Why did God make only a small group of people his "chosen" people?

Question

The Jews are God's chosen people, because around 4000 bc, there was a nomadic tribe of people called the "Hebrews" who were pretty insignificant, until Moses, their leader claimed to have visions from God. So moses, seeing that there was nothing to unify his people, and fearing that his people would just scatter and dissapear into other cultures, needed to do something fast.

So Moses invented a God and then, becasue he was very smart (like most Jews are) wrote out a story of creation and laws that God demanded, so that He could control his people, make them greater (be fruitful and multiply) and give them something to live for that was an ideal.

The ideal was "the promised land" or "THat they were 'God's chosen people'"or the idea of "eternal life."

Well, obviously this worked swimingly up until the New Testament, when the romans got involved and saw the value of a political religion. So they invented, with the help of Paul - Christianity. It was close too - Christianity was fading

fast and needed a revival or it would have just faded away... But Paul, like Moses, claimed a miraculous vision and all of a sudden everybody was on board again! And again, like Moses, Paul writes down what he claims God told him.....

It's the same old story - Just like the Mormons and Joseph Smith
Just like Bob Jones and the Suicide Cult
Just like Mohammad and Islam

The Jews are no different, just smarter gene pool - you know, Jews marrying Jews, etc....

OT or Tanak, is a collection of selected writings composed and edited by members of the Hebrew-Jewish community between 12bce and Christian era.

It is prophetic oracles, teachings of popular wise men, instructions of priests, ancient records of royal courts.

Some material is historical, A LOT OF IT IS LEGENDARY (oral traditions), legalistic, some didactic.

I agree that Moses did not make up the stories.. I think they are records of Jewish oral traditions based on LEGEND (No different than the legend of Paul Bunyon!)

There was no Egyptian record of the miracles of God and there was barely any mention of the Hebrews AT ALL in Egyptian history!

The Stories of Moses are legend. There probably was a "Moses" but his face dod not shine, there was no pillar of fire and there is no Jehovah.;

Answer 1

to many people misunderstand what the meaning of "chosen" is.

As for Moses coming up with G-d, again this is a misunderstanding. Judaism rests on national revelation, not personal revelation.

this should help with the chosen part
http://www.aish.com/literacy/concepts/The_Chosen_People.asp

Answer 2

God made a covenant with Abraham, long before Moses. Speaking of Moses, he was not that bright to think up God nor to do the miracles that were performed at the time. God was pleased with the faith of Abraham and thus God made a covenant with him, He promised to make Abraham the father of many. If you read the Book of Numbers, you will see, that they did not carry out the command,"be fruitful and multiply", there were less of them at the end of Numbers than at the beginning. They were a stiff-necked and complaining bunch. Moses would have to be daffy to want to stay with them, without God to lead. Paul is not the only author in the NT, so is Dr. Luke, a gentile. I guess Christianity didn't fade, there are millions of us. Tell me, would you want to create a false religion and by doing so suffer death yourself for starting this false religion. Paul died a gruesome death and so did Peter for what the sake of a false religion? I hardly think so.

Answer 3

Your question isn't really about why the Jews are chosen, its more of an intro to the bashing of God.

So, if Moses invented this story, explain how it was that his physical appearance changed from being in the presence of God? Explain how, not just Moses, but all those that were part of the Exodus, were able to see the cloud that followed them when they walked and stopped when they stopped. Explain how this story is also in the records of Pharaohs, who would not try to help Moses by endorsing such a story.

Those are just a few questions you can start with.

You have failed to even make a good arguement.

Answer 4

the problem with the idea of moses writing a book and using it to control people is that, unlike in other religions, moses did not ask us to just trust him that it was the word of G-d. he didn't say "believe ME and follow this law. i swear i really did get this from G-d." he said, "you saw G-d do wonders for you. you saw him do it. you saw G-d give this torah to us with your own eyes. therefore follow it - and tell your children about it." judaism is not a "personal revelation" religion. it is a "national revelation" religion, in which the revelation was given not to one individual, or one small group of individuals, but according to the biblical account to over one million people. we were never asked to believe in moses's word. we were asked to believe in our own eyes.

people always say the the bible is either some sort of conspiracy theory because we are so smart, and that moses somehow duped us all. what a contradiction. there is always the classic rebuttal:

"(a) According to this theory, the Jews are by far the most ingenious people ever. Out of all the peoples of the ancient world, this nation of shepherds and fig-growers came up with the classic work of all time. The work that changed all of history, brought us the concepts of creation ex-nihilo, history, purpose, monotheism, providence, human rights, gave rise to both Christianity and Islam and triggered the Reformation and modernization of western civilization when those gentiles started actually reading it. A supremacy dogma if I ever heard one!

(b) According to this theory, the Jews are by far the stupidest and most gullible people in the world. They fell for a story that restricts their diet, their domination over their slaves, their weekly work habits and their sex-life beyond what any other nation would tolerate. They bought into a lose-lose situation for everybody all 'round: The King's power is restricted, the priestly class cannot own land, and the commoners can't sell it."

Answer 5

Moses ( peace be upon him ) never invented a God as you claim. No one is ' chosen people ' I do not doubt your last statement though about Christianity being invented. God does not play favorites, he among other things wants us to worship him the correct way, not to worship the messengers, be pious, steadfast in belief and prayer, kind to one another, never associating partners with God. There are many other things but I've only touched on a few. Moses ( peace be upon him ) never ever invented a God, Moses ( peace be upon him ) is a messenger/slave/prophet of God.

Answer 6

I would like to know how you came up with this. This isn't anything like the Bible teaches. Moses was hiding out in Midian because he murdered an egyptian for beating one of his brethren. He was safe and secure in his new life when YHWH contacted him to set His people free. The Jewish community is the only ancient civilization in existance today. They maintained their original customs, language, etc. They were scattered, persecuted by the millions in every era of life, they returned to the original land that was given to them by God. They are still under persecution, the whole world hates them and the U.S.A. I will tell you why. Because our country was founded upon the same beliefs as their God. As for Rome making up Christianity, they were the biggest opponent of Christians. They persecuted Christians by the thousands. Why? Because the Christian God goes against the grain of worldly beliefs. We are given certain rights from God, like private property, the world governments realize that owning property is essential for personal freedom, and look, they are slowly taking that right away from us!! I would recommend that you look at all of the evidence before coming to any conclusion!!

Answer 7

Obviously, you have never read the Scriptures. The choosing of the Israelites began with Abraham. Read Genesis, starting with chapt. 12. He was given the promise of land, seed and blessing. The promise went through his son, Isaac, then to Jacob, who was the father of the sons who became the twelve tribes of Israel. Since you do not even have a cursory understanding of the promise God gave to Abraham, there is no point commenting on the rest of your "question".

Answer 8

This was way before Moses. God promised Abraham that he would make his line great, and also that the messiah would actually be from his line. God made it so that Jesus would come from a long line of Kings. God cannot lie, therefore he made his will be done.

Answer 9

Abraham received the promise which made Israel the "chosen people," but PART of the promise was, "ALL THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH WOULD BE BLESSED."

The status NO LONGER EXISTS since the promise WAS FULFILLED in Jesus.

As for your take on the story, see if you can sell it to Oscar Mayer... it is a pretty good bit of B O L O G N A!

Answer 10

i sometimes wonder if people misunderstand the word chosen on purpose, or if it just gets more "play" cause the christians stole our torah.

here's the thing - jews are chosen - to recieve the torah, to take responsibility for their actions, and to keep the traditions of our people alive. our book was not written for everyone, and only meant to be read by jews and outline god's contract with us. not saying god was not for everyone, just saying that other groups would be chosen to receive other books from the same god or gods of their own. judaism was never meant to be all things to all people like christianity claims to be. this one religion/spiritual path for every person is not a jewish idea, so of course it sounds like a stupid thing to say when it's included in a book that claims they "own" the only true god and in addition claims the one true way to understand this god. the chosen thing is not about thinking we are the only ones who are right or special, it's about being proud that we have a special unique relationship with god, just like every other spiritual group. every religious group has it's own "bible", and according to jewish belief, that is their "torah", and it's just as valid and important as ours. there are similar ideas in every religious book except the christian bible. that is why, unlike christians, jews and other religious groups welcome converts but do not push others to believe as we do - because we know that "all righteous people will have a place in the kingdom of heaven" (babylonian talmud).

Answer 11

I once had a History Professor in school that stated: "If a cat could write about history, that history would be about cats". With this in mind, Jewish people were smarter about writing down their history and religion resulting in what we have today.