Descendants of the Jews

Church Educational System
Jew and Judah are national names as well as tribal names. From about 1800B.C. to about 750 B.C. the terms Jew and Judah applied specifically to only one of the thirteen tribes (counting Joseph as two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, as in Numbers 2). After that time, the terms increasingly began to be used to name any citizen of the kingdom of Judah, which consisted primarily of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, but included many people from other tribes, especially Levi.

The term Jew first appears in the Old Testament in 2 Kings 16:6, at the time just before the northern kingdom of Israel fell to Assyria. Thereafter, the Jews, or the southern kingdom of Judah, became the only known surviving remnant of Israel. Nephi referred to the Jews as “them from whence I came” (2 Nephi 33:8).

Mulek, and possibly all of the Mulekites, were Jews of the tribe of Judah. They were “exceedingly numerous” (Omni 1:17) when discovered by the people of King Mosiah. In addition to being descendants of the Jews in the national sense, there is also a blood relationship to the tribe of Judah among the modern Lamanites.

Book of Mormon Student Manual (1996 Edition)

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