SpiritualityWho was the First Jew?
By John Standring
We know that Saul was the first king of Israel and that John was the first man called Baptist, but who was the first Jew? Neither Adam, Seth, nor Noah are called Jew. Nor were Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. Moses was not called a Jew and neither were Saul, David, or Solomon called Jew. In fact you will not find the word Jew in the first eleven books of the Bible. The first time Jews are mentioned in the Bible, is in II Kings 16:6 (and then only in translations revised in the eighteenth century) where we find Israel was at war with the Jews and drave the Jews from Elath. Isn't it interesting that we can read over five hundred pages of the Bible before we find a Jew anywhere, yet those who call themselves Jew today claim the first five books of the Bible and call it their Torah.
Do you not find it rather strange that those who claim to have written the first five books of the Bible and call themselves Jew can't find the word Jew written anywhere in the book they call their own Bible and claim to have written? Jesus Christ tells John in Revelation 2:9 "I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN." We know that God changed the name of Abram to Abraham in Genesis 17:5, and that He changed the name of Jacob to Israel in Genesis 32:28, but nowhere in the Bible do we find where God changed the name of Israel to Jew! There is, therefore, no authority by which those who say they are Jews can claim to be Israel!
By the time of Jesus the word Edom or Edomite had been translated by Greek and Latin into Ioudaios and Iudaeus meaning a Judean or person living in Judea. The original King James version of the Bible, 1611, translated Idumaean-Judean into Iewes. It wasn't until the revised editions of the King James Bible, that the word Jew appeared. The word Jew does not mean Israel or Israelite! We must conclude therefore that the first "Jews" were Canaanite-Edomite-Hittite. It is certain, according to the Bible, that Jews are not Israel.