Japan and the Lost Tribes of Israel: Part 1
May 27th, 2007 by Glenn
Here is the first installment of a four-part video podscastumentary (is that a word?) on Japan and the Lost Tribes of Israel. Each installment will be around 10-15 minutes long. This is information I gathered several years ago for my MA thesis, and while I am no longer technically “collecting folklore” on this project, if any of you have experience with this and want to chime in, I would love to hear from you.
And although it may be jumping the gun a bit, I will also post the transcript of a homemade missionary discussion from a Japanese sister missionary named Komae Mori. It starts with her own story in her own words, although I have never been able to trace this back to a real person, so I do not know how genuine it is or how much of it has gone through the process of “communal recreation” as it has filtered through different missionaries’ hands over the years. It was floating around when I was a missionary in Japan (1991-93) and might still be floating around today. I apologize for the length, but it is interesting if you have the time to take a look. I would be especially interested to hear if anyone has come across this before. Enjoy.
KOMAE MORI’S REVISED MISSION LESSONS
Being the first Japanese person to come to the LTM [Language Training Mission in Salt lake City, Utah] I memorized the lesson plan completely in my native language and then went in the fourth Asian LTM group to Japan on my mission.
I began my mission in Osaka, November, 1969. During that time, our investigators asked me, a native Japanese, many questions. Two of the most important were: 1) What is the relationship between Jesus Christ and the Japanese people? And 2) What is the relationship between the teachings of the Mormon Church and Shinto, the original Japanese religion?
I joined the Church when I was in high school, knowing only the basic teachings of Mormonism, and until I was called on my mission, I had never even thought about such questions as these. Even after I received baptism, my parents were very strongly against the Church.
One Sunday morning, on the way to Church, I was involved in a traffic accident. I was unconscious for a few hours, and during this time I kept hearing the voice of the Elder who performed my baptism calling my name “Sister Mori.” Though I wanted to answer back, all I could think about was deep sleep. I was very sleepy.
When I finally answered, I awoke and realized that I was in the hospital. Despite the fact that my father had given up all hope for me, being told by the doctor that I would die, I was administered to by two Elders from the Church and my life was saved.
[Eventually] I talked about going on a mission with my Bishop. Because I hadn’t given a thought to going on a mission until that time, I was totally unprepared. Therefore, on my mission, from the very beginning being asked what relation Christ had to the Japanese people, and why I, a native Japanese, worshiped the God of America, I was very distressed. I hadn’t really thought or studied about these things before, and I realized then that these were my questions too. “Yes,” I thought, “what is the answer?”
If I couldn’t find the answers to these questions, I felt that not only was I not qualified to be a missionary and preach to my people, the Japanese, but also, that I couldn’t honestly continue as a member of the Mormon Church. Besides, I didn’t know what I should do to obtain the answer. I thought, “Joseph Smith prayed, and he learned that the true Church had been lost from the earth. I must pray too.”
I often went off by myself and, believing in God, fasted and prayed with all the diligence and sincerity in my possession. As I did, I came to find in my heart the convincing answer for which I had been searching.
As I began to fast and pray, I realized to my surprise that there were striking similarities between the religion in the Old Testament and the Shinto religion. Scriptures from the books of Exodus and Leviticus came one after another into my mind. It seemed that the religious customs and traditions of Japan were written plainly therein.
From when or where the Japanese began their custom of celebrating the New Year the way they do, or the origin of many other religious customs, no one really knows. I felt that we could find out from the Old Testament.
It is said that Japanese history [was recorded] 2,600 years ago. The Old Testament [was recorded] 6,000 years ago. Therefore, it’s certainly possible that the ancient Japanese knew God’s teachings, too, I thought.
I realized as I studied that Japanese history is recorded from about 600 years ago and this is about the same time that Buddhism also began [in Japan]. And I learned that in the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi, that the Lord sent Lehi to the American continent, he also led many other people away to the many various “isles of the sea.” So, through fasting and prayer I was finally able to obtain an answer at last to my questions confronting myself and our Japanese investigators.
At the same time, I realized that for the Japanese people, with their background based in the Shinto religion, the lesson plan then in use wasn’t really suitable in a number of ways. For the three months that I was a junior companion, with much fasting and prayer, I modified the standard lesson plan in places so that it would be easier for my people to understand, and wrote an introduction lesson especially for the Japanese. Even so, during the time that I was a junior companion, I followed my senior companion and faithfully used the lesson plan I had memorized at the LTM.
Becoming a senior companion after 3 months, I determined to try out the ideas I had come up with for the lesson plan. As a result, we had many investigators and many baptisms. I feel that this was because of the great help and guidance of Our Heavenly Father, and also, I think that the modifications of the lesson plan which we tried had something to do with it too. Therefore, I’d like to write it for you here.
Although there may be a few who don’t, most Japanese feel that their religion and Christianity have absolutely nothing in common. Therefore, I think that it is very necessary at the beginning to explain the similarities between the two, and that at one time all mankind had God’s teachings the same.
As it now is written the second lesson has no relation to the Japanese. I don’t think it was written with them in mind. Although talking about Christ’s coming to the western hemisphere is very exciting to an American person, when a Japanese hears this he is not excited. But in The Book of Mormon, Jesus says that he is going to visit many isles of the sea. It doesn’t say that Christ’s mission relates only to the near East and the American continent, but it relates to all the world.
INTRODUCTION LESSON
Elder: Konnichi wa! We’re missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Up until now, have you ever heard about the teachings of Jesus Christ?
Tanaka: (yes or no)
…
E: Well, do you know the origin of the Shinto shrine?
T: No, I don’t.
E: We can find that out from the Bible. Do you know the purpose and meaning of the Shinto shrine?
T: It’s a place to worship God and a sacred house.
E: Let’s think and see about when this kind of shrine came into existence. Would you please read this scripture, Mr. Tanaka. (Exodus 25:8) What is written here?
T: God had a place built where he could dwell with the people.
E: That’s right. What kind of place in Japan is like this?
T: A Shinto shrine.
E: That’s right. And again, God said the following… would you please read this scripture? (Exodus 40:2-8. This description of the layout and customs of the ancient tabernacle agrees in every detain with those of a Shinto shrine, the biggest celebration in Japan is New Year’s, when, among other things, everyone goes to visit their Shinto shrines.)
E: Thank you very much. I think you noticed verse 2, where do Japanese go on the first day of the New Year?
T: To the Shinto shrines.
E: That’s right. What does the altar of a Shinto shrine have on it? When we compare what you’ve just read, to this what do you think? Here’s a photograph of a Shinto shrine the candles, incense, everything’s the same isn’t it?
T: Yes.
E: And the courts around Shinto shrines are beautiful, too, aren’t they? In verse 8 it is commanded to build a court “round about” the tabernacle isn’t it. Well, would you please read these scriptures next? (Exodus 40:30-32. Again this is just like the Japanese Shinto layout and custom).
E: Thank you very much. Mr. Tanaka, as soon as you go into the court of a Shinto shrine, what do you notice first, and what custom do the Japanese do even today that is like this scripture?
T: There is water, and they wash their hands before going into the shrine.
E: What we’ve just had you read here is just a small portion of all that’s written in the Old Testament relating to Shinto shrines. In fact, almost all the teachings of the Old Testament are the same as in the Shinto religion, also a great many of the customs and manners of the Japanese people are recorded.
…
E: We use the scripture known as the Book of Mormon which is a record of Christ’s teachings on the American continent. We’ll study the Book of Mormon in more detail later. In 600 B.C., God gave a commandment to the man Lehi and his family to leave Jerusalem and go to the American continent. Would you read this scripture? (2 Nephi 10:21-22). What is it saying in this scripture?
T: That God sent Israelites to many islands of the sea and that He will not forget them.
E: That’s right. At that time was there a “New Testament”?
T: No. There was only the Old Testament.
E: Yes, that’s right. The teachings of the Japanese Shinto religion were originally given by the prophet Moses. Would you please read this scripture? (2 Nephi 25:24). Now, the teachings of Shinto originated from the Law of Moses and until when does it say here that the Law of Moses would be in effect?
T: Until the coming of Christ to this earth.
E: That’s right. Would you please read this scripture, (2 Nephi 25:29-30).
E: Why do you think that even now, the Japanese people are faithfully living these commandments of Moses in the Shinto religion?
T: Because they left with the teachings of the Old Testament before the coming of Christ.
…
E: Well, when Christ was preaching in the Eastern hemisphere, he spoke of other people many of whom dwelled on the isles of the sea. Would you read this scripture please? (John 10:14-16). Speaking in the Eastern Hemisphere, Christ is saying that other sheep folds exist (elsewhere). These are the people of what places, do you think?
T: I think it includes America and Japan too.
E: That’s right. In 600 B.C. at the same time Lehi came to America, God also sent many people to other places, including the islands of the ocean. The Gospel which Christ preached to the people of the American continent is written in the Book of Mormon. Let’s read and see what Christ said to the people there, (3 Nephi 17:4). Thank you very much, Christ visited the American continent after his resurrection. At that time, where did he say He was going to visit also?
T: He says he is going to visit the people of Israel whose whereabouts are not known.
E: Then why is the Book of Mormon important for us?
T: Because it is written about Christ (because perhaps Christ visited us, too).
…
E: In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there is an ordinance called “baptism.” In the teachings of the Shinto religion this is one called “misogi.” Why did you, Mr. Tanaka, being Japanese, receive the sprinkling of water as prescribed in this ordinance called “misogi?”
T: To purify myself and come closer to God.
E: Yes. It means to purify yourself with this ordinance of water. It is what we do with our misogi.
- END -
This is very interesting. I didn’t know about the parallels before. However, I think that flatly stating that Shinto traditions come from the Old Testament is over-stating things. It certainly looks convincing but we have no scriptures and no statements from the prophets to back it up.
I’m not saying such an approach shouldn’t be used at all but I’d be careful about claiming a definite connection between Shinto and OT Judaism. It might be better to bring up the parallels and let the investigators connect the dots themselves. One other thing to bring up is the origin story of the Japanese. If I recall correctly, the story goes that they were founded by a group of people led by a man who was the son of a deity. I’ve heard that said deity was Amaterasu, the sun goddess, but there may be other versions and besides, everyone knows what a game of “Telephone” history can be.
Glenn, thanks for this awesome stuff. As I mentioned on a previous post, I am dubious that Shinto traditions were ported directly over from ancient Israel, but the folklore making that connection is interesting in its own right.
Sister Mori’s lesson plan is also interesting as a sum-up of how far some Japanese LDS want to take the connection. I could see this sort of discussion being very effective for the Japanese, but wonder if a missionary would be able to get away with it these days, with the emphasis on more orthodox teaching methods.
Do you plan to mention the town in the northern Tohoku area that claims to have been visited by Christ?
PDOE, I was wondering whether or not you had heard about it from your time in Japan. What do you mean there’s nothing in the scriptures to back it up? What abouit the isles of the sea part, huh, what about that?
If it is scripture and statements from the Prophet that you want, if you search hard enough and stretch your mind wide enough it is not too difficult to find. The dedication of Japan by president Grant makes references to Israel, but that is a common part of most if not all dedicatory prayers. And there are always stories floating around about some general authority who said something that acknowledges the truth of this stuff. But ultimately – and I need to make this clear in my next installment, whether the parallels are correct or not, the stories and the beliefs they support are playing a significant role in the lives of many people. That is what I want to explore – not so much whether it is true or not. I also don’t know if Mori’s lesson plan was ever really used with investigators, or if it was just passed around among missionaries.
And hang on to your sun goddess story — there is more on that to come.
Lief, good points. Yes, the herai legend will make an appearance in the next three installments. It is one of the commonly shared stories by these different groups (new-age, christian, jewish, mormon) that has different meaning for each. For us, as you say, it is where Christ “visited” (and in our worldview we say, “right, he told the Nephites he would go other places, that makes sense”) but the town actually claims something very different than our LDS twist on it. More to come.
Hi Glenn,
I love the tori connection. This sort of “folk anthropology” is very interesting in many ways. While modern scholars may pan it, this sort of connection-making is very much in the vein of what folks like Frazer and Müller were doing in the nineteenth century. Müller’s theories are particularly relevant, because the basic premise of the Scots fellow you mention is very much a degenerationist one: you have the original Israelite culture, which is then corrupted over time; by philological (and ethnographic) comparison you can undo the “disease of language” (and culture) to arrive back at the pure state of Israelite heritage. While Müller was interested in tracing everything back to solar mythology, the methodological impulse here is the same.
There are two issues I see here as a folklorist that stand out. One is the truth value of the claim that Japanese culture/specific elements of Japanese culture can be derived from Israelite culture. Such claims are hard to evaluate because they are essentially unfalsifiable: one can’t prove that the tori isn’t really a degenerated remnant of the passover. Even if one could demonstrate that the tori was created much, much later, the believer in the correlation could always argue that the worldview that would lead the Japanese to create the tori must be of Israelite nature, even if the tori doesn’t date back that far. These claims then become matters of faith, rather than something to be factually substantiated or refuted.
The second point, and perhaps the more interesting one, is why people believe the connection and what it does for them. Whether or not the Japanese really are Israelite is rather beside the point if they believe that they are. They will then choose to emphasize apparent connections and will thus make them real in their lives. In that sense the historical nature of the claim doesn’t even matter to the people making the claim because the present nature of the claim and the use to which it is put is the real issue. I would imagine there are some Japanese for whom the Israelite connection is very important because it tells them that by converting to Christianity they aren’t really giving up their heritage, but embracing it. Thus they can justify (personally and to friends) a course of action that is frowned upon by broader society. I think this is the important issue for the people who make the claims, not whether Hosea really was the first emperor or whether samurai really is Samaria.
I would also point out that if the criteria for evaluating similarity is of the nature of having red gates and a few words that kinda, sorta sound the same and mean the same in two languages, it would be hard not to find evidence. Once one is committed to the truth of the proposition, evidence will be found.
Finally, for what it’s worth, there were those in Europe who claimed that the Ainu were one of the Ten Tribes to explain the apparent similarity between the Caucasian and Ainu phenotypes. I have no doubt that they also found some similarities that “proved” the connection. It was a little annoying for this viewpoint when scholarship started pointing to the Ainu (and perhaps the Ryukyuan Islanders) as remnants of the Jomon people who inhabited the Japanese Archipelago before the modern Japanese arrived.
Glenn,
Now that you mention it, and not to spoil your future installments, I do recall that the town of Herai claims something that would be antithetical to basic Christian tenets.
I am curious about another more fantastical Israel theory “evidence” (i.e. less concrete than the shinto shrine - tabernacle connections), which is the interpretation of old children’s songs and games in such a way that they have an ancient Israelite-related meaning. I have heard this especially in connection with the “Kagome kagome” song/game and the “iki wa yoi yoi” song/game.
The words to both of these songs have obscure meanings, and I have read from other folklorists that the songs have a very old origin. With regard to the kagome song, I have heard that it gives directions to where the ark of the covenant is buried within Japan. I certainly don’t believe that such is the case, but I think the reinterpretation of these songs is an interesting folkloric study in this field. (I think I once traced the “iki wa yoi yoi” song to Edo-period origins where is refers to a particular shrine, so no ancient Israelite origin there).
In general, I have heard a theory that traditional children’s songs and games remain relatively intact across generations and often have a very early origin within a given culture. Does this theory have any currency in the folklore studies world?
Feneved,
To your second point – the Japanese believer who claims Israelite heritage – I would add that it also doesn’t really matter what an “Israelite” really was historically. It is the way “Israelite” has been interpreted and filtered through a contemporary value-system that the Japanese believer takes upon himself/herself with the claim. Your point about embracing a lost heritage is exactly where I am going with this. And it extends beyond the Japanese Christian to the Japan Mormon as well. And for the missionaries, they are not converting anyone from their native culture – they are converting them BACK to their REAL native culture – it’s not colonialization, it is restoration.
The Ainu-Jomon connection would not be so annoying to Nolman McLeod. He would see it as evidence that the native Japanese were pushed out of Japan by the Jewish Samurai. But, seeing as how they are lighter skinned, they are probably lost Nephites (I’m only joking about that, by the way).
Lief (part 1),
The Herai legend is very interesting. It won’t spoil future installments (although I thank you for your discretion). Heral is the burial place of Jesus Christ, who escaped the crucification (his brother James was crucified instead) and returned to the land of Japan, where he had spent some time learning wisdom in his youth. He married and had two daughters (look out Tom Hanks!) and died. You can visit the burial mound yuorself. When the mound was uncovered, there was a mysterious document called the Takeuchi document, that prophesied all sorts of things. It’s all part of the new-age strand of “Japan/Israel-lore” (Mormons accept that Christ made an appearnace, and thus the memory of his visit remains, but the stuff that doesn’t fit gets dismissed quite easily) I will cover Heral it in part II (and again, the mormon strands in part III), although I haven’t completely finished writing it all yet. But it will be there.
Lief (part 2),
I have heard about the Japanese folk music containing survivals of Hebrew language, but it’s not an area I delved in to too deeply. It sounds like you clearly know more about it than I do.
As for the role of children’s folklore in general folklore scholarship, you are right, it is looked at as being very valuable both as a repository for tradition and also for the developmental roles it plays. I am sure there are others out there who can speak on more authority regardings children’s folklore. I was peripherally aware of the scholarship, but did not get into very much of it. Fen would probably be better equiped to answer your question.
Glenn when I said that there’s no scriptural evidence for the connections, I didn’t mean that there’s no scriptural evidence that Jesus had or would visit Japan. The connection between a Shinto Shrine and a Jewish/LDS temple certainly looks strong but unless it can be proved that they have some stronger link — like the same dimensions and rooms described in the OT — the connection is just strongly suggestive, not proof.
On the other hand, I don’t know that much about Shinto shrines and how they work. I’d be interested to see a post that showed (and told) us everything Sister Mori brought up in her lesson. (As it is here, it assumes the reader knows enough about Shinto customs to make the connections between them and OT Judaism.)
Lief,
I don’t know how much I can add to what Glenn has already said about survivals in children’s folklore. There is something to the idea of children’s lore retaining elements lost to adults. Think of “ring around the rosie,” a rhyme that can be traced to the time of the plague and actually references the physical symptoms of it (”ring around the rosie” apparently refers to the initial appearance of the buboes). This sort of scholarship was extremely popular about a century ago when folkloristics was really into questions of origins. It has since faded in importance, but it’s never been refuted.
The idea of survivals in children’s folklore does, however, face the same problem as any of the evidence considered here: there are no real criteria to determine the genuine survival from that which looks similar. Absent some sort of historical documentation or something very compelling in the text itself (like a specific reference to a known individual), I think that this evidence can be suggestive at best. There’s also the issue of selectional bias: if I believe that the Japanese are really Hebrew, I will find apparent survivals and ignore everything that doesn’t look like a survival as so much “noise” in the system.
One potential way around this sort of thing would be to use what’s called the Finnish method, which looks at geographical distribution of apparently cognate materials. If you could trace the same survivals throughout the entire Japanese region and come to a reconstructed Ur-form that matches the form that is needed to establish the connection, it could be suggestive. In many cases, however, if you start using the Finnish method, what you find is that you either lack evidence for the reconstruction, or you end up with a reconstruction that doesn’t look like what you expect from the present form that looks so much like what you’re looking for.
Here’s an example from historical linguistics that illustrates the sorts of problems that can arise from looking at apparent similarities.
In Germanic there is a root that shows up as have in English and haben in German. Students of Latin often see habeo ‘have’ as an obvious cognate. But when we start digging, we find that the Latin cognate is really capio ‘sieze, capture.’ It would be easy to base a conclusion on habeo/haben that would be false, even though on the surface it looks good.
PDoE,
I just have an armchair interest, but I think that the study of folklore isn’t concerned with the ultimate truthfulness of the folklore’s assertions so much as with the function that the folklore has within the culture. I don’t think that any serious anthropologists have found that there is a real link between Shinto customs and ancient Israel even though some people in Japan want to believe there is such a link. In some ways, its not too different from middle-aged Mormons booking group tours to Palenque and Chichen Itza and assuming they are looking at actual Nephite temples.
As far as Shinto shrines go, here is a brief description:
-The structure of a shrines includes an inner sanctum, in which is a simple table with the image or representation of the enshrined deity. The head priest enters this room only one or twice per year for certain rituals (and New Years Day usually is not one of them).
-There is an outer antechamber, or worship hall, usually but not always attached or connected to the inner sanctum in the same manner as the Israelite temple/taberncale, where most of the more common rituals are performed. This room contains a long table where various offering are placed. The offerings usually consist of candles (but never incense), cloth, paper torn in a certain fashion, and food such as rice and rice cakes, and salt. The rice cakes are often stacked in such a manner that might suggest a stack of shewbread. There is often a cloth hanging or curtain separating the outer worship hall from the inner sanctum.
-A worshipper approaches the shrine through an outer torii gate before coming to a small washbasin with running water and a lavel. The worhsipper performs simple ablutions of the hands and mouth beofre approaching the outside of the worship hall, where a couple of claps and a short prayer are offered. Sometimes a coin is tossed into an offeratory box. If a worshipper pays for a more advanced ritual, they may enter the worship hall and be treated to a ritual conducted by the priest.
-In addition to this lay worship, the shrine priest will conduct certain annual rituals, which usually have a related festival for the community. While they vary from shrine to shrine, there is usually a purification ritual in the spring and a main celebration of the deity in the fall. During the fall celebration, the image of the deity is taken out of the inner sanctum, placed in the portable mikoshi, and paraded around the neighborhood. During this process, usually only the head priest sees and handles the image of the deity.
-At larger and older shrines, there is a larger variety of rituals. The incantations chanted during these rituals are often in an extremely obscure form of Japanese, which doesn’t seem to correlate to normal Old Japanese - leaving the door open for people to find correlations with ancient Hebrew.
-Some people think that the hats and robes Shinto priests wear correspond to Israelite temple garments. There is a picture in Glenn’s video.
Sorry this was so long!
Lief, Good sum-up of the folklorist’s interest. It’s not about proving something true or false — it’s about exploring the value that the lore has to the folk.
Fen, I can’t believe you played the Ur- card. When I taught F101 classes, I actually tried a couple of times to get my students to do a quick and dirty historic-geographic reconstruction project. It was an utter and complete failure every time. The only thing they learned was that the Finnish method sucks.
Sheeeesh! Kids these days. When pappy was a folklorist, he walked sixty miles uphill in a blizzard with a was cylinder phonograph to get that one additional variant that proved that “The Booger on the Nightstand” was really a corrupted version of “The Bottle on the Nightstand” and not the other way around…
You’re right though: the Finnish method is hard. I think it takes a certain masochistic personality to do it, especially since the early practitioners wrote everything on index cards and manually sorted them rather than having a computer to sort through the materials. Of course, what their failure demonstrates is that the methodological rigor needed to know whether you are looking at real correlates or apparent correlates is hard. Most arm-chair folklorists therefore dispense with the real work and just go off apparent correlations, especially since what they are trying to prove is usually grounded in a present concern, not a real concern for history.
I see this all the time with Hungarian scholars who feel that the Finno-Ugric hypothesis of linguistic and cultural evolution (it asserts kinship between Hungarians, Finns, Estonians, Lapps, and a bunch of small groups in Siberia) is “racist” (because the Soviets used it as a way to demonstrate that the Hungarians were “primitive”). This hypothesis, however, is about as well demonstrated as any in linguistics (using methods connected to the Finnish method), even if it has some real limitations. The response of these Hungarian scholars is to assert connection between the Hungarians and a grab bag of historically important peoples (although not the Ten Tribes, as far as I know) including the Huns, the Scythians, and especially the Sumerians. They focus on spurious similarities (like the Sumerian deity name Ishtar and Hungarian Isten ‘God, deity’) and one fellow has even claimed that if you (just ignore everything scholars have done in deciphering Sumerian and) read it using his guidelines, it’s really Hungarian.
This move by Hungarians is really parallel to the whole Ten Tribes thing in many ways. It is used by Hungarians to explain their position as non-European invaders who ended up in the middle of Europe and allows them to affirm a current (conservative, nationalist) political identity based on their glorious heritage that is actually superior to that of other Europeans. In this context the connection to the Lapps and various “primitive” peoples is seen as embarrassing because it doesn’t support the idea of glorious heritage and present superiority: sort of like how you don’t want cousin Ray Bob Tom and his wife Billy-Joe to show up at a swank shindig you’re throwing for some rich colleagues to reveal you really came from the wrong side of the tracks…
As a result these scholars ignore the best evidence of what actually was in favor of an argument that serves present goals.
Oh hey Glenn, I’ve got to apologize. The podcast didn’t work (or my speakers were off) the first few times I came here and so I hadn’t heard it. You went into more detail there. I’m still don’t think I’d flatly assert that Shinto Shrines and Solomon’s temple are the same but it does look likely.
On another not, the tribe of Ephraim is called to restore lost truths, eh? No wonder I’m so wrapped around the axle about Truth.