FAITH OF THE TWELVE TRIBES OF ISRAEL
 

The Rastafarian Movement has been one of the most important movements of our time. It has proved to us that it is possible to make lemonade out of the lemons that are dealt to us, and that violence is not the only way to deal with troubles or get what you feel you deserve. It has also provided a system of faith and following for over 700,000 loyal people. A Social, political and religious explosion with as few negative connotations as possible, Rasta is just about as good as it gets.

Like all religious trees, Rasta has branched out into a variety of sub-movements, such as Nyabinghi, the Ethiopian National Congress or Bobo dreads, and the Twelve Tribes of Israel, just to name a few. The Twelve Tribes are especially interesting because they believe in salvation for all races, whereas the doctrines of other Rastas are exclusive to Blacks, primarily because of the very roots of the religion: Whites making slaves out of them. While this idea may seem quite revolutionary, there are other aspects of this movement that are completely receded. Frankly, the faith resembles its influences of Christianity and Judaism more than Rastafarianism, in a lot of instances.

The purpose of this paper is to shed a little bit of light on the widely unknown subject of this interesting and persistent movement. First I will discuss the history of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, an ideal embraced primarily and whole-heartedly by the Jews.

The name 'Israel' comes from heaven. Most of us, when we hear the word ‘Israel’ think only of the Jews. But from the beginning they have had to share this title with a great many others, because in scripture the House of Israel consists of twelve tribes and the Jews are just one of those twelve.

Jacob was just an ordinary guy, living long before the birth of Jesus Christ. He had 2 wives who were sisters, and two slave-wives. Between them were born 12 boys. One night while these kids were young, an angel came to Jacob and they spent the entire evening wrestling. The angel was God. Suprisingly, God didn’t annihilate this mere human, and the match ended in a stalemate. God then changed Jacob’s name to Israel, which means, "rebel". Who else but a rebel would physically fight with the angel of God? He then told Israel about how important his twelve sons would soon come to be. Lo and behold, God was right. The sons grew to form large families, and so were to be entitled each a section of Israel’s land, as the way of the times went. However, two of Israel’s kids were not granted land-holding privileges. Israel adopted two sons of Joseph, making him one of the fathers of the future "Twelve  Tribes", and Levi’s tribe was given the task of caring for the Israeli priesthood. After this little bout of mix-up, the Twelve Tribes were settled. The final roundup included Reuben, Judah, Simeon, Naphtali, Dan, Gad, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, Manesseh, Asher, and Benjamin.

For a while, the tribes were flourishing in Palestine, but political and family drama, coupled with the horrors of "sin" (sin is a religious term meaning the act of doing something against God, or anything that is right) caused the nation of Israel to divide and eventually crumble. Attacked and taken away into foreign captivity by Assyria, ten of the twelve Hebrew tribes vanished from history. Soon, only a small remnant of two tribes remained in the Holy Land. The others had all disappeared -- melded into the genetic infrastructure of the human race. It is written that they were scattered to the four corners of the earth, awaiting a prophet to reunite them someday. 

Then, a man named Vernon Carrington, a Rasta living in Jamaica, got a big idea. He happened to be a member of the local Jamaican chapter of the Ethiopian World Federation, Inc. This was not a sect of the Rasta religion, just a way of organizing the locals in Jamaica, Cuba, and Central America. He realized that he was the reincarnation of Gad, one of the original sons of Israel, and that his duty was to reunite the lost Twelve Tribes.

"I was being converted in 1961 and I read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation twice. But I was being sent, I was called and sent, resurrected and sent to do this work and when I read the Bible I strongly see that there is a gap that is there to be filled and I believe that I am one of them that send to do it Do the work." -Carrington

Now known as the Prophet Gad (Gad was one of the original sons of Israel), he proceeded to read a chapter a day from his copy of the Bible, The Scofield Study Bible. Scofield was an "alcoholic lawyer turned preacher", and a faithful one at that, but he and Gad both receive much criticism for his traits. Gad began to live his life in a different way, attracting attention from everyone around. When he was bothered about his new actions, he kept telling people to read a chapter of the Bible a day, and that they would see if what he was doing was right or wrong. He began to gain followers, but instead of declaring his new life a new religion, he claimed to be just trying to organize Rastas together and prepare them for repatriation.

Rastafarians had always used the Bible as the holy book of their faith, but not as intensively as this. Other Rastas use it for guidance, but Gad and his followers are using it to dictate their whole way of life. In fact, they believe that the way to salvation is through reading the Bible, a chapter a day, and recognizing Jesus Christ. Sounds pretty Christian, doesn’t it? A whole new way of life was formed from the same history, the same holy book, only from a different perspective.

Gad was influenced by few religions, mainly Christianity, Christian Science, Theosophy, Unity, Judaism, and Rastafarianism. He left the EWF but organized the Twelve Tribes in similar terms, such as Executive Bench, collecting dues, "bodies" such as Sewing, Food, Music, etc.

Repatriation is the hopeful return of all Blacks to Africa, specifically Ethiopia, where Haile Selassie I was the king. Ethiopia became the term used to describe all of Africa. It is in line with the reuniting of the twelve lost tribes, as written in the scriptures. In 1949 the Emperor granted the EWF lands at Malcoda, Shashamane, Ethiopia to aid in this much-anticipated homecoming. Gad told his followers that by being members of his Twelve Tribes that they were entitled to return to this place as well. There has been much fighting over this, and some members feel EWF is taking from Twelve Tribes of Israel when in actuality it is the other way around.

Today, groups of the Twelve Tribes exist all over the place:

"Well, at least we are organizing for a good while now, we have the organ, the 12 Tribes of Israel, in Jamaica, it start here, it is in Ethiopia, it is in the United States, it is in United Kingdom, Sweden, it is Germany, New Zealand, Tobago, Ghana, Australia, Kenya, and Grenada."

-Carrington

That is twelve places where they have organized. It seems that organization is the key word for these people, as organization is the way for them all to return to Ethiopia together. Truly their goals are to create happiness for themselves, while not necessarily bothering those around them, despite the conflict that they have caused with the EWF about Shashamane.

What is life like for a member of the Twelve Tribes? How does one become a member, anyway? What are their doctrines, their system of beliefs? Many people wonder about this, and information regarding them is pretty hard to find, because of the fact that the groups of Tribes in America mostly keep to themselves. They definitely don’t come knocking on our doors every so often to try and convert people into being one of them. Instead they focus on the group that they have formed, working like dogs for their common goal: repatriation.

Here is a little bit about the doctrine of the Twelve Tribes as an organization:

Vernon Carrington, of course, is the leader of the entire body, being the prophet that he is. He doesn’t do it all alone, though. He’s got overseer-type "shepherds" that "watch over" tribes that are not in Gad’s presence. There are 49 Executive Members who each hold a "seat on the bench." The 49 is comprised of 12 First brethren and 12 Second brethren, 12 First sistren and 12 Second sistren, and Sister Dinah, who represents Dinah, daughter of Jacob. Altogether, they split into Twelve Tribes, each one standing for a Tribe of Israel, a month, a color, a body part, and an apostle of Jesus. <SEE chart>