Posted on 05/17/2011 8:06:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
I assume that the type of person who reads columns such as this one has wondered at one time or another why, for thousands of years, there has been so much attention paid to Jews and why, today, to Israel, the one Jewish state.
But how do most people explain this preoccupation? There is no fully rational explanation for the amount of attention paid to the Jews and the Jewish state. And there is no fully rational explanation for the amount of hatred directed at Jews and the Jewish state.
A lifetime of study of this issue, including writing (with Rabbi Joseph Telushkin) a book on anti-Semitism ("Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism") has convinced me that, along with all the rational explanations, there is one explanation that transcends reason alone.
It is that the Jews are God's chosen people.
Now, believe me, dear reader, I am well aware of the hazards of making such a claim.
It sounds chauvinistic. It sounds racist. And it sounds irrational, if not bizarre.
But it is none of these.
As regards chauvinism, there is not a hint of inherent superiority in the claim of Jewish chosen-ness. In fact, the Jewish Bible, the book that states the Jews are chosen, constantly berates the Jews for their flawed moral behavior. No bible of any other religion is so critical of the religious group affiliated with that bible as the Hebrew Scriptures are of the Jews.
As for racism, Jewish chosen-ness cannot be racist by definition. Here is why: a) The Jews are not a race; there are Jews of every race. And b) any person of any race, ethnicity or nationality can become a member of the Jewish people and thereby be as chosen as Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah or the chief rabbi of Israel.
And with regard to chosen-ness being an irrational or even bizarre claim, it must be so only to atheists. They don't believe in a Chooser, so they cannot believe in a Chosen. But for most believing Jews and Christians (most particularly the Founders who saw America as a Second Israel, a second Chosen People), Jewish Chosen-ness has been a given. And even the atheist must look at the evidence and conclude that the Jews play a role in history that defies reason.
Can reason alone explain how a hodgepodge of ex-slaves was able to change history -- to introduce the moral God-Creator we know as God; to write the world's most influential book, the Bible; to devise ethical monotheism; to be the only civilization to deny the cyclical worldview and give humanity belief in a linear (i.e., purposeful) history; to provide morality-driven prophets and so much more -- without God playing the decisive role in this people's history?
Without the Jews, there would be no Christianity (a fact acknowledged by the great majority of Christians) and no Islam (a fact acknowledged by almost no Muslims). Read Thomas Cahill's "The Gifts of the Jews" or Paul Johnson's "A History of the Jews" to get an idea about how much this people changed history.
What further renders the claim for Jewish chosen-ness worthy of rational consideration is that virtually every other nation has perceived itself as chosen or otherwise divinely special. For example, China means "Middle Kingdom" in Chinese -- meaning that China is at the center of the world; and Japan considers itself the land where the sun originates ("Land of the Rising Sun"). The difference between Jewish chosen-ness and other nations' similar claims is that no one cares about any other group considering itself Chosen, while vast numbers of non-Jews have either believed the Jews' claim or have hated the Jews for it.
Perhaps the greatest evidence for the Jews' chosen-ness has been provided in modern times, during which time evil has consistently targeted the Jews:
-- Nazi Germany was more concerned with exterminating the Jews than with winning World War II.
-- Throughout its 70-year history, the Soviet Union persecuted its Jews and tried to extinguish Judaism. Hatred of Jews was one thing communists and Nazis shared.
-- The United Nations has spent more time discussing and condemning the Jewish state than any other country in the world. Yet, this state is smaller than every Central American country, including El Salvador, Panama and even Belize. Imagine if the amount of attention paid to Israel were paid to Belize -- who would not think there was something extraordinary about that country?
-- Much of the contemporary Muslim world -- and nearly all the Arab world -- is obsessed with annihilating the one Jewish state.
In the words of Catholic scholar Father Edward Flannery, the Jews carry the burden of God in history. Most Jews, being secular, do not believe this. And many Jews dislike talk of chosen-ness because they fear it will increase anti-Semitism; they may be right.
But it doesn't alter the fact that the obsession with one of the smallest countries and smallest peoples on earth, and the unique hatred of the Jews and the Jewish state by the world's most vicious ideologies, can be best explained only in transcendent terms. Namely that God, for whatever reason, chose the Jews.
“Then why the emphasis on genealogies in the Bible?”
Genealogies define “family lineage” and not necessarily “race”, for more than one “race” may be in that lineage.
Indeed.
Or you can get raw with these strings. Either way, the violin is sweet yet lethal.
Do it!
"Racially" not much.
Thanks for the laugh.
Either you are Jewish or the joke was first told by someone who is.
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God."
Kind of an odd thing for an Israelite, who already shared a people and a God with Naomi, to say. But perfectly logical for a Moabite woman. It was her announcement of conversion.
The Bible has nothing at all that indicates in its text that Ruth wasn't a "real" Moabite. It just says she was a Moabite. Where do you get your information
.so was Rahab. Rahab was also an inn keeper not a harlot.
I'll give you the not harlot bit, although the Hebrew is at best ambiguous.
But what exactly was an Israelite woman doing running an inn in a Canaanite city when the Israelites had just come out of the desert.
There is also the fairly obvious fact that Joshua made a specific exception for Rahab's entire family from being destroyed. Would seem less necessary for him to do so it they had been Israelites rather than Canaanites. Also seems like he would have mentioned such a striking fact in his proclamation. Like, "Don't kill the people in Rahab's house, they're all Israelites."
The Bible doesn't allow much justification of ethnic pride. For instance, Moses' wife was a Cushite, which probably means what we would call black.
Moses' wife Miriam got racist about this, and God struck her with leprosy as a punishment. God apparently doesn't approve of racism, even by his chosen people.
Also, during the Exodus "a great mixed company" accompanied the children of Israel. When they entered the Promised Land there is no mention of them. The obvious conclusion is they were fully assimilated during the 40 years in the desert.
You happen to have it wrong especially on Miriam and Moses’ wife. Miriam did have the wrong attitude but not for the reason you think you know. There were important reasons for Jesus to have been born through a pure line of Israelites...and your deduction on Ruth blows that aspect apart.
Biblically, the Jewish people must trace their lineage back to all three patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. From a Biblical point of view, Jewish geneologies are paternally determined as opposed to other methods developed by the Jewish people over the centuries, such as a Jewish person is so if his/her mother is Jewish, if he/she is a gentile (non-Jew) cultural ‘proselyte’, etc. If a male Israelite married a Moabitess, for example Boaz marrying Ruth, their offspring were 100% Jewish, in Scripture.
Again, biblically, Jewish people are so because of their pedigree which must include Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Most Jewish tribal geneologies were lost after the destruction of Jerusalem, 70 CE, although surnames such as “Levy, Levi, Cohen,” etc. point to the Levitical tribe.
Scripture clearly delineates between 2 sets of people in 2 different ways:
Jews
non-Jews (goyim, gentiles)
believers, God-fearers
nonbelievers, pagans, apostates
One can be Jewish and a God-fearer
One can be Jewish and a nonbeliever (atheist, agnostic, etc.)
One cannot be Jewish and gentile (*biblically speaking only* where the father determines lineage)
Oh, and since many of the prophecies have not yet been fulfilled for Israel, God is NOT finished with His chosen people. God is always, always, always a promise-keeper, though His timetable out-spans our brief lifetimes. Beware reformed theology that “spiritualizes” away all the promises for Israel in the Tenach by suggesting “Israel” = the Church.
“Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks (gentiles), OR the church of God.” 1 Cor. 10:32
Might be important, but it didn't happen. Let's leave aside all the unknown foreign wives that were never recorded.
The minimal record we have, mostly of the women in the royal line of his ancestry, indicates numerous Ammonite, Egyptian, Tyrian and other foreign mothers of the kings.
Christ's human ancestry, like that of every other person on the planet, was not "pure," it was thoroughly mixed.
The Israelites themselves were never a "pure" race, in fact their Law contained specific provisions for marrying foreign women captured in battle. As one example, Joseph married an Egyptian women. Therefore, his two eponymous sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, were half-Egyptian.
Your post is almost 100% wrong.
The father determines the tribe, the mother whether one is Jewish or not.
A convert to Judaism is 100% Jewish, with the only restriction being a female convert cannot marry a Cohen (but her kids could).
Your post is almost 100% wrong.
The father determines the tribe, the mother whether one is Jewish or not.
A convert to Judaism is 100% Jewish, with the only restriction being a female convert cannot marry a Cohen (but her kids could).
“If a male Israelite married a Moabitess, for example Boaz marrying Ruth, their offspring were 100% Jewish, in Scripture.”
Only because Ruth converted.
Yes.
Joseph married Asenath her father was Pontipher the Priest of the City of ON which was built by Enoch. The Priest were from the line of Seth. This is the reason Jacob/Israel made both of Joseph and Asenath’s Sons a tribe because of their pure lineage. Joseph adhered strictly to the teachings of Jacob. Your deductions remind me of the universal church spoken of in Revelation.
Just think how much trouble they’d be in if they weren’t, eh? Thanks Kaslin.
Oh, dear.
Seth was the son of Adam and Even, an ancestor of Noah. Thus all living today are descended from him, since we are all descended from Noah. We are all of the line of Seth.
Enoch was the great-grandfather of Noah. Anything he built was obviously destroyed by the Flood.
Asenath means “holy to Anath,” a major Semitic goddess. There is absolutely no reason from the Biblical account to assume Potiphera (means “he whom Ra has given”) and his daughter were anything but the obvious, worshippers of pagan gods, although we can assume Asenath became a worshipper of the true God after her marriage.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Man of the Covenant Promise. As a friend of God and of man who implicitly trusted the divine promises,Abraham was the recipient of an important covenant involving not only himself but his posterity, natural as well as spiritual. The Abrahamic Covenant as originally given. [ Gen. 12;1-4]and reaffirmed [Gen.13;14-17] [Gen.15;1-7] Also read Genesis 12 on.This is why God chose the jews and God is sovereign.
Jewish souls finding their way back after what may or have not been a difficult geneological journey.
Well, there are Jews of every races. A simple google search should clear that up for you.
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