Astounding New Proof Ephraim is America!

Ephraim – the More

Religious Son!

William F. Dankenbring

The Stone Edition Chumash tells us that Joseph’s sons were blessed by Jacob, who was inspired by God in his choice of words. They were to be blessed, to carry his name, and to “proliferate abundantly like fish within the land” (Gen.48:15-16). This meant that they would be like fish which are fruitful and multiply, and which are not affected by the evil eye (since they live calmly and are unseen by man).

This blessing came upon them because Joseph was righteous. Says the Chumash, in its commentary: “The Talmud explains that Joseph earned this blessing of immunity against the evil eye because he averted his own eyes from the advances of Potiphar’s wife.”

Jacob blessed the two sons of Joseph by placing his right hand on the head of the younger sibling, and his left hand on the older. When Joseph saw that Jacob’s right hand was on Ephraim’s head, he tried to move it, thinking Jacob couldn’t see which son was which. Joseph assumed that the greater blessing would go to the older son. But this was not God’s intent (Gen.48:13-19). Ephraim, the younger son, was blessed by God with the blessing of the right hand, the greater blessing – the blessing of the firstborn. His offspring were to become a “multitude” of peoples.

The Chumash quotes Jacob’s words in verse 19, “I know, my son, I know that he is the firstborn.” It continues: “According to the Midrash, Jacob repeated the expression to imply that he knew many things of which Joseph was unaware, and if he chose to give the primary blessing to Ephraim, it was for good and sufficient reason. Haamek Davar explains that Ephraim’s pre-eminence was not the result of Jacob’s blessing. Rather, it was because Ephraim was destined for more greatness that he required a more intensive blessing, for prominent people need a blessing to carry out their mission successfully. Not Jacob’s blessing but Ephraim’s upbringing was the source of his future greatness, for Ephraim spent his life studying Torah with Jacob (see Rashi to 48:1), while Manasseh was Joseph’s assistant in governing the country” (p.273, emphasis mine).

Notice! The boy Ephraim grew up dandled on Jacob’s knee, studying the Word of God, listening to the sage wisdom of his grandfather, learning the Torah and the teachings of God. He therefore grew up to be the “more religious son” of Joseph! This characteristic, then, should be evident in the offspring and descendants of Ephraim!

What does the history of our peoples tell us?

America’s Religious Heritage

During the age of the founding of the American colonies, the world of Europe was a frightful world of horrendous religious persecution, atrocities, and hatred. Protestants and Catholics vyed for political power and freedom. Galileo (1564-1642), the famous astronomer, had been forced to “recant” his scientific discoveries because they disagreed with the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Inquisition was still a strong memory in the minds of men. Religious persecution was still running strong during the seventeenth century, compelling many men and women of conscience to flee the “Old World” to risk the travails of the “wilderness,” in order to found a new nation where they could worship God according to their own conscience and the Bible.

The beginning of the story of America is the saga of the search for freedom to worship God without having to conform to the authority of a religious tyranny emanating from Europe.

In 1782, Benjamin Franklin wrote in a pamphlet entitled “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America,” that “Atheism is unknown there; infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country, without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an Atheist or an Infidel.”

Today, as a whole, America remains a religious nation. Says a special report on “Defining America,” in U.S. News & World Report, “America remains a godly nation. Among advanced industrialized countries, it is easily the most religious. Some 60 percent of its citizens say religion is very important to their lives, about six times the percentage of the French. But the divine looms even larger in most Americans’ hearts than those figures suggest. Some 90 percent say they believe in God – 94 percent if you add those who revere a ‘universal spirit’ – while less than 1 percent call themselves atheists or agnostics. It is very possible that an American might still live to a ripe old age without meeting an atheist or infidel” (U.S. News & World Report, June28/July 5, 2004).

If you visit Washington, D.C., you will be able to see Bible verses etched in stone all over Federal buildings and monuments. As you walk up the steps to the Supreme Court building, near the top of the building you will see a row of the world’s great lawgivers, each one facing the one in the middle – Moses holding the Ten Commandments. Continuing inside the courtroom, you will see on the wall right above where the chief justice sits a display of the Ten Commandments.

If you attend a session of Congress, you will notice that every session begins with a prayer, said by a paid preacher, whose salary has been paid by the taxpayer since 1777.

It is a fact that religion has always been important to Americans. Fifty-two of the 55 founders of the Constitution were members of established churches in the colonies.

It is also a fact that the first Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, declared: “Americans should select and prefer Christians as their rulers.”

James Madison, the nation’s fourth president, observed, “We have staked the whole of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

It makes you wonder: How is it, then, that our nation has got to the point, in the beginning of the 21^st century, that the Supreme Court has outlawed prayers in schools, and declared that a monument of the Ten Commandments which had been placed in the supreme state court building in Montgomery, Alabama, had to be removed?

Our Religious Heritage

The history of the United States of America reveals that America is a predominantly religious nation and a religious people. Some 86 percent of our population believe in a Higher Power – God. On our coinage, every penny is inscribed, “In God we trust.” So is every nickel, dime and quarter. On our currency, every dollar bill is also inscribed with the words: “In God we trust.” And so is every $5, $10, and $20 dollar bill. In 1776, many members of the new congress advocated adopting Hebrew as the official language of the United States.

In fact, according to a new Gallup poll, six out of every 10 Americans say religion is “very important” to them in daily life – a steadfast figure that has remained virtually unchanged during the past decade, says the Gallup poll. Twenty six percent said religion is “fairly” important, while just 15 percent said it doesn’t matter. The survey was conducted June 3 to June 6, 2004, and surveyed 1,000 adults..

According to the survey, 61 percent found faith to be practical and religion can solve “all or most of today’s problems,” whereas only 24 percent said faith was “old-fashioned and out of date.” Gallup analyst Joseph Carroll called the United States “a predominantly Christian nation.” Overall, 64 percent belong to a church or synagogue, and 43 percent attended a church service in the past seven days (The Washington Times, June 28-July 4, 2004).

We are the most religious nation on the face of the earth. The nation was originally founded largely by Puritans, called Pilgrims, a break-away group of devout Christians who were known as Separatists, because they separated from the Church of England to follow the precepts of the Bible. Because of intense persecution, they sailed for the New World, to establish a country where they could worship God in peace.

Frank Lambert, Purdue University historian, in his book The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America, says the “Planting Fathers” – especially the Puritans of New England – sought to practice their own Christian faith and to found a Christian state. They established Congregationalism and supported it with taxes and compelled their chief magistrates to govern “according to the rule of the Word of God.” The Southern colonies, however, generally enforced Anglicanism.

About 150 years later, he declares, the “Founding Fathers” of the nation created a new national compact guaranteeing that the state would have no voice in determining religion or matters of conscience. During the 1740s, the colonies were swept by a powerful religious revival called “The First Great Awakening.” It emphasized individual religious experience and conversion. When the Founding Fathers gathered in Philadelphia to create a nation, they knew that the new United States was too diverse religiously to attempt to create a national church. Yet they never sought to drive religion from the public domain.

Nathan Hatch, provost of Notre Dame University, in his book The Democratization of American Christianity, shows that during the 70 years following the American Revolution, the United States became an avidly religious and evangelical nation.

The Second Great Awakening, around 1845, saw revivalist Christianity and evangelicalism spread hand in hand with Jacksonian democracy, bolstering the American creed of liberty, individualism and equality.

The Third Great Awakening came toward the end of the 19^th century, inspiring many cultural and political reforms in the nation. This was the era when Teddy Roosevelt led the fight against business monopolies, such as Standard Oil, and initiated new laws governing corporations, the nation’s first food and cosmetic laws. This was the age of reformers seeking to create a just and equitable society, eliminating the gap between institutions and ideals.

In the Eisenhower era, when the United States was engaged in the Cold War struggle against atheistic Communism, Congress opened a prayer room in the Capitol, made “In God We Trust” the official national motto, required its inclusion on all currency, and added “Under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.

What do these facts have to do with ancient Ephraim, the second son of Joseph?

The Key to Ephraim’s Greatness

It is very interesting – and significant -- that of the two peoples, the British and the Americans, it is the AMERICANS who are far more religious as a nation, believe in God, and attend a Christian church! It is interesting, too, that the British have a proclivity to rule and govern nations, as Britain once did when London ruled over a quarter of the world’s population. Manasseh, as we have just seen, was Joseph’s assistant in governing the country of Egypt!

The Star-Spangled Banner and Other Songs

America’s national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” was written by Francis Scott Key, a lawyer, during the War of 1812, when the British fleet was bombarding Fort McHenry, on Chesapeake Bay. It took almost 120 years for the original poem to rise to its present status. It was written in mid-1814 in humble circumstances, scribbled on the back of an envelope. Key had been sent to negotiate the release of a dear elderly doctor friend who was being held prisoner on a British warship. Key sailed in a small sloop to the British ship, and the British admiral agreed to the release after several hours of persuasive argument. He had intended to hang the man.

But while the British fleet bombarded Fort McHenry, the British held Key on board, fearing he was a security risk. So Key had the unwanted opportunity to see the blistering, roaring of shells plunging toward Fort McHenry with its 32 by 40-foot U.S. flag flying bravely. It was eight miles away but still plainly visible. All day Key watched as volley after volley roared from the fleet, amazed as he saw the gallant flag still waving. At night he saw the banner illuminated against the “rockets’ red glare,” still flying. Key remembered his grandmother’s sage words that when nothing else could be done, “You can always pray.” So he redoubled his prayers for Baltimore, Fort McHenry, his friends. The battle intensified. The heavens became as a sheet of flame. The next morning, after a harrowing night, a shout of thankfulness burst from the Americans on board – the flag was still flying high.

Francis Scott Key was so inspired by the sight in that “hour of joy and triumph,” as he put it, that his heart was stirred to write the poem – a song of deliverance.

Religion played a very important role in the founding, and the history, of the United States of America. Jaroslav Pelikan, of Yale University, points out, “The spirit of a people often finds a more profound and lasting expression in its hymns and anthems, whether official or unofficial, than it does in its constitution and laws” (Foreword, Religion and the Founding of the American Republic, by James H. Hutson, Library of Congress, University Press of New England).

The official national anthem of the United States, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ affirms,

Then conquer we must, for our cause is just –

And this be our motto, “In God is our trust!”

In its unofficial national anthems that strong religious faith is even more affirmed, even intensified, as in Samuel Francis Smith’s great song, “America,” or as it is also known, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” sung to the tune, let it be remembered, of “God Save the King!”

My country ‘tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died!

Land of the Pilgrims’ pride!

From every mountain side,

Let freedom ring!

Our father’s God to Thee,

Author of liberty,

To Thee we sing.

Long may our land be bright

With freedom’s holy light,

Protect us by Thy might,

Great God, our King!

When the Civil War began, in 1860, the United States had no national anthem. In 1861 a contest was held to produce a new patriotic song. 1,200 entries were received but none was judged worthy of the honor. Then in December, Julia Ward Stowe, an unknown poet, visiting the Army of the Potomac, heard the soldiers singing one of their favorite marching songs, “John Brown’s Body.” She decided the very popular tune needed new words – and so she returned to Boston and wrote a new song and showed it to the editor of the Atlantic Monthly.

He suggested the title, “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” It was published in February 1862 and became an instant sensation!

Mine eyes have seen the glory

of the coming of the Lord;

He is trampling out the vintage

where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning

of His terrible swift sword;

His truth is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

His truth is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies

Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in his bosom

that transfigures you and me,

As he died to make men holy,

let us die to make men free

While God is marching on.

Another American favorite, especially in times of war and trouble and unrest, is Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”

God bless America,

Land that I love,

Stand beside her and guide her

Through the night with the light from above.

From the mountains, to the prairies,

To the oceans, white with foam,

God bless America, my home sweet home,

God bless America, my home sweet home.

A very inspiring folk song in America is Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” a vibrant song expressing America’s wonderful heritage, that “this land was made for you and me.”

This land is your land – this land is my land –

From Cal-i-for-nia – to the New York Island,

From the red-wood for-est – to the Gulf Stream wa-ters,

This land was made for you and me. ––

As I went walking that ribbon of highway

I saw above me that endless skyway,

I saw below me that golden valley,

This land was made for you and me.

I roamed and rambled, and I followed my footsteps,

To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts,

All around me a voice was sounding,

This land was made for you and me.

“When the sun came shining, then I was strolling,

And the wheat fields waving, and the dust clouds rolling,

A voice was chanting as the fog was lifting,

This land was made for you and me.

Perhaps the most transcendent song of all, with echoes from both Augustine’s City of God and the Book of Revelation – we have the patriotic hymn “America the Beautiful”:

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain

For purples mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet

Whose stern impassioned stress

A thoroughfare from freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America! God mend thine every flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self control,

Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved

In liberating strife,

Who more than self

Their country loved,

And mercy more than life!

America! America! May God thy gold refine,

Till all success be nobleness,

And every grace divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

Writes Jaroslav Pelikan of Yale University, “In each case, significantly, the credo comes in the closing stanza of the anthem; only the ‘Battle-Hymn of the Republic’ keeps up the apocalyptic tone from beginning to end. But each poem expresses something special about the American faith experience: ‘In God is our trust’; ‘Great God, our King’; ‘While God is marching on’; ‘Thine alabaster cities gleam’” (Foreword, Religion and the Founding of the American Republic, by James H. Hutson, Library of Congress, University Press of New England).

In this remarkable book, prepared as a companion piece for the Library of Congress exhibition, which opened in 1998, and toured the nation, the strength of early American religious experience and faith is clearly revealed. The book tells the story of the relationship of religion to the government during the Founding Period of the nation, and the part played by the forces of evangelism during the 1730s through the 1830s, when it became the dominant feature of American religion.

Religion in Early America

George Washington, in his farewell address of 1796, declared that religion, as the source of morality, was “a necessary spring of popular government.”

Toqueville observed in 1845 in Democracy in America that Americans believed religion to be “indispensable to the maintenance of republican government,” and was somewhat surprised at how it worked in so large a country.

Contrary to recent Supreme Court decisions which have emasculated the role of religion in government in modern-day America, religion was indispensable to government in the early years of the American republic. On Sundays, during the first years of the new republic, “the state became the church,” says James H. Billington, of the Library of Congress.

Writes James Hutson, “Many of the people who settled British North America in the seventeenth century came for religious reasons, for the opportunity to worship God in ways that were unacceptable in Europe. Their passion for their faith was transmitted to their descendants who created the American nation in 1776. This legacy of faith, periodically refashioned and refreshed, gave to the new country the strong religious flavor that, in the nineteenth century, impressed foreign and domestic observers and, in 1922, prompted G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), with ample justification, to call the United States ‘a nation with the soul of a church’” (p.3).

America’s religious spirit is the hidden secret of their national greatness. This reflects the original nature and upbringing of Ephraim, himself, who studied Torah at the knees of his grandfather Jacob. This is one of the incredible heretofore unseen PROOFS that the United States of America inherited the birthright promise and represents as a whole the people of modern Ephraim! The Americans inherited the religious nature and temperament of their ancestor, Ephraim.

The Puritans and Pilgrims

History shows that most of the American colonies of England, especially the Massachusetts Bay Colony, were founded by men and women seeking religious freedom and liberty. The original settlers in Massachusetts, who came across the Atlantic on the Mayflower, were known as Pilgrims, who were fleeing religious oppression in England. They were a special branch of the Puritans, seeking to live their lives according to the Scriptures. The Puritans were actually more Jewish than Protestant in many of their beliefs!

During the 17th century English Civil War, Puritans were Protestant funda-mentalists who wished to purify the Church of England. The Puritans felt that Parliament, and not the King, should have the final say and that the moral guidance for all legal decision should come from the Bible which they considered to be the highest authority in all matters.

Writes Hugh Fogelman, a Jewish historical writer who has studied at length the origin of the Puritan movement in England: “The Puritans were obsessed with the Bible and came to identify their political struggle against England with that of the ancient Hebrews against Pharaoh or the King of Babylon. Because they identified so strongly with ancient Israel, they chose to identify with the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible).”

He continues, “In 1620, the ‘Separatists’ sailed for America on the Mayflower. The Separatists/Puritans who settled at Plymouth Colony called themselves ‘Pilgrims’ because of their wanderings in search of religious freedom. The Puritan culture of New England was marked from the outset by a deep association with Jewish themes. No Christian community in history identified more with the Israelites of the Bible than did the first generations of settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who believed their own lives to be a literal reenactment of the biblical drama of the chosen people – they were the children of Israel and the ordinances of God’s Holy covenant by which they lived were His divine law. Since they viewed themselves as the persecuted victims of the sinful Christian establishment of the Old World (England), the Puritans also had a natural sympathy for the Jews of their own time. The Protestant Puritan leader Cotton Mather repeatedly referred to the Jews in his prayer for their conversion as God’s ‘Beloved People.’”

Religious Hatred in Europe

The founding of America was largely the result of incredible religious hatred and bigotry that raged in Europe, including Great Britain, during the seventeenth century, against those who sought to live by the Biblical code. Many who settled in the region of British North America were driven there by relentless religious persecution. Religious uniformity was demanded by both Catholic and Protestant states in Europe. Any who resisted were dealt with forcibly.

The ones who became American Pilgrims were actually a small minority of the Puritan movement, but they believed the Anglican church had become so corrupt as to be irredeemable. They felt they must withdraw immediately to seek the Lord while He may be found. Taking as their motto, the title of a pamphlet, Reformation without Tarrying for any, they set sail for the New World, Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620.

America was looked upon by many earnest, God-fearing Christians in Europe as a place where they could be free of religious oppression and persecution – as a Shangri-La, as a new-found religious refuge and haven. With great hope and anticipation they set out on a risky enterprise, facing unknown dangers and perils.

Influence of the Bible

The influence of the Hebrew Bible marked every step of the Puritan exodus to their New Canaan in the wilderness of the New World. The Bible formed their minds, concepts, and dominated their character.

The early founders of America were very religious people. Says Fogelman, when ready to depart from England for the new land, the Puritans “fasted in a manner reminiscent of the fasts held by the Israelites before any new undertaking. Their Pastor Robertson read I Samuel 23:3-4 and then they sailed to the New Canaan in America. The biblical basis for this procedure is manifest; just as the ancient Israelites prayed and fasted before undertaking an uncertain venture, so did the Puritans. And once settled in America, the custom was retained and frequently renewed” (Fogelman, “Puritans Were More Jewish than Protestant,” www.jdstone.org).

Fogelman continues, “The next major group of Puritan settlers to arrive in New England (1630) was headed by John Winthrop (1588–1649) and founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They were ruled initially by an elite of leading Puritan families – since the colony itself was based on biblical principles and . . . the Holy Jewish Bible. The Puritans wholeheartedly believed that it was their special mission to establish in America a society precisely modeled on the precepts of Sacred Jewish Scriptures. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was at the very least a state inspired by and thoroughly devoted to the Jewish Bible. ‘If we keep this covenant,’ Governor John Winthrop assured his people, ‘we shall find that the God of Israel is among us, but if we deal falsely with our God . . . we [will] be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.’ The Jewish covenant concept was thus the bedrock of all Puritan religious communities” (ibid.).

In England, the Puritans were bitterly persecuted. They were far more religious and Bible-based in their thinking than the other people of England. This difference illustrates the difference between Ephraim – a lover of the Torah – and his brother Manasseh, who learned the methods of government, assisting Joseph in the administration of Egypt during the years of famine and thereafter.

New Canaan

The Puritans applied the lessons of the Exodus to their own situation. “They firmly believed that the Hebrew prophets were speaking to them as directly as they had spoken to the Israelites. Thus the history of the Israelites as related in the Bible served, according to the ministers of the day, as a mirror in which the Puritans could see their own activities reflected. Still considering themselves as Christian Protestants, the Puritans related to the Israelites and their Jewish belief for their fundamental ‘grounding.’”

Fogelman goes on, explaining: “In this respect they differed sharply from the majority of traditional Christian theologies. To the Puritans the primary lesson of the Old Testament was that a nation as well as an individual could enter into a covenant with God. The Puritans reasoned in America the concept of the covenant would assume new dimensions. Once they reached the colonies a new factor entered into the matter of the covenant. In this New Israel the Puritans established a completely new society based solely upon the Jewish concept of a covenant between God and man. Thus the Puritans made certain of the biblical system they wished to establish in the New World. During a convention of Puritan ministers at Boston on May 26, 1698, they confirmed the belief that ‘under the Old Testament, the Church was constituted by a covenant.’ Because of this concept, the Puritan Church was not ruled by a formal and rigid papal hierarchy but derived its direction immediately from God, ruled by His Word as revealed in the sacred Jewish Scriptures.

“The Bible was in all circumstances and for all occasions the ultimate source of knowledge and precedent. The Jewish Bible was the inspired word of God which was for them a matter of absolute conviction, and, hence, indisputable. Accordingly, failure to abide by the strict reading and literal interpretation of the Scriptures was severely punished . . . Laws and regulations adopted by them, which, at the present day, are stigmatized as singularities, were in many instances, the legitimate fruits of their strict adherence to the teaching of the Bible.”

Bible Basis for Law

Fogelman observes that most of the official acts of the colonies were determined by the Jewish Scriptures. The Connecticut Code of 1650 adopted a near Mosaic form of government. Its fifteen Capital Laws, Pentateuchal citations and language are later found in the Massachusetts Code of 1660. The leader of early Connecticut was Thomas Hooker, a man deeply moved by the Bible and its spirit. He was called by some “the founder of American democracy.” Hooker wrote in a letter in 1648 to Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts on the subject of liberty under the law, quoting Deuteronomy 17:10–11: “Thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform, according to the sentence of the law. Thou shalt seek that Law at his mouth: not ask what his discretion allows, but what the Law requires.”

The Puritans incorporated the Mosaic code and commandments from the Old Testament into their own legal framework. Fully half of the statutes in the Code of 1655 for the New Haven colony contained references to or citations from the Old Testament, whereas only three percent referred to the New Testament Scriptures.

The first Puritan settlers in New England called themselves “Christian Israel.” Names like Daniel, Jonathan, Esther, Enoch, Ezra, Rachel and a host of others were in common use among the Puritans. 

Names of cities, towns and settlements likewise derived from Hebraic sources.  Fogelman points out, “This widespread use of biblical names, however, was not confined to the naming of offspring, cities and towns – names of many biblical heights were eventually bestowed upon the great mountains of America. Mount Carmel and Mount Horeb, home of the Prophets, were popular names, as was Mount Nebo, the final resting place of Moses. Names like Mount Ephraim, Mount Gilead, Mount Hermon, Mount Moriah, Mount Pisgah, were all popular as well. Some mountains in the New World were even called Mt. Sinai, Mount Zion and Mount Olive.”

If you look at a map or an atlas of the United States, you will find many Biblical names of cities and towns scattered throughout the various states of the union. Biblical place names are found throughout the country, from coast to coast. Certainly these manifold place names bear witness to the distant origins and heritage of our people!

Declares Fogelman, “The majority of the earliest settlers were Puritans from England. Unlike their cousins back home, these American Puritans strongly identified with both the historical traditions and customs of the ancient Hebrews of the Old Testament. They viewed their emigration from England as a virtual re-enactment of the Jewish exodus from Egypt: England was Egypt, the English king was Pharaoh, the Atlantic Ocean their Red Sea, America was the Land of Israel, and the Indians were the ancient Canaanites. They were the new Israelites, entering into a new covenant with God in a new Promised Land.”

Hugh Fogelman asserts, “At the first assembly of New Haven in 1639, John Davenport clearly declared the primacy of the Bible as the legal and moral foundation of the colony: ‘Scriptures do hold forth a perfect rule for the direction and government of all men in all duties which they are to perform to God and men as well as in the government of families and commonwealth as in matters of the church . . . the Word of God shall be the only rule to be attended unto in organizing the affairs of government in this plantation’” (Hugh Fogelman, “Puritans More Jewish than Protestant,”).

Why is America so much more a religious nation than Great Britain? The answer goes back to our historic origins and the birthright promises made to Ephraim and Manasseh. Ephraim spent much time at Jacob’s knees, learning the Torah and the laws of God, developing a spiritual relationship with God, whereas Manasseh, also blessed, spent most of his young life accompanying Joseph in performing his duties of administration of government. Even so, in modern times, Great Britain shows its great abilities in government and administration, as it administered its global empire and commonwealth, and America shows its greatness based on its Judeo-Christian heritage and inspiration.

Religious Proclamations

Early in 1620, the very year of the Pilgrims’ landing in the new Plymouth, a solemn day of prayer was observed. This custom, combining prayer and fasting with biblical readings on momentous occasions, continued. In 1800, President Adams likewise called a national day of prayer and fasting, and during the Civil War Abraham Lincoln did likewise. What other nation has done the like throughout its history?

The Pilgrim Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving to be shared by all the colonists and the neighboring Native Americans. The Pilgrims invited Squanto and the other Indians to join them in their celebration. Their chief, Massasoit, and 90 braves came to the celebration which lasted for 3 days. They played games, ran races, marched and played drums. The Indians demonstrated their skills with the bow and arrow and the Pilgrims demonstrated their musket skills. Exactly when the festival took place is uncertain, but it is believed the celebration took place in mid-October .

The following year the Pilgrims’ harvest was not as bountiful, as they were still unused to growing the corn. During the year they had also shared their stored food with newcomers and the Pilgrims ran short of food.

The 3rd year brought a spring and summer that was hot and dry with the crops dying in the fields. Governor Bradford ordered a day of fasting and prayer, and it was soon thereafter that the rain came. To celebrate, November 29th of that year was proclaimed a day of thanksgiving. This date is believed to be the real true beginning of the present Thanksgiving Day in America.

“A Day of Fasting and Prayer”

In May, 1774, shortly after the Boston Tea Party, where patriots dressed as Indians dumped the tea carried on British ships into the Boston harbor, word reached Virginia that the British in retaliation planned to close the port of Boston.

As a consequence, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and other Virginians resolved to immediately proclaim a day of fasting and prayer for the intervention of Almighty God. The Virginia legislature deemed it “highly necessary that the said first day of June be set apart, by the members of this House, as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, devoutly to implore the divine interposition, for averting the heavy calamity which threatens destruction to our civil rights and the evils of civil war . . .”

Wherever we look, in Colonial America there was a very strong reliance on the divine blessing and intervention of Almighty God. America was founded on religious principles, and her people historically have been a very devout people.

The picture above depicts the first prayer in Congress, September 7, 1774. John Adams, who became the second president of the United States, was present, and declared afterward, “I must confess that I never heard a better Prayer or one so well pronounced . . . with such fervor, such Ardor, such Earnestness and Pathos, and in Language so elegant and sublime – for America, for the Congress, for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and especially the Town of Boston. It has had an excellent Effect upon every Body here” (Religion and the Founding of the American Republic, p.48).

The Declaration of Independence

July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, the historic document in which the American Colonies declared their freedom from British rule. It ranks as one of the greatest documents of human history.

The preamble to this document states unequivocally:

“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they