The idea that the American Indians were the Ten Lost Tribes was the natural result of the extrapolation of concepts entrenched in the Judeo- Christian worldview to the conditions discovered in the New World

God created the world in six day, creating mankind on that first Friday. Adam and Eve are the progenitors of the entire human race. They emerged from the Garden of Eden, bound by the Pishon and Gihon Rivers, as well as the Tigris and Euphrates; they were expelled to the east of it. Even after they dispersed, the Flood brought them back: Noah became mankind’s second sole progenitor, and the Shinar Valley, which became the first locus of postdiluvial human settlement, was its geographical origin.

This biblical portrait was well entrenched in the minds of the European Christians (and Crypto-Jews) who suddenly discovered, at the end of the fifteenth century, that there was a ‘New World’, a land hitherto unknown. The very existence of another continent subtly undermined their worldview – the accepted geography had been full of Christian concepts – but the greater threat was posed by the surprising fact that this new continent contained human beings. True, they did not speak any European language, and some hastily labeled them ‘speaking beasts’, but the facts were stubborn: they spoke, had a social structure, and had created their own distinct culture.

Were these people also descendants of Adam? Of Noah?If not, the old worldview was at risk. If yes, the inevitable conclusion was that these people had somehow arrived from the Old World. “The Indians believe,” reported one Jesuit missionary, “that they were created in this new world.” But the Spaniards banished this mistaken belief from their minds “by means of our faith that all mankind descends from Adam”.

It is worth noting that even today the most widespread opinion amongst anthropologists is that the Native Americans are of Asiatic origins (Mongolian, more precisely; the physical characteristics indicate this link, certainly to a greater degree than any link to Europe, the Middle East, or Africa), and their forebears reached America via a land bridge from Eastern Siberia to Alaska across the Bering Strait, c. 20,000 years ago.

Thus, if the Native Americans originated in the Old World, they are, in essence, our long lost brothers. It was not long before they were identified with all sorts of legendary vanished peoples – with the ten exiled tribes of Israel first and foremost among them. Their story is rooted in the Bible and continues in the Talmud and in a wealth of legendary narratives.