Do the 12 tribes of Israel still exist?

Answer 1

we are called "Jews" because judah was the only official tribe to survive, along with a good number of benjamin, there were probably others from othe tribes living among them but no one really knows what tribe they are anymore, they only know if they are from Levi, or if they are Kohanim, a high class priests of levi, and the rest of us call our selves "yisrael"

Another Answer:

Yes. And there are many prophecies that tell us that God will gather them again from all the places of the Earth and bring them into the Land of Israel at Jesus' Millennial Rule. In particular, suggest reading Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Zechariah.

God cannot return the 'lost' tribes back to Israel if they no longer exist. Many have investigated where/who these displaced peoples are today and there are many ideas as to whom they may be. But whoever they are they must fulfill the characteristic descriptions of them in Genesis and Deuteronomy:

Jeremiah 31:10-11 New King James Version (NKJV)

10 "Hear the word of the Lord, O nations,

And declare it in the isles afar off, and say,

'He who scattered Israel will gather him,

And keep him as a shepherd does his flock.'

11 For the Lord has redeemed Jacob,

And ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he.

The 12 tribes of Israel still exist but very greatly diluted, and are both racially and tribally miscegenated. To explain, ancient Israel kept the 'Jubilee': put simply, every 50 years all debts were cleared and all land reverted back to it's original owner. These original owners were in the 12 tribal allotments to the 12 sons of Israel. This meant detailed records of genealogy, land ownership, and title had to be kept, and these were kept in the Temple.

When the nation of Israel was split, after Solomon's death, into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah, there was also a migration of people in those areas: the God-fearing in the Northern Kingdom went to the Southern Kingdom, and those who didn't want to worship God went to the Northern Kingdom. All 12 tribes were represented in the Southern Kingdom, and all 12 tribes were represented in Judea at the time of Christ.

For example, that is how Paul would have known he was a Benjaminite:-

Romans 11

1 I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

Another example is when Joseph and Mary brought the baby Jesus to the Temple : the prophetess Anna knew she was from the tribe of Asher:-

Luke 2

36 Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity;

However, when the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD all the records were destroyed with it. This means no jew can trace their family history back far enough. Without records wishful thinking is not enough. To put it personally,my grandmother said she was descended from William the Conqueror, but much as I would like it I cannot prove it because there are missing records. Because another side of the family is called "Smith" it is simply impossible to trace that back. I cannot trace back another part of the family because the records were kept in the Docks of London and were destroyed by German bombing in WW2.

In the same way, in the last 2,000 years most Jewish records would have been destroyed in the various persecutions, forced migrations, pogroms, conversions, Inquisition, and Holocaust. Verbal records are unreliable: they are worth the paper they're printed on.To put it simply, although all 12 tribes still exist, just as I cannot trace my family back, not one single jew can trace their own ancestry back to their original tribe solely though written records.

Answer 2

The most well known list of the twelve tribes is not the only one found in The Bible. At times, some tribes from this list are omitted, with other tribes reported instead. This may reflect the natural changes in tribal societies, and we should not think of exactly twelve unchanging tribes of Israel.

Notionally, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin occupied the small southern kingdom of Judah, and the people of those two tribes are thought of as the Jews of today.

Notionally, the other ten of the tribes occupied the kingdom of Israel when the nation was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. Large numbers of these people were deported to other parts of the Assyrian Empire, where they were assimilated into the local populations and lost their separate identities. Others fled south into Judah and were assimilated into the local population, while others fled to Egypt, forming a homogeneous Israelite colony at Elephantine - their descendants may be included among the Jews and perhaps Egyptian Arabs of today. Those who remained in Israel intermarried with the incoming Arabs after the Assyrian conquest and became the Samaritans of New Testament times. Most of the descendants of the Samaritans now consider themselves Jews, although a small group of self-identified Samaritans remains. Thus, although we know what happened to the descendants of the ten tribes, we could no longer identify the tribal ancestry of any person.