When you stop & think about it ,why would Gods chosen people in the Old testament need an army ?

by smiddy 29 Replies latest jw friends

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  smiddy

  As the OP states why would Israel /Jewish nation need to have an army at all ? If they were the chosen people as the bible states under a theocracy , why would the men of Israel need an army .? to protect them ?

  Couldnt Jehovah do so ?

  The bible shows in many passages God coming to the aid of the Israelites , my question is why wasnt he their all the time ? to defend them ?

  The argument that he only defended them when they were faithful as a nation , doesnt hold any water. why ? because when they were faithful he didnt defend them , they still had to rely on their armies to do battle with their enemies with his so called blessing.

  So under the theocracy of Jehovahs Rule in the Old Testament when the Israelites were in his favour , the army of the jewish nation engaged in warfare with their enemies , which meant jews killing men women and children by piercing them with a sword at jehovahs command.

  Can you imagine yourself participating in such an action today ? Killing a man won or child ? obeying Jehovah ?

  Jehovah is God Almighty right ? he has shown that he can kill 185000 in one night , by his Angels ,so why would he need to have his chosen people , human beings involved in putting to death by the sword thousands of people over many centuries ?

  As an Almighty God Jehovah he didnt need to involve his chosen people the Israelites in any bloodshed at all , he could have done it like he has done many times before , the fact that he did involve his subjects in this bloodshed raises some serious questions ?

  What do you think tose questions could be ?
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  Crazyguy

  Your spot on, God says in the Ten Commandments do not commit murder the n it's ok to make an army and go murder a bunch of people that aren't you. And like you stated why would they need an army if gods got angels?
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  punkofnice

  When you think about it, the Bible is man made nonsense....the same as all the other so called 'holy books' in this world.

  It's time to deal with reality. There is no god or gods or spirits that guide. We are alone, we will die alone.
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  galaxie

  My god is bigger than your god...and here's my sword to prove it!! Same thinking exists to this day, although the 'sword' takes many forms.
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  Fisherman

  We are alone, we will die alone.

  No, PoN. If you could only show an iota of faith, something, anything, perhaps that would be a basis for him to give you the proof you need backwards and forwards. I would not say this to you if I did not know for a fact.
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  Fisherman

  Smid, great point about the army. But as for God ordering his chosen to exterminate their enemies and baby snakes (offsprings of vipers) I think you would change your mind if it happened to you being kicked out of your land or killed by all grown up baby snakes. For example Amalek. I don't think you have experienced being harassed or tortured or being pinned all of your life. You need to think about this a little bit.
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  punkofnice

  Fisherman - I did that all before. The problem I have is that faith is just deluding oneself.

  A promise is a comfort to a fool.

  I appreciate your intended kindness though. Have a grand day.
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  2+2=5

  Sometimes when the magic tricks weren't enough, Jehovah would require some physical support. And if the opponents had fancy chariots, Jehovah was screwed either way.
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  Fisherman

  pon, If you have read my posts, you could tell that I can differentiate fact from delusion. Proof is the promise for relief -if that is any comfort to you. A promise without proof is putting faith in something that does not exist -don't take my word for it. It only takes a little faith to get mountains of evidence. Remember my words, please.
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  David_Jay

  The Jewish approach to this matter leaves out the need for faith, belief, and delusion. Why? Because we don't see these texts as historical reports.

  They are liturgical narratives, texts designed specifically to be read aloud in formal public worship. They overlay a religious interpretation over our history in order to provide a moral lesson from reflecting on our past, but they are never understood as being either the true story or even the complete one.

  Case in point: ever join any of your Jewish friends for a Passover Seder? At the dinner we retell the Exodus story from a book called the Haggadah. You might have noticed that the details of the Exodus differ not in a few ways in the Haggadah compared to the Bible book of Exodus. Why Moses himself is never even mentioned!

  This is because our history and even our theology are separate from our liturgical texts, the Scriptures. While Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Hebrew Scriptures are the theological and historical basis for religion, Jews see things in a completely opposite way: our religion is the theological and historical basis for the Scriptures.

  Our theology, doctrine, and religious practices developed separately before, during, and even after the composition of many Bible texts. The Hebrew Scriptures are the "story" of what we believe, not the basis. What we believe was carried via the ancient practice of oral transmission, and this set of beliefs, doctrine and theology became the Mishnah. The Mishnah was later codified in the Talmud. The Bible contains the stories based on the religion in the Mishnah, not the other way around.

  Because of this Jehovah's Witnesses have done you a disservice by teaching you that the battles and other narratives in our Scriptures are literal reports and thus the basis for theology and doctrine. Because the intention of the narratives in Jewish Scripture are to give a setting for the lesson to be preached at the worship service, battles of the past are retold in ways that teach what happens when we obey God and what happens when we ignore God. As you have noticed, sometimes the separate stories contradict one another. This is because they are divided into liturgical portions, the divisions of which are never included into Christian translations, and you are left without realizing that what was meant to apply just to the previous portion and battle does not necessarily have anything to do with the following one.

  Lastly, most of the battles and genocide didn't happen at all. Our actual history as well as archeological research and DNA studies all agree that we gradually merged with the people of Canaan. We didn't conquer them. The battles and great slaughters are often symbolic of our desire to say we rooted out all that was heathen from our midst (though we really didn't). Sometimes, however, we were just as violent to some of our neighbors as discussed in the Bible and we probably did even worse a few times and likely left that out possibly as not to make us look bad, but for the most part you have been duped by the Watchtower again. These stories are not designed to be read separate from Jewish doctrinal sources.