Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsInteresting, but a Failed Hypothesis
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2023
I want to start on a positive note by giving give credit to where credit is due. Mr. Dalton has done a lot of work and research in putting together this book; more than most people care to give on this subject. And I'll say without too much reservation, that it isn't a bad read despite grammatical errors peppered throughout. After reading it fully, it's evident that one could easily come away with the conclusion that Mr. Dalton has proven his case, especially if one doesn't have a background in this topic. However, I do, and a scripture comes to mind regarding the perceptions of this book's conclusion:
"The first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him."
(Proverbs 18:17 NASB)
As Mr. Dalton pleads his case throughout this book, he very often crafts a very appealing and good sounding case on the surface. To anyone not familiar with the roots and descendants of the biblical tribes of Israel, and the historical and linguistic background, if this were their first real study into this subject, Mr. Dalton will probably seem right. However, the reality is that his case is quite honestly, dead-on-arrival. It's quickly debunked by several easily confirmed points of information. So unfortunately, while he does at times provide some great information, it's the information he conveniently leaves out that destroys his case. Before we get into some details, it's important to understand that Dalton works on the presumption that the Bible is reliable history (except when it's inconvenient, where he then blames global conspiracy and uses extra-biblical sources to contradict the inconvenient bible verses).
In Mr. Dalton's attempt to convince you every hero in the Bible was black, he blatantly cherry-picks, using misconstrued history and egregious circular logic. He ignores or manipulates clear biblical descriptions or indications of the appearance of various biblical characters such as these few quick examples:
- Adam, whose name alone tells us he was light-skinned and could blush (from the Hebrew, aw-dawm, meaning ruddy, to show blood in the face aka blushing); black people don't blush
- David, in 1 Sam 16:12 is described as ruddy, again indicating blushing, or even the nice reddish tan a light-skinned person gets working outdoors (a la a shepherd), and having bright eyes; black people don't blush or tan (they just get blacker in the sun) and do not have bright eyes, but rather very dark eyes.
- Solomon, in Song of Solomon 5:10-16, is described as ruddy aka blushing, eyes as doves mounted like jewels (not black eyes), and whose body looks like polished ivory (which is clearly White), and legs like marble pillars (natural marble is white or pinkish, not black or brown).
These characters are all clearly White or light-skinned, so why does Dalton desperately try to convince you otherwise? Because they clearly depict fair-skinned people who "reddened" or blushed - White/Caucasoid people, not black people - who are either progenitors of Israelites, or Israelites themselves. So it's imperative for his case to seem right, that he get around these mines waiting to blow up his hypothesis. As I said, just these few examples nuke his narrative and leave his thesis dead on arrival, before it even had a chance. Dalton also likes to cherry-pick blessings and curses on Israel to fit his narrative. Other times he uses spurious, often quite disputed, quotes and anecdotes or relies on appeals to authority. Then there is some information that is just plain wrong. Simply factually incorrect. And then often he uses correct info, but inflates or conflates its importance within the overall picture. The more you pay attention, the more you realize the research done for this book was likely tainted with huge amounts of confirmation bias, having drawn his conclusion first and then seeking info later which helped confirm his view while ignoring the huge amount of data that does not support it. Confirmation bias is human, and most of us do it at some points. But it doesn't work when building a case for a hypothesis.
That said, Mr. Dalton does get some information correct. He is spot on regarding the Khazarian origin of modern Ashkenazi Jews, as well as their Canaanite and Edomite origins, on which modern scholarship agrees with him. He is right about the "Sephardic" Jews and the egregious error of the sepharad/ephratha substitution. He is quite correct that Jesus was an Israelite, but not a Jew. He is perfectly correct in identifying Jewish involvement in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade among many other ills. The main problem however, is that he can't help but to, a) see every key figure or people as Black when it just happens to support his thesis, and b) carry a chip on his shoulder against Europeans and anyone of European descent. Those two biases severely cloud his judgment and are what allows him to overlook the bias, misrepresent info, and leave out other info, in order to protect his preconceived conclusion from any obvious weaknesses. Two phrases you'll see a lot of in this book are, "One can only imagine" and "This proves." As to the first phrase, it's a Freudian admission that much of what Dalton has crafted for his narrative, does indeed come from him doing a lot of imagining. I'd wager imagination played a far greater role than critical thinking in many instances within these pages. And the latter phrase he uses quite often while displaying that he clearly has no understanding of what proof is, and how it differs from the various types of evidence. He constantly uses circular logic and can't seem to stop himself from repeatedly pointing to his supposition to support itself. The number one thing he could've used prior to writing this book, would've been a lengthy course on logic, and how to construct an argument.
Dalton also has a habit of taking legit historical info and completely ignoring it's historical context. For instance, it's of no big dispute that there was a period of black Pharaohs in Egypt, but Mr. Dalton then stretches that to insist that ALL Egyptians and Pharaohs were black, completely ignoring the empirical evidence we have via the actual mummies with Caucasoid features, and blonde and/or reddish hair, showing that they were in fact, White/Caucasoid or light-skinned (very well documented in Arthur Kemp's 'March of the Titans'). This logical flaw of "if some were, then all were" is common in his thesis. And all too often intuition and assumptions are substituted where facts and evidence should take precedence. In a similar manner to the above, he also chooses his own timelines to suit the preconceived conclusion, rather than follow the more attested chronology to discover the true conclusion. For instance, much ado is made about the "Ethiopian Jews" as though they were they "original" Hebrews, completely ignoring the actual, historically attested religious transmutation that occurred from the influence of the original Israelites southward into Ethiopia, resulting in the black Ethiopians adopting Hebraic religion, culture and language. But Mr. Dalton simply reverses that in order to sustain his narrative and attempt to give it verisimilitude.
Another common tactic, is Mr. Dalton twists the words of ancient historical sources, by claiming their words say one thing, when in fact, they're often merely repeating 3rd party (or further removed) reports and odd hearsay of the time period. As an example, he claims Rabbi Bertinoro stated the two Euthiopian Jews he saw *were* descendants of the Israelite Tribe of Dan as if it were matter of fact, however, when one reads the actual quote, Bertinoro clearly says that "they" -- the two Ethiopian Jewish converts -- merely *claim* they are from the Tribe of Dan. It's a claim they make of themselves, not a claim confirmed by Bertinoro. This is something you'll see throughout the book in an attempt to give the appearance of various authorities of antiquity confirming the black original Hebrew thesis, but when examined, they do no such thing. You'll also find scriptures twisted to fit the narrative. For example, he interprets Sampson's hair from Judges 16:19 as dreadlocks. Ah-ha! That proves Sampson was black, because only black people ever had dreadlocks! Right? Um, no. Besides, what he fails to mention is that the Hebrew language for that verse indicates simply that seven locks of hair were cut off, not THE seven locks; as if he only had seven dreadlocks on his entire head. Furthermore, the Hebrew word that Mr. Dalton wants to transmogrify from "locks" into "dreadlocks" simply means a plait of hair, from the root word, chalaph, for ringlet of hair. Black people don't have ringlets of hair, but rather tight, woolly curls. And you can't weave the matted, knots of a dreadlock into a loom (Judges 16:13) as was done with Sampson's hair, however, you absolutely CAN do that with long, straight or wavy Caucasoid/Semitic hair. A plait of hair is simply any group of hairs, aka a lock of hair, and besides, Mr. Dalton is completely missing the spiritual symbolism of SEVEN locks of hair and what that means.
One thing I found humorous, is that Mr. Dalton apparently believes White people are actually stark white in color. Literally. One could be forgiven for wondering if he's ever actually seen a White person before. He thinks that White people are stark white, do not have melanin, and considers them "without color." He is completely unaware that White people have melanin, and can tan and appear as pale, pinkish, reddish, bronze, or even golden-brownish. I laughed out loud when he said the original Israelites, Egyptians, and Arabs couldn't have possibly been White or light-skinned because they couldn't have lived in the biblical areas of Israel, Arabia, Egypt, etc, because those areas are too hot, sunny, and close to the equator for their skin - so clearly "this proves" they were black. I guess we'd better let all those White Floridians know they're supposed to cook and shrivel up over there in Florida, where it occupies the exact same latitudes as the Middle Eastern lands, as well as those poor White folks baking in southern Texas, ALSO in the same exact latitudes and distance to the equator. Along this same humorous line, Mr. Dalton might be slightly colorblind. In most of the examples he gives for historical reliefs or images to prove some certain people were black, it's beyond clear they're not black at all, but usually reddish or ruddy. Of course he has his conspiracy "they went in and lightened the color" excuse, but still. Lastly, for one more chuckle, Mr. Dalton believes in Lamarckism. He suggests that perhaps White skin started because a black man was cursed with leprosy (which he believes is Whiteness) and ergo, that leprous man passed on his acute condition and had white/leprous kids and so on. Thus was born the White race? Absurd. Even for sake of argument, if some black man was cursed with this leprous white skin, and somehow Lamarck was right and he'd pass it on to all his descendants, that STILL wouldn't change the skull structure, nose/lip appearance, hair texture, etc., and the descendants would simply look like albino black people; so even Dalton's own argument for the origin of White people defeats itself. It's just pure anti-Whiteism.
At this point it's worth noting that this book also could've been a fraction of its current length. Mr. Dalton repeats himself so often, the redundancy becomes a little annoying. Removing that redundancy alone would remove a third or more of the book. And at chapter 25, the book veers completely off course from the topic and gets into fallen angels, nephilim, giants, prophecy, and end times stuff. Then it goes into the history, politics, and social woes of black people for many chapters. Really, it morphs into three totally different books. The meat of his case throughout the first third of the book, really rests on the curses of Israel, and is his best ammunition, however, he misunderstands that some of those curses were fulfilled in biblical times and others did not come to pass at all according to scripture, so he's inserting something into the scriptures that isn't there, just like when scripture contradicts him, he claims global White Man conspiracy and turns to extra-biblical sources, even though he makes his god a liar by doing so. The rest of his case is fluff, error, misunderstanding, manipulation of historical events, quotes and relics, and lots of logical fallacy. Once you're through all that, you could honestly stop reading at chapter 25, unless you just want to hear his theological and eschatological views followed by all the woe-is-me victim-hood Olympics in the final two-thirds of the book.
So ultimately in the end, what we have here is a fairly well crafted story. Yes, a story; a tale of fancy using real world events to make it seem real and plausible, and perhaps even a fascinating read if one engages in a little suspension of disbelief. But a mere story it is nonetheless, which simply does not hold up to the full scrutiny of an unfiltered Bible and unfiltered History. When we come along to examine Dalton and his case, and remove those filters which siphon out the inconvenient parts that refute his case and allow his case to seem right, then it becomes quite evident that it's simply not correct, nor convincing at all. Really, a full book could be written to deconstruct all of Dalton's claims and correct his errors--and indeed, I may write one myself. But I commend him on the hours, days, weeks, and years of research, albeit highly biased research. And I don't fault him for getting excited or euphoric, feeling as though he was discovering an epiphany, putting heretofore unknown puzzle pieces together, and making those all-too-human confirmation bias mistakes. It's what makes conspiracy theories so attractive to so many people, especially when sometimes they turn out to be true. On one hand though, I think all falsehood should be exposed and refuted, even if well-meaning, but on the other hand, if Mr. Dalton's conclusions, however wrong they may be, help his people to find a spiritual center and ethical purpose, and take back their community from the Corrupters who have steadily degraded it, is it really so bad to let the falsehoods of this book slide? I leave that for you to decide.
But if you're really interested in a more scholarly and concise work on the destiny and descendants of the biblical 12 tribes of Israel (NOT to be confused with the current nation of "Israel"), then I very highly recommend the short book, 'Mystery of the Gentiles' by Ted Weiland as a starting point. It gives an excellent presentation backed solidly by biblical scriptures, non-biblical sources, linguistics, and established historical sources. Definitely worth a read. However a phenomenal, more exhaustive follow-up to that would be Weiland's other book, 'God's Covenant People,' which is superb, as well as Arthur Koestler's incredible book, 'The Thirteenth Tribe.' Digest those three books together and you'll come away with a rock solid, data supported understanding of this topic. Happy reading.