As you know, Wednesday is Question and Answer day here on the blog. Last week in this space I posted the following here…
Question from a Reader:Why Are Jews So Special?
Dear Neale Donald Walsch: CWG really knocked me out! I couldn’t put it down; found it astonishing at several points; mak¬ing perfect sense at others; laughed out loud, and was a bit puzzled after two or three “reads” of the same sentence. I will re-read it with pleasure and I treasure it. How grateful I am to you for daring to publish this material. A question: since I am Jewish, why are the Jews “the chosen people”? Love and blessings to you. Phyllis, Stamford, CT.
My dear Phyllis, The Jews are not “the chosen people.” All people are “the chosen people.” The Jews have simply been historically far more conscious of God’s covenant with them than most other peoples; they have paid attention to it; they have hon¬ored it. It is the same way the United States sees itself among the world’s nations. The U.S. says this is “one nation, under God.” Well, all nations are “under God.” Yet few nations have had the consciousness to place “in God we trust” on their coins. It is a question of consciousness. It is a question of how nations and peoples see themselves. It is not a question of which people God has chosen, but which people have chosen God.
In the Comments section of that blog last Wednesday I found the following…
Dear Neale,
First of all, I thought that your response to Phyllis was nice. Your point about being conscious of God is very important. Presumably your position is, approximately, that one determines, by one’s own consciousness and actions, how “chosen” one is; so no one is barred from being “chosen.”
The problem is, however, that ‘chosenness’ is not JUST about what WE think about it. It is also (even mainly) about what God Himself has said about the case. And, following statements in Deuteronomy, God seemingly HAS declared the Jews as being chosen in a certain sense. So that brings us back to Phyllis’s question: “Why are the Jews ‘the chosen people’?'”
There are of course many possible answers to this question. My own take on it would be that God chose the Jews to do a certain job, namely to respect and protect the covenant. It is their job to be such priests. And if they do their job nicely, and take on that responsibility, they will be holy.
One important point here is that the fact (if it is a fact) that God has assigned certain tasks to the Jews is no guarantee for that God does not assign similar tasks (for example, protecting other scriptures than traditional Jewish ones) to non-Jews; and it is no guarantee that God does not assign non-similar tasks to non-Jews.
In fact, one may very well be of the opinion that God custom-designs different religions in all societies, cultures, and ages, in order for all sincere souls to have a chance to find Him. And if this is the case, one might say, using Neale’s way of framing things, that everyone really IS chosen; it’s just a matter of one’s own individual consciousness and action to determine HOW one is chosen.
Sincerely,
Bo C. Klintberg
Editor/Author, Philosophical Plays
http://philosophicalplays.googlepages.com
While I appreciate the author’s expansive observation that God may have chosen other people as well, what I would like to do now is to simply take a look at the Source that this writer has used as the authority in this matter. Bo Klintberg writes…
“…following statements in Deuteronomy, God seemingly HAS declared the Jews as being chosen in a certain sense.”
The problem with this assertion, from my point of view, is that…
…it assumes the Book of Deuteronomy to be an authoritative Source as to the wishes and desires and intentions of God.
Do you think that it is?
If you want to be utterly horrified at some people’s thoughts about What God Wants, sit down one night and read, from start to finish, the Book of Deuteronomy. But don’t read it aloud to your children. It will scare the heck out of them.
The Book of Deuteronomy says that if a man marries a woman and finds that she is not a virgin, and if her family cannot prove that she was a virgin before her marriage, “she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death.”
Is this truly What God Wants? Can we use this writing as the authoritative Word of God?
The Torah also says that, if found to be in an adulterous relationship, both the man and the woman are to be taken to the city gates and also stoned to death.
And God is concerned about other real life matters as well. Apparel, for instance. A woman “must not wear men’s clothing…for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this,” the Torah says.
Then, too, only certain people are welcome in God’s house of worship. If you happen to be a child born out of wedlock, you cannot go to there. No illegitimate child, “nor any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the tenth generation.”
Also, if a certain part of your body happens to be injured in an accident or as a result of war, you cannot join with other worshipers of God, either. The Bible says: “If a man’s testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be included in the assembly of the Lord.”
These are words right out of the Bible. Do they upset or embarrass you?
“Those words are in the Bible?”, you might ask. Yes. Turn to Deuteronomy 23:1-2, New Living Translation.
“Oh,” you might say, “one of those modern Bibles.”
Yes. The King James Version has it this way: “He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord,” but it means the same thing.
And I have some startling news for women who take some of those self-defense classes that are offered these days.
“Really?”, you could ask.
Yes. They can find themselves in a lot of trouble with some of what they learn in those classes.
For the Bible says, “If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.”
Oh, and there are also had some thoughts in these scriptures about children who don’t obey their parents. These are probably not thoughts that many mothers would have, but the Bible says this is What God Wants…
Kill them.
According to the Torah, God says to kill them.
“I don’t believe that,” you might exclaim.
Well, it’s right there, plain as day: “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you.”
Based on these words I have an honest question: Is the Book of Deuteronomy an authoritative Source on the Word of God and the Intentions of Divinity?
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