Various ideas arose, including possible relationships to Egyptians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Vikings, Tartars, the Chinese people or Atlantis.
[5] Diego Andres Rocha also argued for the idea in Tratado Unico y Singular del Origen de los Indios (1687), with claims including that a broken Hebrew is spoken in Cuba and Jamaica.
[8] The theory was not just of historical concern: it carried concomitant eschatological implications as the return of the lost tribes and conversion of the entire Jewish nation would herald the Second Coming of Jesus.
[4] Another important work was written by Thomas Thorowgood (or Thoroughgood[5]): Iewes in America, published 1650, re-issued in 1652 as Digitus Dei: New Discoveryes.
[7] Thorowgood believed that, as members of the Jewish community, the Native Americans would be converted to Christianity to produce the Second Coming, thus providing a theological justification for the English colonial project in North America.
[4] Antonio de Montezinos, a Portuguese convert from Judaism to Christianity, claimed to have met an Indigenous tribe which spoke Hebrew and recited the shema during his travels in New Grenada.
[8] Ben Israel, believing Montezinos' account, asserted that there were Jews hidden in South America, as well as in other places across Asia and Africa.
[5] Notably, Adair had spent 40 years living in North America, unlike earlier authors who had not visited the continent.
[1] Elias Boudinot's A Star in the West, or, a Humble Attempt to Discover the Long Lost Ten Tribes of Israel (1816)[5] and Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews (1825) drew on Adair's work.
[9] Following the 1830s, the theory's popularity waned in both religious and scientific discourse, and almost entirely disappeared by the 20th century,[5][1] with adherents only among some millenarian Christian sects.
[3] LDS scholar Thomas W. Murphy argues that in light of this evidence, the Latter-day Saints should abandon their view that the Book of Mormon is an authentic account of ancient American history.