Dear Ellen (and Doves),

Thank you for your posting concerning the breastplate. You make some
interesting observations that I would like to make further comment on.

Like yourself, I believe that the breastplate jewels offer some insight into
the present-day identities of the lost tribes, whose names were variously
inscribed thereupon. In fact, it was this very aspect that clinched for me
the verity of the theory that the lost tribes are to be found today in the
northwestern corner of Europe, the British Isles, North America, and the
British Commonwealth. In other words, the Christian nations of the world.

I have read much literature on the topic of the lost tribes, some of it
unfortunately with a decidedly racist bent - especially the material from
apartheid era South Africa - and this dissuaded me from embracing the
doctrine in spite of the sound biblical grounding in which most of the
material was embedded. It was only after a friend and I had found the
scriptural key to unlocking the identities of the twelve breastplate stones,
and the tribes inscribed thereon, that I finally accepted the truth of who
the tribes are today. The colours of the stones backed up some of what I had
read about the supposed identities of certain of the tribes today. That was
some seventeen years ago now, and ever since I've had this knowledge
grounded within me as a part of my faith. In effect, it took three years of
careful thought and meditation on the matter before I realised the priceless
truth of who and where the tribes are today.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the researching of the breastplate
jewels is that all the clues are to be found within Scripture alone. As you
come to expect with God, He always leaves a thread to follow as you search
His Word. Importantly, the breastplate jewels of Exodus 28 are, in fact, the
same as the twelve foundation stones of the New Jerusalem enounced at
Revelation 21. No human agency could have scripted this, as the identities
of the stones had already been lost for at least five hundred years up to
the point where they were revealed by the Lord to John. This fact makes the
identifying of the twelve breastplate jewels immeasurably easier as the
Greek names for the jewels are, by and large, amicably translated into
contemporary English - unlike their Hebrew counterparts, which are, for the
most part, not easily given to translation.
Now is not the time for going into the details of how this act of
translation is facilitated, but the key scriptural reference bridging the
Old and New Testament lists of the twelve stones is Ezekiel 48:31-35. As you
will note, these verses from Ezekiel are referring to none other than the
New Jerusalem. (Ezekiel refers to the city as YHVH-Shammah: gematria of 371:
371 being the third of the four numbers having the cubic trinity function
whereby 3 cubed + 7 cubed + 1 cubed = 371). The order of the gate structure
plays the key role, as you may note if you will carefully compare Ezekiel 48
to Revelation 21. It takes a lot of research to begin working one's way
through the stones as listed by John in the Revelation, and finding how they
correlate to the breastplate. But once you've cracked the code you're left
in awe, and that's no understatement! John's listing of the twelve
foundation stones is anything but haphazard. He lists them in a very
specific order that relates directly to both Ezekiel's list of the tribal
gates, and more particularly after the cubic structure that informs the New
Jerusalem. There is, obviously, much more I need to say here but it must
wait for another time.

And this brings us to another issue, for the breastplate worn by the high
priest - embellished with twelve jewels upon which the names of the twelve
tribes were variously inscribed - never had the names of Ephraim and
Manasseh inscribed upon any of the jewels. This point must not be missed!
I, too, came across Ian Mallett's work on the breastplate some four years
ago at Vernon Jenkins' website. I was very impressed by the numerical
phenomena Ian had discovered, as his discoveries could not, in my opinion,
be reasonably attributed to chance. However, in spite of the awe-inspiring
phenomena Ian had found and that his work met the edict of birth order, he
got the wrong names on the breastplate!
Knowing this, I undertook a search by gematria of the actual twelve tribes
that did have their names inscribed on the breastplate jewels, and before
long I had come upon a discovery even more phenomenal than that which Ian
had found. The original breastplate - which followed the birth order from
Genesis 29, 30 and 35, and was the breastplate Aaron wore - when rejigged to
depict the birth order according to the mothers, quickly presented findings
that vindicated the conviction that the twelve birth sons of Israel are
those to be found on the breastplate; and that Ephraim and Manasseh are
nowhere to be found inscribed on the breastplate.
As I am useless with computers, I collaborated with Vernon Jenkins in
working on publishing some of the breastplate data I had found. All of this
research is at least three years old now, but it has taken time to get ready
for publishing. If interested, you may find the first two parts of the
research under the title 'Double Indemnity' at the following:

http://www.whatabeginning.com/coracle1
http://www.whatabeginning.com/coracle2

There are another three parts that are yet to be published in this series.
The draft for one of these can be found at the following link, but the best
is yet to come:

http://homepage.virgin.net/tgvernon.jenkins/MS_Lord_Tess.htm

The first of the webpages, above, contains several appendices. These are
definitely worth reading through as they give background information on
aspects such as the order of the names on the true breastplate, the full
spelling of the name Zebulun, and some (but not all) of the reasons why
Ephraim and Manasseh could never have been part of the breastplate.

In regards to leaving it a bit high and dry earlier when discussing Ezekiel
48 and the New Jerusalem cube, another rough draft you might reference to
get a feel for the breastplate names and how they morph into the New
Jerusalem cube can be found below. This reference depicts the tribes in a
star formation - I refer to it as the Star of Israel - which acts as an
interface between the two-dimensional breastplate and the three-dimensional
cube. You will note how the tribe names are ordered according to both the MS
breastplate arrangement and the gates as per Ezekiel 48.

http://homepage.virgin.net/tgvernon.jenkins/MS_Hexagram.htm

I was taken with how this Star of Israel might be reconciled/combined with
John Tng's work on the hexagram of YHVH. The Star of Israel has thirteen
nodes, or vertices, the thirteenth being at the centre of the hexagram.
Arranging the numbers as John has done gives eighteen direct references to
the number of YHVH. However, by assigning a zero value to the centrepoint
node - a logical step considering the analogue with the tribe of Levi's
posting in the Wilderness Encampment - John's six V-shaped chevrons
translate into triangles on the Star of Israel.

http://www.fivedoves.com/shema/YHVHShema1.htm

A final thought I would like to add in this correspondence concerns the
supposed English analogue to the Hebrew and Greek alphabets. I must say that
I am deeply opposed to this methodology for the following reasons:
1) English has never had an alphanumeric alphabet, and therefore has no
history to justify putting it in the same league as the Greek and Hebrew,
which both have historically-attested alphanumeric uses for their alphabets.
2) Because of this, all findings in English lack any authority whatsoever.
In a nutshell, God has nowhere sanctioned this methodology for English.
3) Applying alphanumerics to English is too arbitrary. There already exist
several reputed alphanumeric systems for English, and the general fare
emanating from the proponents thereof is nothing short of numerology, in my
opinion. That applies to what I have read from well-meaning Christians, too.
4) Because of the above, opening English up to gematria can only result in a
free-for-all.
5) Using an English alphanumeric system easily becomes a trap for ensnaring
Christians in numerology without their ever being aware of it.
6) The systems of English alphanumerics that I have seen have easily been
debunked by opponents who use them to show the opposite of what well-meaning
Christians have contended. In this respect, any English alphanumeric system
is doomed to go the way of the so-called ELS codes: worthless.
In my opinion, stick with what God has sanctioned or risk ridicule.

And in answer to there being anything to the number 401, the jasper, and the
USA. No, there is nothing to it. For starters, jasper is Benjamin's stone!
It doesn't belong to, or represent, Ephraim!Ephraim is represented by one of
the shoham stones on the shoulders of the ephod, although his name is not
engraved upon it. The second point is that the Hebrew for jasper sums to
395, and not 401! If anything, a closer link would be to Manasseh, whose
name also sums to 395. But Manasseh's stone is, like Ephraim, one of the
shoham stones on the shoulders of the ephod. Neither is Manasseh's name
engraved upon this stone.
But all is not entirely lost! For the shoham stones used on the shoulders of
the ephod are the same as the eleventh breastplate stone, which is also a
shoham stone. This eleventh breastplate stone belongs to Israel's eleventh
son, Joseph, the father of Epraim and Manasseh. And the shoham stone is the
Greek chalkedon, which is our modern white agate. White is the colour of
Joseph according to the breastplate. Small wonder, then, that the national
colour of England is white (Ephraim); and that American governance is
symbolised in the White House (Manasseh).
There's so much more to be written, but I'm sure there's enough here to keep
the interested busy for now. Next time I will provide a list of the tribes
on the breastplate, the Hebrew stone for each, their Greek equivalents, and
the modern English name of the stone. It will give a chance for interested
parties to start thinking about the structure of the New Jerusalem cube by
going around tribe-by-tribe instead of stone-by-stone.
To Ellen and others, I pray you might receive some blessing from this post.

Yours in Christ,
Stephen Coneglan