The Mission of Israel

In a previous post I discussed the election of Israel to be God’s special people. The election of Israel to be God’s special possession took place when he called Abraham to leave his country to go to a land that eventually would belong to him and to his descendants.

The election of Israel as God’s people was reaffirmed with the establishment of a covenant between God and Israel on Mount Sinai. It was at that time that Israel received instructions about its mission as the people of God.

The mission of Israel in the world is expressed succinctly in Exodus 19:5-6: “Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

These words of God to Israel describe three different aspects of Israel’s mission. First, as the elect people of God, Israel has a special relationship with God because of their call and deliverance from Egypt. This relationship is expressed by the demands of the covenant. The covenant is a document that places the people of Israel under legal obligation to obey the demands which the covenant imposed upon them.

Second, as the special people of God, Israel was called to be a kingdom of priests. Third, as God’s special possession, Israel was called to be a paradigm to the other nations of the world.

The covenant between God and Israel was a suzerainty covenant, the type of covenant which required Israel to obey God’s demands. If Israel would obey God’s voice and keep his covenant, then Israel would become God’s special possession among all nations.

This requirement to obey the demands of the covenant came as a result of Israel’s decision to be God’s people and to carry out his mission in the world. The people responded to God’s demands with a commitment to obedience: “All that the LORD has spoken we will do" (Exodus 19:8). Israel’s decision to follow God was a response to his love and grace.

Thus, when the people of Israel agreed to obey God’s law, their decision was a response to what God had done by calling Abraham and by redeeming them from their slavery in Egypt. This commitment to obedience was the foundation of the election of Israel and the basis for their mission in the world.

Israel was called to be an obedient people. Israel’s mission and destiny as God’s people in the world required them to obey God’s laws. Israel was to be different from all the other nations because Israel was chosen by the Lord to receive the promises he had made to the patriarchs (Deuteronomy 7:6-9). God redeemed the people from their bondage in Egypt in order to bind Israel exclusively to himself so that the nation could carry out God’s work in the world.

In addition to its legal responsibility to obey the demands of the covenant, Israel was also called to be a kingdom of priests. The mission of Israel as a kingdom of priests was to teach and instruct the nations about the nature of the true God. The author of the book of Malachi describes the ministry of the priests as follows: “For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge of sacred things, and people should seek instruction from him because he is the messenger of the LORD” (Malachi 2:7 NET).

In its mission to teach the nations, Israel had several religious distinctives that served as the basis for its message. First, Israel’s religion was to be focused on the worship of one God and one God only: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). However this commandment was understood, the worship of the God of Israel excluded the worship of other gods.

Second, the religion of Israel was to be aniconic: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them” (Exodus 20:4-5).

Aniconism made Israel’s religion different from the other religions of the Ancient Near East since most of them made graphic representations of their many gods, either as human beings, animals, or objects of nature.

Third, Israel should remember that God had entered its history to deliver them from Egyptian slavery. The memory of their deliverance became the basis for the treatment of the members of the covenant community (Deuteronomy 16:12).

Finally, Israel had a special history to tell the nations. Never before in the history of other nations had a God chosen to reveal himself in the way God revealed himself to Israel on Mount Sinai. This great act of salvation was also part of the message Israel was to teach to the nations.

Israel’s understanding of God, their religious practices, and their humane laws were to serve as a paradigm to the nations of the world. Just as the priests instructed the nation of their religious, legal, and moral responsibility to God, so Israel was to teach the nations.

The function of the priest in Israel was to be a minister of God and to lead the people in the worship of God. Thus, if Israel was to be a kingdom of priests, then the people as a whole were to serve God and minister to those nations around them and to all nations of the world.

As a people selected to be a special possession of God, Israel had a legal responsibility to respond in obedience to the demands of the covenant, a spiritual requirement to be a kingdom of priests, and an ethical responsibility to be a holy nation.

Israel, as a people of God, was called to be a holy nation: “And the LORD said to Moses,
‘Say to all the congregation of the people of Israel, You shall be holy; for I the LORD your God am holy’” (Leviticus 19:1). As the people of God, Israel was called to be a paradigm to the rest of the world in respect to ethical living.

Israel’s call to holiness required ethical living. The laws Israel received at Sinai could be enforced by various penalties. However, the spiritual element of Israel’s call, to be a kingdom of priests, could only be enforced by ethical living. The holiness to which Israel was called required total submission to the will of God and a participation in the very nature of God. Israel was to be more than a mere representative of God to the nations. They were to reflect the deepest spiritual and ethical qualities of God himself. Thus, as the people of God, Israel’s mission was threefold: legal in responsibility, spiritual in practice, and holy in nature.

The election of Israel to be God’s people and its mission to the nations made Israel a unique nation with a unique destiny. It is within the context of Israel’s election and mission that the work of the prophets and the religious contribution of Israel to the world must be understood.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Divine Election, Israel, Kingdom of Priests, Holy Nation

Elusive Israel

Buy Elusive Israel at Amazon.com.




A few years ago, Charles Cosgrove, my colleague here at Northern Seminary, published a book that I believe still deserves to be read by a wider public today. His book, Elusive Israel: The Puzzle of Election in Romans, was published by Westminster John Knox in 1997. His book deals with the question of the election of Israel in the book of Romans.

At the time Elusive Israel was published, it received many positive reviews. For example, John Proctor from Westminster College at Cambridge said in the Expository Times that Cosgrove’s book gives “much food for thought about Paul, about Israel and the nations, and about our responsibilities to the Bible.”

Steven Bechtler from Philips University said that this book is “an ingenious and provocative interpretation [on the destiny of Israel and it is ] . . . highly recommended not only for scholars but for ministers.” Anthony J. Saldarini, from Boston College, writing in Bible Review said: “Cosgrove reads Paul carefully and faithfully” and “has responded to one of the traditional purposes of scripture, to discomfort the complacent and stimulate them to hear God's word anew.” Another reviewer said that Elusive Israel was “a remarkable book.”

Cosgrove’s book is a study of what he calls “the puzzle of election” in the book of Romans. The aim of his study is to deal with conflicting but reasonable interpretations of several key passages in the book of Romans dealing with the identity and destiny of Israel.

Cosgrove develops his argument within the four chapters of his book. In Chapter 1, Cosgrove explores the identity of Israel by constructing an imaginary dialogue among three Roman Christians who were very familiar with the content and details of the letter Paul had sent to the Roman Church.

The discussion among Chariton, a gentile Christian and Simeon and Reuben, two Jewish Christians focuses on the identity of Israel in Romans and the equally plausible but conflicting interpretations of the writings of Paul. The main issue is Paul’s affirmation of Israel’s election and his insistence on divine impartiality.

In Chapter 2, Cosgrove examines Paul’s use of co-deliberation to invite his audience, within the limits of plausible exegesis, to choose the true meaning of the text. As Cosgrove said: “Paul’s apparent intent is ambiguous enough in Romans to allow for more than one critically justifiable interpretation of what he says about the divine election of Israel . . . [Paul] places interpretive options before our will, and we choose” (p. 32). This is what Cosgrove calls “hermeneutical election.” According to Cosgrove, in Romans 11:11 ff., Paul encourages us to do just that: “to elect for or against the election or dis-election of carnal Israel” (p. 32).

Chapter 3 considers the result of the canonization of Romans: the transformation of the apocalyptic Paul into prophetic Paul. The result of this transformation is Paul’s declaration of the imminent salvation of “all Israel” and his teaching that the church exists already within the beginning of the end. The church also “stands within a larger canonical story that assumes the continuance of history beyond the age of the apostles and thus implies that the divine revelation to Paul is not to be fulfilled in the way he expected.”

In Chapter 4 Cosgrove exercises his hermeneutical election and comes to the conclusion that Paul affirms “that the Jewish people are the true and irrevocably elect Israel.” In order to come to this conclusion, Cosgrove is informed by moral judgment and his own ethical views, which in turn is informed by modern discussion on the destiny of Israel to justify this interpretation, which according to him, is most conducive to a humane use of Romans by the church in the late twentieth century.

To give two examples from the book, I take Romans 9:6: “For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.” Cosgrove says that this is “the most enigmatic statement about Israel in Romans” (p. 65). Here in this verse there are two different uses of the name Israel in Romans, what Cosgrove calls Israel A and Israel B.

Then Paul says in Romans 11:13-14: “ Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.” Here Paul speaks about saving some of them (some of his fellow Jews). In Romans 11:5 Paul speaks of a remnant: “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.”

But then, in Romans 11:25-26 Paul says: “Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved.” Since Paul says that “all Israel will be saved” then, how does the reader deal with Romans 9:22-26, a text that seems to teach that God has created some vessels destined for destruction. To this issue Cosgrove says: “I have opted to adjudicate the question of the identity of ‘all Israel’ in 11:26 in a way that requires the complementary exegetical decision that Romans 11 supplies a surprise sequel to Romans 9:22ff. The effect of this sequel is to overturn the impression that the majority of Israelites are . . . vessels of wrath” (p. 85).

Charles Cosgrove has written a challenging book. One does not have to agree with every conclusion of the book to know that Cosgrove has written a thought-provoking book. I am sure that this work will force every reader of the book to consider the implications of his study. Although Cosgrove’s book was written more than a decade ago, this book is still worth reading.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Charles Cosgrove, Election, Israel, Romans 11

Natural Gas Discovered in Israel

News report published in Israel Today:

Natural gas find could transform Israeli economy

Noble Energy Inc. announced on Sunday that one of its exploratory wells off the coast of Israel had discovered three enormous underwater gas reservoirs.

The reservoirs are about 50 miles off the coast of the northern Israel port city of Haifa, and could mark the largest natural gas find in history, according to Yitzhak Tshuva, whose Delek Group Ltd. is one of the owners of the well.

Tshuva told Army Radio that the find could transform the Israeli economy.

"We will no longer be dependent [on foreign sources] for our gas, and will even export," said Tshuva. "We are dealing with inconceivably huge quantities; Israel now has a solution for the future generations."

Israeli Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer described the discovery as "historic."

This is good news for Israel. Until now, Israel was dependent on foreign sources for their supply of natural gas. Now they can become independent of foreign sources and become suppliers of natural gas.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Israel, Natural Gas,

The Jews of China and the Lost Tribes of Israel

According to YnetNews, a group of Chinese Jews living in Kaifeng may be the descendants of Jews who came to China from Persian and Iraqi. Some scholars have identified them with a remnant of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Others, believe that their presence in China is a fulfillment of Isaiah 49:12.

The following are excerpts from the article published in YnetNews:

However, a thousand years ago, Kaifeng was the capital of the Chinese empire, the largest, richest and most advanced in the world at the time, with 600,000 residents that made it the most populated city on earth.

Ancient Kaifeng had a Jewish community – a small but thriving one, whose story is unique in the history of the Jewish people. For the 800 years of its existence, Kaifeng's Jews never suffered from persecution or discrimination. The Chinese authorities, as well as the general population, welcomed their Jewish neighbors, viewed them as citizens in every respect and allowed them to observe their religion with complete freedom.

It is not clear when exactly the first Jews came to China or when the Jewish community in Kaifeng was formed. In the prophecy of the redemption in the book of Isaiah it states: "See, they will come from afar – some from the north, some from the west, some from the region of Sinim ("Chinese")" (Isaiah, 49:12); but biblical scholars agree that the verse does not speak of China per se. Some claim that the Jews of Kaifeng are descendents of the Ten Lost Tribes. Others theorize that they came to China in the second century following the downfall of the Jews in the Bar Kokhva revolt (132-135CE).

DNA testing done over the past few years on the descendents of the Kaifeng Jews, proved them distant relatives of Armenian, Iranian and Iraqi Jews. Most of the researchers, as well as the Kaifeng descendents themselves, tend to suggest that the original Jews in China were merchants from Persia that came by way of the Silk Route (in today's southern Turkey) to the city of Xian in central China.

Historical references and archaeological findings have proven that the Persian Jews first arrive in China in the eighth century; and since the long, difficult journey made family life difficult, the solution was to establish a permanent base in China. The location of choice was Kaifeng – China's capital from 927BC to 1127AD.

There has been much speculation about the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Several claims have been made about the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. I have written several posts discussing other claims about the Ten Lost Tribes. If you are interested in knowing more about these claims, check here, here, here, here, and here. I do not give much credence to this claim of the Jews of China in the same way I have been skeptical about previous claims.


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: China, Israel, Jews, Lost Tribes

Archaeology and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Neil Asher Silberman wrote an article evaluating the “Israeli-Palestinian Cultural Heritage Agreement” that was established between Israeli and Palestinian archaeologists. The purpose of the agreement is to develop a way for both Israelis and Palestinians to resolve conflicts over archaeological sites and artifacts once Israel and the Palestinians agree on the issue of the two states.

Although the agreement is an attempt at protecting the fragile archaeological legacy buried below ancient ruins, Silberman believes that, unless there is an effort to change how Israelis and Palestinians view the role of archaeology, the agreement will fail.

Silberman wrote:

Indeed the very concept of "heritage" is almost necessarily exclusionary, delimiting "our" heritage from "theirs." Israelis tend to see stones, pots and ancient coins as materialized illustrations of a meaningful national narrative that runs from the beginnings of Jewish history to the rise of the State of Israel. For Palestinians, the narrative is one of dispossession, in which archaeological artifacts and sites are not seen as symbols but as alienated possessions, as real and movable property, whose ultimate significance lies in their physical return.

Neat archaeological partition will not work, and compromise arrangements will not further the cause of peace, so long as we refuse to recognize that it is not passionate archaeology that causes the present conflict, but, rather, that it is the other way around.

I believe Silberman is right. The idea of bestowing “exclusive possession of cultural property” has merits but it can create a potential for destruction of vital archaeological information. I just wonder what the Palestinians would do if they found an inscription that said “David slept here.” Would they share that inscription with the world?

I hope the agreement works and that it does not lead to further animosity between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Israel, Palestinians

The Not So Real Wonder of the World

A few days ago, I wrote a post on the selection of the new Seven Wonders of the World. Jim West did not like the selection made by an international committee and by popular vote, so he selected his own “The Real ‘Seven Wonders’ of the Modern World.”

I may not disagree with selections 7 through 3, but I take umbrage with selection number 2. To Jim, the second wonder of the modern world is a school of biblical studies. Here is his selection:

2- The Copenhagen / Sheffield ‘School’ of Biblical Studies. Finally, the door is unlocked to a proper understanding of the biblical text.

I do not want to be offensive here (nothing personal), but I strongly disagree with Jim on this point. What the Copenhagen / Sheffield ‘School’ of Biblical Studies has done is not to open the door “to a proper understanding of the biblical text” but rather develop an exegetical method that has transformed the Old Testament stories into a set of “foundation myths” that were created in order to justify the existence of post-exilic Judaism.

In my view, the Copenhagen / Sheffield ‘School’ of Biblical Studies is a post-modern form of second century Marcionism. To the Marcionites, the Old Testament was a scandal because they believed the God of the Old Testament was a cruel God. Since for them the God of the Old Testament was not good, then the Old Testament had to be set aside.

The Copenhagen / Sheffield ‘School’ of Biblical Studies emphasizes that the Jews who came from exile in Babylon created the myths of the patriarchs, the Exodus, and the conquest in order to justify their occupation of the land. Since these foundation myths were created by the oppressors to justify their cause, then these myths (the stories of the Old Testament) must be set aside as non-historical because they were used by the returnees to oppress the remainees, the poor people who were living in the land at the time the returnees came back from exile.

The same approach is being used today to deny Israel the right to live in the land. According to modern Marcionites, a group of Zionists returned to Palestine and dispossessed the people who already lived there. People who deny Israel’s right to the land claim that these same Zionists used archaeology to prove that their ancestors lived in the land for more than three thousand years. Today’s Marcionites claim that since there were no patriarchs, no Exodus, no conquest, and no tenth century, modern Israel’s claim to the land is not valid because the Israel that was delivered from the house of oppression never existed since that ideal Israel was based on a fictitious history created by a group of people who occupied the land after they came from their exile in Babylon.

If people all over the world had to vote for the Copenhagen / Sheffield ‘School’ of Biblical Studies as one of the Real Seven Wonders of the Modern World, the Copenhagen / Sheffield ‘School’ of Biblical Studies would receive only one vote, and it would not be mine.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Israel, Jews, Judaism, Marcion, Marcionites