Was there any benefit to being an Israelite?

by jwfacts 17 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  jwfacts

  During the time of the Israelites, non-Israelites with no connection to the nation could have a relationship with Jehovah; for example, Job.

  There also appears no lasting benefit to being an Israelite, as all people will receive a resurrection.

  The Watchtower uses the Israelites as evidence that Jehovah needs an earthly organization. However, the only real purpose of the Israelite nation that I can see was it led to Christ.

  Is the nation of Isreal really an indication Jehovah requires an earthly organization?
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  Burger Time

  As I have brought up to almost every JW I know, "you want to accept the good side of Israel but disregard what Jehovah did to Israel when they were bad". They only want to see one side of the coin, even JW's don't have an answer for that.
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  LtCmd.Lore

  Well you get the great priviledge of no longer being a slave...

  But then again, they openly said that they'd rather go BACK to Egypt, so apparently they weren't being treated to badly. Plus the Egyptians had very little to gain from beating them to death. Plus they took care of their slaves, and it was in fact illegal to abuse slaves in Egypt... Whereas god can poison you with Quail, bury you in the ground, burn you alive and get you eaten by animals. Plus you have to slave for Yahweh anyway.

  So freedom from Egypt is a lousy benefit.

  Your food is given to you every day!

  But then again, it's the same stinking food day after day, week after week, year after year. Besides, the Egyptians fed them too. and they gave them REAL food.

  So free food is a lousy benefit.

  You are given the perfect law of God!

  But then again, the code of Hammurabi is better and more inclusive, and it was around LONG before the Mosaic Law. And the Egyptians had a better legal systems than the Israelites EVER did. Plus the 'perfect' law of god, doesn't bother to comdemn slavery, or pedophilia. And gives super lenient laws on rape. It instead focuses mainly on how much you have to pay the priest.

  So the mosaic law is a lousy benefit.

  You get to be ruled by God!

  But then again, gods rule is pathetic FAILURE, and it only improves when he elects a human king. But since the King is chosen by god, instead of the people, the kings generally suck too.

  So the rulership is a lousy benefit.

  You know that justice will always be carried out!

  But then again, god did kill 70,000+ people simply because the leader that he chose, decided to take a census (possibly at the request of god.) And not even the Leader knew WHY. I'm not sure how it can be called justice if nobody knows why the punishment was carried out.

  So the justice is a lousy benefit.

  You have a chance of being an ancestor to Christ!

  Well that's lame anyway, worse yet, it's not even neccessarily true! Joseph was the one that came through the line of David, but he wasn't really the father. So change that to 'You have a chance of being the ancestor of a guy who's wife gets raped by god'

  So the ancestry is a lousy benefit..

  I'm all out of ideas!

  In conclusion, you are worse off than you were as a slave, the food sucks, the laws suck, the rulers suck, the justice is faulty, and you may or may not be related to somebody who was a fake relative of somebody important.

  Lore - W.W.S.D?
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  hillbilly

  no razor rash and a cleaner pecker.

  downside...couldnt eat the other "white meat"

  ~Hill
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  Gill

  The bizarre result of being an Israelite was that the only remnant of their history was some of their written works. Because these written works survived and because in them they claimed to be God's ONLY people, other people chose to believe this and to believe that their Messiah came and why, simply because it was written on old scrolls.

  The Israelite nation were self recording of their abuses against peoples in their surrounding areas and the abuses against themselves. As with superstitious peoples of the SE Asia area after the Tsunami, they blamed their problems on God 'punishing them' for being bad. They accredited any 'blessings' they might have had to God blessing them.

  But basically, while other peoples lived in cities with walls, and sewerage etc, they lived as superstitous backwards nomads who CLAIMED over and over again that everything they did that was BAD was ordered by God and everything that they did that was good was ordered by God! What supreme arrogance!

  And so, while the Babylonians had sewers, the Israelites had to did a hole and poop outside their camps. Far from being hygienic, this led to the spreading of dangerous anaerobic bacteria! Not a very clever God!

  There beliefs of being 'special' has led to their persecution throughout history, because basically not everyone likes arrogance and sadly these people suffered greatly.

  It still amazes me that even today, Israel is starving and destroying the Palestinians, but no one is able to stop them, perhaps because of an ancient superstition that these are God's only people on Earth. What if they are? What if they're not? Who wants to risk their afterlife?

  And yet, they continue to suffer and cause suffering themselves.

  Any benefit to being and Israelite in the past, the present or even the future? I can't think of any!
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  Homerovah the Almighty

  Yes numerous delis spread about town and free circumcisions for the guys , now thats what I call living
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  snowbird

  Let's see what The Message Bible has to say about it:

  Romans 3:27 -28 So where does that leave our proud Jewish insider claims and counter-claims? Canceled? Yes, canceled. What we've learned is this: God does not respond to what we do; we respond to what God does. We've finally figured it out. Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade. 29 -30 And where does that leave our proud Jewish claim of having a corner on God? Also canceled. God is the God of outsider non-Jews as well as insider Jews. How could it be otherwise since there is only one God? God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, both those who follow our religious system and those who have never heard of our religion. 31 But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don't we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it. no razor rash and a cleaner pecker. downside...couldnt eat the other "white meat" ~Hill LOL. Even the non-circumcised and pig tail eaters were in time brought into His fold. God is good and gracious. Sylvia
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  ozziepost

  G'day jwfacts!

  Ah yes, the "Jehovah has always had an organisation" card! We had that played to Mrs Ozzie and I all those years ago too. So this thread will clarify a bit more for others who've yet to see it played. Good stuff!

  A misconception that dubs believe (because the WT says so!) is that because the Israelites were a "chosen nation", they were somehow a 'cut above the rest'. True they were wayward at times but still they would "come back to Jehovah" and everything would be all right. Then God blessed them by keeping his promise about the promised Messiah. And so it goes (according to the WT).

  The truth is that the Israelites were a pretty ratbag lot. A read of the OT doesn't reveal a nation with great ideals (save the Mosaic Law) as individuals and the history of their kings is appalling. Yes, there were individuals who had right values and trusted God but they were very much a minority. In truth, Israel was never 100% acting like a chosen nation. Exodus perhaps? But then, not everyone left. Even those who followed Moses preferred doing what they had been accustomed to do and that was to worship Baal.

  Incidentally all this flies in the face of those who mistakenly champion the cause of the return of Israel in these modern times.

  So being an israelite in Bible times should not be viewed through WT lenses as if it were somehow better than living in modern secular states.

  So what was it all about? Grace. God's dealings with them demonstrated his grace toward the whole of humankind and this was revealed finally in the giving of His Son, the Messiah.

  If the Israelites had been deserving, what would have been the point? It was because they were undeserving! This lesson of grace helps us understand our own position as individuals. We do nothing to deserve it. We cannot earn it by what we do. Yet God gives it.

  Now this is foreign to WT thinking because in it (the WT) they teach that you must be deserving of salvation, you must earn it, you mustn't "sin", you must "get your hours in". For a Witness, you're only as good as your last (Field Service) Report!

  How different from what we understand from our reading of the Bible record of the Israelites!
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  jwfacts

  Very interesting answers. I agree that the God of the Old Testament brought more bad than good upon his people.

  I am wondering what the JW perspective would be, as they would want to paint it in a positive light.
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  Zico

  Why send Jesus to open the way for all mankind to connect to God, as opposed to members of just one Nation, and then close it again by only allowing members of one Organisation to connect to God?
  
  "I am wondering what the JW perspective would be, as they would want to paint it in a positive light."
  
  Guess: "The Organisation might not be perfect, but it's better than anything in the world. Israel might not have been perfect, but it was still the best nation in the world." ?