I just got a book I haven't read enough to comment on, with the thesis that the Israelites came from two distinct stocks, one Semitic and one Turkic. There is plenty of uncertainty about where everyone came from in that whole melting pot of the middle east. The blonde or redhead stock seem to be from Samarians (not Samaritans, who are Semitic) who are related to the Scythians and Cimmerians (a tribe in Asia Minor, not Conan the Barbarian). But before then, who knows. They were all illiterate nomads we only know from other people's writings.

I just got a book I haven't read enough to comment on, with the thesis that the Israelites came from two distinct stocks, one Semitic and one Turkic. There is plenty of uncertainty about where everyone came from in that whole melting pot of the middle east. The blonde or redhead stock seem to be from Samerians (not Samaritans, who are Semitic) who are related to the Scythians and Cimerrians (a tribe in Asia Minor, not Conan the Barbarian). But before then, who knows. They were all illiterate nomads we only know from other people's writings.