Buddha, Son of Yitzhak

An interesting detail:

There are some indications that the Scythians came from some of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel.

The Scythians appear in history for the first time shortly after the Assyrian Exile. The place they appear, around the Black Sea, is not very far away from Israel, and directly North. The prophets refer to the Lost Tribes as being in the North.

The Scythians’ own ethnonym was Saka/Iskuzai/Askuzai. “Zai” means “descendant of” (we see this in many Pashtun tribal names) Asku/Isku may be a reference to Isaac.

King Yoshiyahu (Josiah) was mentioned in the Book of Chronicles as having the tribes of Efraim and Menashe (who had been exiled) bring gifts to the Temple. Roughly around this time, the Scythians had overrun the Middle East and come up to the border of Egypt. Herodotus says they didn’t harm anyone in Israel while doing so.

Herodotus also says that the Scythians detested pigs and didn’t keep any in their country.

He has an account of one Scythian, Anacharsis, being executed for idolatry by the Scythian King, Saulis (!). There was also a queen named Tomyris, which is very similar to Tamar.

The modern day descendants of the Scythians, the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Pakistan, have traditionally referred to themselves as Bani Israel (the Children of Israel) and have many customs in common with Jews (which are not shared by the Arabs or Persians, so can’t be ascribed to Islam or a common Middle Eastern culture.)

Incidentally, Buddha was from the Sakya tribe, which seems to have been identical to the Saka/Scythians. Lots of his ideas parallel Ecclesiastes.