Author(s): Coogan Michael

Christianity | Judaism

The Bible describes many people as specially chosen by God. But does God choose at all? Michael Coogan takes the reader through biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts in which individuals and groups identify themselves as divinely chosen. He then examines how those texts were later used by others, including Puritan colonizers of New England and their successors, imbued with self-justifying doctrines of manifest destiny, and fundamentalist Zionists, claiming that the Jews' status as God's chosen people condoned their taking Arab land. God's Favorites explores how throughout history people have uncritically appropriated to themselves biblical language of chosenness to reinforce their sense of superiority, and the tragic consequences of such claims. Book jacket.