Opponents
Many opponents of the theology claim that the lost tribes re-united with the Kingdom of Judah in the years leading up to and following Judah's return from their Babylonian Captivity in 537 BCE, hence they do not exist in the nations today other than in the form of the "Jews," those scattered by the Roman diaspora (70 CE) and subsequent Christian and Muslim exiles in later periods.
Some opponents take an agnostic position claiming that the lost tribes have been completely assimilated by and are unidentifiable in the nations of the world and hence could never have returned from their deportation by and into Assyria. Hence, "why dispute what is unknowable?"
Opposition also arises simply when Israelites are identified with people more "commonly" associated with Japheth, one of Noah's three sons. Interestingly, some Two House advocates won't deny some aspect of this argument, taking into account a prophetic verse: Genesis 9:27a "God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem" (RSV). (Shem was another son of Noah, but also the ancestor of the Hebrews, Arabs, and many other ethnic groups according to genealogies found in the Hebrew Scriptures.)
Three of the major international Messianic Jewish groups reject the Two House Theology as being misguided at best, or at worst a Gentile cult seeking to make themselves appear as Jews. The Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, the Messianic Jewish Association of America (which is an affiliation of the International Messianic Jewish Alliance) and the Messianic Bureau International all proclaim the Messianic movement as a movement for Jewish believers in Yeshua and forbid the teaching that Gentiles may be of the lost tribes of Israel, or any reference to the two houses of Israel. This kind of thinking is best seen by the "Ephraimite Error" white paper, produced in 1999, which several Two House proponents have responded to. These attitudes may come as a reaction to the cult of British-Israelism and is best epitomized by the Worldwide Church of God founded by Herbert W. Armstrong, and its many offshoots.
Many in Messianic Judaism have difficulty considering some of the claims of the Two House teaching. To them it is irrelevant and meaningless. Some would view Messianic Judaism's total avoidance of the issue and its dismissal of the Scriptures as a manifestation of Messianic Judaism's wide-scale avoidance of more important theological issues pertaining to the nature of Messiah, the composition and historicity of Scripture, and Messianic Judaism's engagement with modern society.
Read more about this topic: Two House Theology
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