h and I was most impressed with this port, its a lovely addition to Pandora's jar.
As for Watership Down.. I've had to just re-check and I'm glad it has no real hidden connotations according to the author (I dislike it when its all allegorical (except for the bible)) but regardless, its a powerful story.
It does though doesn't it? It's a Holocaust/Old Testament Exodus Jewish History story, concluding with getting their kin out of Stalinist Russia for their fledgling new home.
There's a mish-mash of Hebrew in the Rabbit's mythology (El-ahrairah) which echoes the Lost Tribes business.
Again sadly no, as the author stated. In addition you should be aware that the same Church fathers and biographers of the era were well aware that the Lost Tribes / Twelve tribes of Israel were allegorical in nature and simply representations of the Zodiac under Jewish interpretation, rather than the earlier Eygptian/Indo-Persian (totally made up word for the gist of things) then Greek/Roman variants, as we can see from their writings :
Excerpt from
http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=2639
"Here we discuss the evidence for the motif of "the Twelve" in antiquity, including as concerns the Bible as well as in other artifacts and myths in numerous other cultures. As we can see, the ancients in many places around the world have been very focused on this sacred number, which signifies the 12 hours of day and night, the 12 months of the year and the 12 signs of the zodiac. The Twelve is, in fact, a motif found ubiquitously, dating back centuries to millennia.
Were the 12 Tribes of Israel Based on the Zodiac?
This is a subject about which there is much disinformation, including attempts to claim that the zodiac postdated the founding of the Israelite nation with its 12 tribes and that, hence, the numbering of the tribes could not be based on the 12 zodiacal signs, as has been suggested by many people since ancient times.
Testimony of Josephus and Philo
The claim that the 12 tribes of Israel were identified with the 12 signs of the zodiac is spelled out clearly by the ancient Jewish writers Philo and Josephus, during the first century. During the first century BCE, Diodorus Siculus identified the 12 tribes with the 12 months.
As I relate in
Christ in Egypt (261):
See Exodus 39:9-14: "...they made the breastplate... And they set in it four rows of stones... And the stones were according to the names of the children of Israel, twelve...according to the twelve tribes."
As Josephus says (
Antiquities, 3.8 ): "And for the twelve stones, whether we understand by them the months or whether we understand the like number of the signs of that circle which the Greeks call the zodiac, we shall not be mistaken in their meaning." (Josephus, 75.)
Earlier than Josephus, Philo ("On the Life of Moses," 12) had made the same comments regarding Moses: "Then the twelve stones on the breast, which are not like one another in colour, and which are divided into four rows of three stones in each, what else can they be emblems of, except of the circle of the zodiac?" (Philo, 99.)
As we can see, by the first century it was well known that the theme of "the 12" was astrological in nature.".
If you distrust this lady and want a modern scholars opinion then please take the time to watch the excellent 'Hidden Story of Jesus' by Oxford Brookes Theologian Dr Robert Beckford here
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7956238808750388174#
