then 140 generations have passed during this period. If intermarriage happened in only four of these 140 generations, then the gene decreased from 10% to 1%. This is not an unexpected event, it is possible that for those who roamed outside for so many years, four of their generations may have intermarried and their R2 gene may have reduced to 1%.
Klyosov found that India has 10% R2 gene, Pakistan has 7-8%, and Tajikistan has 6%. After this, as we move towards the west, its percentage decreases. As we said earlier, this 1% gene must have left India and gone towards the West.
Klyosov studied the genes of 39 people. He estimated that the common ancestor from which those 39 people originated must have been around 6000 years ago. According to the Bible, the time of Adam is considered to be around 6000 years ago or 4000 BC. So this means that if we believe the story of the Bible, then Adam was born in India and 6000 years ago. All these 39 people must have originated from him.
Klyosov also says that out of these 37, 17 were Jews, their common ancestor was around 4000 years ago, i.e. around 2000 BC. I suggest that this person could be Ibrahim or Abraham because we believe that the descendants of Abraham went to the Western countries through Ishmael and Isaac. Therefore, the common ancestor of these 17 Jewish samples could be Ibrahim.
‘Six Marker’
Klyosov said that there are many markers in our DNA. There is a piece inside it which is called ‘Six Marker’, and he says that this gene of ‘Six Marker’ is found in almost all Indians and almost all Jews (14-12-23-10-10-14). This also indicates that this gene belongs to Indians which must have gone to the Jews of Israel.
Summary
A migration took place from India around 1400 years BC, in which these people went to Israel. From there these people came to Babylon in 600 BC and from there some came back to India. Given all these facts, it can be assumed that the people who left India carried the R2 gene, which is still found in 1% of Ashkenazi Jews. This establishes a genetic connection between India and Jews.
See English Video: https://youtu.be/C2ld4hwwfrE
References
- Behar, Doron M., The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people, Nature 2010.
- Benhur, Abraham, History, and Mystery of Megaliths & Jewish Lost Tribes, Soft Copy. URL Not available.
- Chennakrishnaiah, Shilpa, Analysis of Y-Chromosome Diversity in Lingayat and Vokkaliga
- Populations of Southern India, Florida International University, 2011.
- Klyosov, Anatole A., Jews of Haplogroup R2 From Origin of the Jews via DNA Genealogy, February 2010.
- Sahoo, Sanghamitra, A prehistory of Indian Y chromosomes: Evaluating demic diffusion scenarios, PNAS, January 24, 2006 vol. 103 no. 4 843–848.
- Sengupta, Sanghamitra, et. al., Polarity and Temporality of High-Resolution Y-Chromosome Distributions in India Identify Both Indigenous and Exogenous Expansions and Reveal Minor Genetic Influence of Central Asian Pastoralists, The American Journal of Human Genetics Volume 78 February 2006.
- Shinde, Vasant, An Ancient Harappan Genome Lacks Ancestry from Steppe Pastoralists or Iranian Farmers, Cell 179, 1–7, October 17, 2019.
- Zhao, Zhongming, Presence of three different paternal lineages among North Indians: A study of
- 560 Y chromosomes, Ann Hum Biol. 2009 Jan–Feb; 36(1): 46–59.