While reading Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion," he talked about Jephthah's sacrificial slaughter of his own daughter. I was utterly shocked. This couldn't be right. After all, "My Book of Bible Stories" taught me that he sent her away to Jehovah's service, like a nun or something. So I decided to dig deeper and find out what the Society has to say in the subject. I found this article:
w71 7/1 pp411-415
"It, therefore, does not seem reasonable to conclude that Jephthah intended to offer up literally whoever came out to meet him as a burnt offering. Such a course would go against God’s law about the sanctity of human life and would be the only instance in the whole Bible where a human was actually sacrificed by another person who had God’s approval. Rather, it seems reasonable to conclude that what Jephthah intended, and what he did, was that whoever came out to meet him was to be dedicated to God’s service and that he used the expression “burnt offering” merely as a figure of speech."
In a nutshell, Jephthah's burnt offering couldn't have been literal because it would have violated God's law. This is a whole lot of assumption here. If the Bible is indeed a fragmented book, written by many authors and copied over and over through the centuries, then this account is proof of such. Jehovah himself is blessing an act in the book of Judges that would have carried the death sentence in Numbers. This is classic "the scripture doesn't mean what it says" charlatan logic the WTS uses. They use one core default belief to interpret the Bible: The Bible is right, no matter what. Challenge this belief, and the subsequent interpretations fall along with it.
Jephthah's Sacrifice of his Daughter - real or figurative "burnt offering?"
by B_Deserter 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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B_Deserter
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metatron
You're correct to doubt this account. The entire theme of the book of Judges is that "there was no king
in Israel, so each did what was right in his own eyes". Hence, 'anything goes' back then.....
One scholar pointed out that the very terseness of the account suggests something the writer does not
want to elaborate on. The account says nothing about the tabernacle or service in it. The 'softer'
interpretation has no traditional or historical support behind it, either - and may have been dreamed up
by Protestants looking for something less harsh. Finally, the word translated as 'give commendation
to' actually means "to recall or recount". Thus, every year they recalled or recounted Jepthah's
daughter - and her sacrifice.
metatron
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Gopher
They use one core default belief to interpret the Bible: The Bible is right, no matter what. Challenge this belief, and the subsequent interpretations fall along with it.
This is an example where Bible apologists are forced into making the Bible say what they WISH it would say, like Jepthah maybe really didn't LITERALLY sacrifice his daughter over a flame, because that would be so unthinkable! The book says what is says, and it said he promised God a BURNT offering if he was victorious in battle.
People who take the Bible as an unerring, infallible , inspired document run into issues that they might wish weren't there.
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Narkissos
The text itself is perfectly clear.
An important parallel as to the role of human sacrifice (in the same form of "burnt offering") of a leader's child in the context of war is to be noted in 2 Kings 3:26f:
When the king of Moab saw that the battle was going against him, he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through, opposite the king of Edom; but they could not. Then he took his firstborn son who was to succeed him, and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall. And great wrath came upon Israel, so they withdrew from him and returned to their own land.
Here child sacrifice appears as an extraordinary appeal to the gods in case of absolute emergency, and what is remarkable in this account is that it is effective on behalf of Moab against Israel, restoring the balance of forces between Kamosh and Yahweh as it were, when the latter was overstepping his territorial boundaries (compare Jephthah's argument in Judges 11:24). The main difference is that Jephthah promises the ultimate sacrifice before the battle and effects it after the victory, and the narrative presents it as a proof of loyalty on his part and even more on his daughter's.
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Hellrider
Narkissos: WoW ! I would like to see how the jw`s justify/explain that one. After all, these "false gods" are not supposed to have existed... Maybe they would say that "Satan" helped the king of Moab, or something.
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mkr32208
I think your all missing the real point of the account. Jephthah's out fighting he makes this vow. "whoever comes out and meets me" then he comes home and the only people there are his wife and daughter... He's pissed that his daughter is first...
Now regardless if he killed her or just sent her off to be a nun, who was Jephthah HOPING to get rid of? hahahahahahaha...
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aniron
Isn't it funny that something debated about for years and years by many Bible scholars.
Someone always "suddenly" discovers as if it was never known before.
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TJ - iAmCleared2Land
This is an interesting thread. The basic answer, I think, is "we do not know" for sure what Jephthah did. The Scriptures don't say.
However, it's not just JW's that feel that he may have consecrated her to sacred service at the tabernacle.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/comm_read.pl?book=Jdg&chapter=11&verse=39&Comm=Comm%2Fdavid_guzik%2Fsg%2FJdg_11.html%230%26*David+Guzik%26&Select.x=16&Select.y=7
2. (30-31) Jephthah makes a rash vow, thinking it will help his cause before God.
And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord , and said, "If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering."
a. Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: Though well intentioned, this was a foolish vow. Such vows can be attempts to get God "on our side." It is far more important to be on God's side than to try and persuade Him to be on your side.
i. Even a Spirit-filled man can do foolish things. The Holy Spirit does not overwhelm and control us, He guides us - and that guidance can be resisted or ignored at smaller or greater points.
b. Whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me . . . I will offer it up as a burnt offering: Jephthah did not have a human sacrifice in mind. This is indicated by the ancient Hebrew grammar: "The masculine gender could be translated 'whatever comes out' or 'whoever comes out' and 'I will sacrifice it.' " (Wolf)
i. Commentator Adam Clarke agreed that according to the most accurate Hebrew scholars, the best translation is I will consecrate it to the Lord , or I will offer it for a burnt-offering. As he wrote, "If it be a thing fit for a burnt-offering, it shall be made one; if fit for the service of God, it shall be consecrated to him."
ii. Human sacrifice was strictly forbidden by the Mosaic Law in passages such as Leviticus 18:21 and Deuteronomy 12:31. It is almost certain that Jephthah was familiar with such passages because when he negotiatiated with the Ammonites, has demonstrated that he knew God's Word.
3. (32-33) God grants Israel victory over the Ammonites.
So Jephthah advanced toward the people of Ammon to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into his hands. And he defeated them from Aroer as far as Minnith; twenty cities; and to Abel Keramim, with a very great slaughter. Thus the people of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.
a. And the Lord delievered them into his hands: God won a great and important victory for Israel through Jephthah. He overcame bitterness and family rejection to meet a great need. Despite his difficulty past, God still wonderfully used him.
4. (34-35) A difficult vow to fulfill.
When Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, there was his daughter, coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing; and she was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he tore his clothes, and said, "Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low! You are among those who trouble me! For I have given my word to the Lord , and I cannot go back on it."
a. When he saw her, he tore his clothes: Jephthah made his foolish vow sincerely, fully intending to keep it. Yet he had not seriously considered the consequences of the vow. Therefore he was grieved when his daughter was first to greet him out of his house.
b. I have given my word to the Lord , and I cannot go back on it: Jephthah knew the importance of keeping our vows to God. He would keep an oath even when it was to his own hurt (Psalm 15:4)
i. Ecclesiastes 5:1-2 and 5:4-6 speak of the danger of making foolish vows. This passage makes it clear that it is better to not make vows at all than to make foolish vows. This does not mean that vows are bad - they can be good. It means we must take them seriously. Christians need to take seriously the sin of broken vows, and when we see them we must either repent and keep them or repent of your foolishness in ever making the vow, and seek His release from the vow.
5. (36-40) Jephthah fulfills his vow to God.
So she said to him, "My father, if you have given your word to the Lord , do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, because the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the people of Ammon." Then she said to her father, "Let this thing be done for me: let me alone for two months, that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my friends and I." So he said, "Go." And he sent her away for two months; and she went with her friends, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. And it was so at the end of two months that she returned to her father, and he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed. She knew no man. And it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
a. He carried out his vow with her which he had vowed: Some think that Jephthah did really offer his daughter as a burnt offering. If he did, this was clearly an example of misguided zeal for God, because God never asked him to make such a foolish vow or to fulfill it so foolishly.
i. Later in their history, Israel began to serve a terrible pagan god named Molech, who was "worshipped" with child sacrifice in the most terrible way imaginable. God never asked to be served in this terrible way, and therefore it can't be blamed on God.
b. She went with her friends, and bewailed her virginity . . . She knew no man: These words indicate that it is more likely that Jephthah set his daughter aside for the tabernacle service according to the principle of Leviticus 27:2-4, where persons set apart to God in a vow are not required to be sacrificed (as animals were) but were "given" to the tabernacle in monetary value.
i. We know that there were women who were set apart for the tabernacle service; they were called the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting (Exodus 38:8; 1 Samuel 2:22). It is likely that Jephthah's daughter became one of these women who served at the tabernacle.
ii. His daughter and friends rightly sorrow that she was given to the tabernacle service before she was ever married. Probably most the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle were older widows.
iii. By sending his unmarried, only daughter to the service of the tabernacle for the rest of her life, it shows how seriously both Jephthah and his daughter took his promise to God.
iv. This seems like the best explanation because Jephthah is listed as a hero of the faith (Hebrews 11:32). It is hard to think of him as doing something so contrary to God's ways as offering his daughter as a human sacrifice.
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LtCmd.Lore
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/131857/1.ashx
This topic is covered in that thread pretty well.
The basic answer, I think, is "we do not know" for sure what Jephthah did. The Scriptures don't say.
I think you'd make an excellent agnostic... You know, compromise is great, but not when one side is obviously correct and the other is not.
Is there ANYWHERE else in the Bible where: "Offered up as a burnt offering" means ANYTHING else?
Or where: "And he did just as he promised regarding her." could possibly mean: "He decided not to do it." ?
It says what he promised clearly. It said he did it. And she's never mentioned as being alive anywhere else in the Bible.
If THAT can be disregarded as symbolic, then any other scripture in the bible can be written off at any time... kind of makes the book useless.
Observe:
(Genesis 6:22) 22 And Noah proceeded to do according to all that God had commanded him. He did just so.
That can now mean: "He decided to ignore god entirely."
Lore
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Narkissos
Welcome TJ(IAC2L)
The basic answer, I think, is "we do not know" for sure what Jephthah did. The Scriptures don't say.
Yes they do, unless we drown them under a sufficient mass of commentary as your cut and paste provides.
In French we have an untranslatable pun: commentaire = comment taire, "commentary" = "how to silence" (the text).
b. Whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me . . . I will offer it up as a burnt offering: Jephthah did not have a human sacrifice in mind. This is indicated by the ancient Hebrew grammar: "The masculine gender could be translated 'whatever comes out' or 'whoever comes out' and 'I will sacrifice it.' " (Wolf)
i. Commentator Adam Clarke agreed that according to the most accurate Hebrew scholars, the best translation is I will consecrate it to the Lord , or I will offer it for a burnt-offering. As he wrote, "If it be a thing fit for a burnt-offering, it shall be made one; if fit for the service of God, it shall be consecrated to him."
LOL. What were the odds of chicken, sheep or oxen to come first out of the house (!) to welcome the conqueror?
ii. Human sacrifice was strictly forbidden by the Mosaic Law in passages such as Leviticus 18:21 and Deuteronomy 12:31. It is almost certain that Jephthah was familiar with such passages because when he negotiatiated with the Ammonites, has demonstrated that he knew God's Word.
This depends on the fundamentalistic assumption that the whole Torah was actually given by Moses, or at least predates the core of Jephthah's story -- which almost no modern scholar would accept. Speaking of Jephthah's negotiation, why not point out that his argument acknowledges the divinity of Kamosh, ascribing him the exact same privileges on Moab's land as Yhwh's on Israel's? (11:24, already quoted)? How does that square with the final monotheistic Torah as we know it?
Even Ezekiel in the 6th century BC gives us a pre-Torah version of the sacrifice of firstborns as actually prescribed by Yhwh (even though as a punishment in his opinion), 20:25f.
b. She went with her friends, and bewailed her virginity . . . She knew no man: These words indicate that it is more likely that Jephthah set his daughter aside for the tabernacle service according to the principle of Leviticus 27:2-4, where persons set apart to God in a vow are not required to be sacrificed (as animals were) but were "given" to the tabernacle in monetary value.
LOL again. Had the "principle" of Leviticus 27 been applied Jephthah would have paid his daughter's "monetary value" and there would have been no need for her to remain a virgin either. The reference to Leviticus is clearly anachronistic.
i. We know that there were women who were set apart for the tabernacle service; they were called the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting (Exodus 38:8; 1 Samuel 2:22). It is likely that Jephthah's daughter became one of these women who served at the tabernacle.
And btw there is also a strong suspicion that these "women," who do not correspond to any official prescription of the Torah, were none other than the "holy ones," qdshwt, also known as "temple prostitutes" who were part of the temple arrangement in Jerusalem as in many other sanctuaries before the "reform" of Josiah which banned them -- and before the Torah ruled them out (retroactively from Moses' time, of course).
ii. His daughter and friends rightly sorrow that she was given to the tabernacle service before she was ever married. Probably most the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle were older widows.
Have you read 1 Samuel 2:22? Oldies but hotties it seems...
iii. By sending his unmarried, only daughter to the service of the tabernacle for the rest of her life, it shows how seriously both Jephthah and his daughter took his promise to God.
iv. This seems like the best explanation because Jephthah is listed as a hero of the faith (Hebrews 11:32). It is hard to think of him as doing something so contrary to God's ways as offering his daughter as a human sacrifice.
Pure novel, special pleading and circular reasoning. When we've decided that "God"s Word" doesn't contradict itself we'll always manage to explain away any contradiction as merely "apparent". Even at the cost of the plain meaning of the text.
Commentaire: comment taire.