The Brotherhood/Sisterhood of Us All
By mathematics and also by DNA, everyone of European descent alive today is a descendant of the first Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne. As Adam Rutherford puts it in his book A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived:
“You are of royal descent, because everyone is. You are of Viking descent, because everyone is. You are of Saracen, Roman, Goth, Hun, Jewish descent, because, well, you get the idea. All Europeans are descended form exactly the same people, and not that long ago. Everyone alive in the tenth centry who left descendants is the ancestor of every living European today, including Charlemagne, and his children Drogo, Pippin, and, of course, not forgetting Hugh. If you’re broadly eastern Asian, you’re almost certain to have Genghis Khan sitting atop your tree somewhere in the same manner, as is often claimed. If you’re a human being on Earth, you almost certainly Nefertiti, Confucius, or anyone we can actually name from ancient history in your tree, if they left children. The further back we go, the more the certainty of ancestry increases, though the knowledge of our ancestors decreases. It is simultaneously wonderful, trivial, meaningless, and fun.” p. 165
Combine that scientific knowledge with the legend popularized in The Da Vinci Code that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a son and that after the Crucifixion, she fled with that son to the south of what is now France, and that Clovis, the first king of France, was one of their descendants.
We are all descended from Charlemagne, and Charlemagne was descended from Clovis. So, if Clovis was descended from Jesus, we are all descended from Jesus, have genes not only in common with one another but also in common with him; and hence we all have Jewish ancestors. We’re one big family.
