Customer Reviews

Who Is Israel? And Why You Need to Know

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I purchased this book as part of a fire sale from Eddie Chumney. I didn't really expect much from this book, to be honest. Happily, I was wrong. There have been quite a few authors in the past that dealt with the twelve tribes of Israel. Most of them work on identifying what happened to the Ten Lost Tribes throughout history. However, Batya takes a different approach. She is more concerned with what are the Scriptural truths relevant to Israelite identity and how those truths directly impact the Believer. She does a really nice job of showing how the Abrahamic blessings tie in with the curses written in the Torah and what happened to the two kingdoms as well as what the prophets wrote. She also provides a clear look at Hosea and the usage of his prophecies concerning both houses of Israel by Peter and Paul. This book is a must-read by both "Gentile" Christians and Jews.

At long last we have an author who, understands the people of Israel, as Yahweh did when he gave the promise to the patriarchs. Only Wootten has correctly divided the word of the Messiah, showing clearly how since 721BCE, Israel has been divided in to 2 kingdoms, one becoming the Jewish people and the other the latter day nations. She has beautifully shown me as a reader, how only in Israel's Messiah do these two sticks finally find a loving common ground. Thanks to this book, I finally have understood just who the myraids of offspring are that were promised to those of whom it was said, would father many nations. This book is a must for every Christian and Jewish library.

This book by Batya Wootten was everything I hoped it would be. The truth about who Israel really is was confirmed to me by her thorough study of the sciptures concerning the regathering of the whole House of Israel. Many of the truths that she brings forward gives those of us you have joined with Jewish Believers better understanding as to why we have left the traditional Church to go back to first century Christianity. When I visited Israel in 1994, I knew in my spirit that my ancestors were from the Land. I tried in vain to really find Jewish blood in my family tree, yet I knew I belonged in the Olive Tree of Israel. Thank you Batya for confirming to me what the Father had already put in my heart - that I was a natural child as well as a spiritual one. I am know longer to be called a gentile, but an Israelite.

Either you're Israel, or you're not! God has one "called out assembly" from the giving of the Torah, to the giving of the reNewed Covenant. Batya Wootten does an outstanding job of showing the Father's heart by identifying Israel and clearly stating their role in God's end time plan. You'll never look at Scripture the same! The Bible becomes a new book.. understandable and personal. Read this book to finally learn who you are, and how you fit into God's end time plan of restoration.

J.Simpson, if you ever read this, email me [...]. I would love to chat with you.

I've had a similar experience as you, falling in love with two-house theology, but not loving some of the teachings. However, I want to propose another resolution for your two issues.

1.) Genealogy. I do believe that there are biological descendants of the house of Joseph today. And those biological descendants are (or will soon be) disciples of Jesus. That does not imply a racial identity at all, because Ephraim was scattered to every corner of the earth. So there are Ephraimites of every racial group (just as Jews are a racially diverse group). But as an act of His infinite knowledge and faithfulness, one by one God revealed Himself through Jesus to each and every biological descendant of the House of Joseph, until all lost Israelites were restored to faith in YHWH. It is important to note that everyone who is identified as a "Christian" is not necessarily connected to Jesus. Lost Israel are those individuals who truly know & believe in Jesus.

2.) Torah. No, we are not obliged to follow Torah. We're under a covenant of grace. But, we are fortunate to have the gift of the Holy Spirit. And I believe that the Holy Spirit is gradually moving us toward Torah-obedience. But that is a work of the Spirit, and not of ourselves. So we should be patient with each other, and understand that Torah-obedience is the goal, but a goal that can only be accomplished through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Anyone else who is interested in this is welcomed to email me:

[...]

The book was in good condition, delivery was fast. This was a great source for the book which is out of print.

As with any issue, there are those for and against. And, the more precious and valuable the issue, perhaps the worse the attack against it by the enemy. Batya's book and truths have been viciously attacked and much has been said against it...yet it stands because it stands upon Scripture.
This book was a result of crying out to the Father about Israel amidst many opinions levied upon her...none of which stood squarely upon Scripture. He answered her and the answers lined up with Scripture.

Despite the seemingly informed reviews here against her here, this is nowhere near British Israelism, as the very same reviewer admits, yet labels it so and lumps it with cults, based on "partial similarity"...the Messiah said to not judge according to outward appearance but to judge righteous judgement. It's not an issue of territories like the US and Europe: it goes wherever they were scattered, per Scripture, all over the earth, so there goes the British Israelism similarity. The author of that review is evidently very confused and has been so for some time, failing to find peace with the ideas presented. We pray for her, and say to everyone else that there is no real confusion, as the Father is not the author of that, or any, confusion, if one properly divides the Word.

To the other reviewer that said this was a serious misunderstanding, well...such fails to catch that Scripture says that not all Israel is Israel, missing the very basic premise and thus stating that only physical Israel (surely meaning those that know are Jews) is Israel.
Looking deeper into the details, and the many, many Scriptures about the division of Israel and their different captivities and routes and prophecies, is the only way to "digest" the whole issue properly. Partially digesting and or assembling this will not bring the full revelation...which ultimately is brought from the Father above.

So, I will just add my personal experience, which matches that of other reviewers: this book made clear to me and to my head and intellect what I already knew in my heart and soul and Spirit. I never want my brain to get ahead of, or rule over, my spiritual discernment...do you? The intellect will eventually see the discernment of His Spirit...if we allow it to catch up.

THANK YOU BATYA for seeking the Father's answers and patiently and diligently bringing those answers to the rest of us...keep it up until the end! Well done, thou good and faithful servant. As you said yourself long ago: "Father, we BELIEVE that this is true!" All of our being, brain and Spirit, witnesses to it. :-)

Crucial book to every Believer...absolutely recommended!

The book arrived VERY quickly. I am pleased with service and the condition of my book.

Hello, I wanted to say that I read this book after I read The Signs, by Canyon Adams. I have to tell you all that Canyon Adams did a much better job at detailing the identity of Israel and helping the reader understand how it has become the United States and Europe. If you have money to burn, buy this book. If you have money enough for only one book on this topic, buy that book by Canyon Adams because it says more and will actually help you see the whole picture onca and for all.

I remember that day almost two years ago when I stumbled into the two-house messianic movement, eventually reading this book, the seminal text.

I was no naive, theologically and biblically lightweighted ninkapoop looking for a cult to belong to! I have been a Reformed, Calvinist christian, with a heart for Israel and the Jews, for well over a decade. When I read this book for the first time, it bulldozered me. I traced the book's argument down through all the narratives of the Old Testament, connected them to apostolic sayings in the New, and afterwards I could not deny that there was SOME link in the pages of Scripture between christian gentiles and the long lost house of Joseph.

So, I began conversing with the author, mostly via a forum she had set up, and for almost half a year I was sold out to this theology.

However, here is where the CURSE came in. Part and parcel of the package are two elements that began to drive a wedge, first between Messiah and me, and then between myself and fellow christians....

1.) That christian gentiles are linked to the house of Joseph because they are geneologically descended from the 10 lost tribes.

2.) That, therefore, gentile christians have as much obligation to observe the Torah of Moses as do the Jews. No pork, no work on Saturday and no celebrating those nasty holidays of Christmas and Easter.

After half a year trying to combine these two troublesome doctrines with my otherwise evangelical theology, I gave up in a rather painful episode...then spent months trying to recover and sift through the destruction and find out where I went wrong, and more importantly, whether there was some morsel or two of this theology that I had come to love could be salvaged.

There were long periods of time where I just completely ignored this issue, and turned my focus to other areas of theological study.

In time, I found some weak spots regarding the differences between the Old Covenant Law (Torah of Moses) and the New Covenant Law (Torah of Messiah) that had come into my thinking from the Reformed theology I had absorbed. I found that Reformed Theology, while certainly stating that the ceremonial and ritual observances of the Mosaic Law are passe, still leave us with an inherant tendancy toward the Galatians error by not teaching a wide enough divide between the Covenants and the two bodies of Law contained in those covenants. As an example, the Reformed teach that the 10 Commandments are still in effect as Law for New Covenant believers. That sounds reasonable enough, however, one of those 10 commandments is a ceremonial one, ie, the Shabbat! They will try to tone down this problem by teaching that 7th Day Sabbath is now Sunday Sabbath, or, the Lord's Day where there is not necessarily the same restrictions as the old (you won't go to hell for mowing the grass) but definitely certain spirtual legislations (certainly one must dedicate the day to the Lord in spiritual pursuits and rest).

Many may not see this as a big deal. But little errors end up having big consequences further down the road! It was this little error that allowed me to reason "Heck, the 10 commandments are part of the Mosaic Law, and I have to follow those, so what's the problem with not eating bologna and trimming the excess flesh away from my son's weenie?

Big problems! As I sound found out, through my sad experiences in trying to relate to two-house believers, this type of thinking causes the old Wall of division to come up, no longer between Jew and gentile (since all quarters are now infatuated with Moses) but between Torah observant gentiles and just regular evangelical gentiles who see the galatian error in all these. Believe me, this divide gets pretty nasty. Spend some time on the various forum archives to see this. Batya's forum used to play host to many many heated debates between believers, usually involving me :-)

With regards to the other issue I mention, the claim that gentiles are literal geneological descendents of the tribes, this, along with the galatians error mentioned above, was one of the tenants promoted in this book that I had to part with.

Batya goes on and on about the deficiencies of the traditional christian understanding of how gentiles are "the seed of Abraham," claiming that Paul could not have meant this any other way except literally. If you absorb all of her other arguments, you will be swept into this belief.

This idea is, of course, classic British Israelism. I would recommend every one studying Batya's book to look into British Israelism. Batya herself disputes that she teaches anything from British Israelism, and, to her credit, she does diverge from BI on certain significant points. BUT, there is the one kernal of teaching that IS pure British Israelism: the claim that christian gentiles are descended from the lost tribes.

Then, in your studies, I hope you will notice the different groups that have absorbed this idea: mormonism, Worldwide Church of God (Armstrongism), the racist Identity cults. Ask yourself if you want to share in a core doctrine that seems to be found exclusively among these errant groups.

So, in time, I shed those two doctrines, ie, the galatian error and the geneological descent issue. I asked myself if there was anything left to hang on to. I found that I kept being drawn, time and again, to the issue as in my bible study time I kept finding that linkage between gentile christians and the house of Joseph.

I launched my own forum and began to press forward in an intense investigation of just what this link is and could it be formulated in such a way that does justice to the Bible, to traditional evangelical theology and does not involve the two errors I describe. After a year of study, and discussing these issues with likeminded believers (among them some other dropouts from Batya's version of the two houses) on my forum, I have come to a hopeful resolution.

I can say that there IS a biblical two-house teaching, fully christian, minus the unorthodox elements contained in Batya's version. Batya's version has been rejected over the years by not only mainstream christianity but also by mainstream Messianic Judaism. Through discussions with some of the leaders within the latter movement, I realized that Batya's teaching could never be accepted by Messianic Judaism, primarily because of the geneological claims she was making: this tenant, above all else, is a stench in the nostrils of our Jewish bretheren, and they smell racism and antisemitism, pure and simple (though that is NOT Batya's intent, to be fair to her.

To see the two houses within a solid evangelical framework, one that will not offend Jewish believers or the Church, we must reject the geneological basis and rather ground it in Christ and Christ alone, which is what Paul does. Paul taught that gentiles are Abraham's seed, not because of their own geneology but because of Christ's geneology. He saw that the believer is in such close union with Him, that the believer is reckoned to be seed, every bit as much as the Jew, but on the foundation of Christ's geneology alone. Interestingly, in Paul's writings, we find that while the Jew has a geneological claim on seed status that gentiles don't, this no longer suffices in terms of being in the line of election. The line of election, which prior to Messiah was Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has now been explicitly drawn to terminate in Messiah as well, so that if an individual is descended from the first three, but not the last, he will not inherit as Abraham's seed ANYTHING! In Galatians, we see that such a person is now in the same standing as Ishmael was of old, ie, on a path off of the line of chosenness despite physical descent.

So, it is all about Christ. In union with Him, gentiles, like Jewish believers, are truly Abraham's seed. Once we have this settled, then we can begin to see the link between, not just Abraham and gentiles, but also Ephraim (Joseph) and gentiles. In Gen. 48, we see that Ephraim was destined to become "the fullness of the gentiles." This is the culmination of what was promised to Abraham and the patriarchs to follow him, ie, that the gentiles would be blessed in him. Now we see that this will somehow involve Ephraim.

To be brief, what Batya did not understand, nor did I at the time, that while Jesus of Nazareth was of the tribe of Judah, He also was literally Ephraim's seed. How so? There is a little detail on the history of Israel we might miss the significance of. Ahab, an Ephraimite king, had a daughter Athaliah that was married into the Jewish kingly family, from which Jesus descends. So, by "the seed of the woman (Athaliah)" Jesus is literally the "seed" of Ephraim, who, through His incorporating men and women from every tribe and tongue and nations, becomes "the fullness of the gentiles!"

So, gentile believers, while not geneological descendents, are nonetheless, the fulfillment of promises made to the house of Joseph, and are the Ephraim of God. This solves the problem of why the Northern tribes never returned as did Judah. God hacked off the northern Kingdom, scattered them to the gentiles, so that God could then, later on, replace them with gentiles, irregardless of geneological descent. A gentile is a gentile is a gentile. Batya's teaching leads us into "discussions of geneology" which are destructive and unprofitable. Worse, they are unfounded assertions with no reputable history or Scripture to support them.

But the modest, yet no less thrilling claim that gentiles are Ephraim via incorporation into the Messiah ben Jospeh, who is literally the seed of Ephraim as well as of the tribe of Judah, is soundly evangelical and satisfies our need to know just what the link between joseph and gentiles is all about, without leading us into all sorts of destructive groups.