Jephthah's daughter

Cicatrix

So the WTS taught us all that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter to Jehovah's service at the temple. Well, that's not what I found out today. I was reading a site on archeology, and they mentioned that Jephthah had offered up his daughter as a burnt offering, and that this was sometimes practiced by the Canaanites.The article said that some of the Israelites had initially settled peacefully amongst the Canannites about two hundred years before Joshua conquered Jericho, and that this is an example of how they adopted some of the Canaanite practices.

I checked two non-WTS versions of the scripture at Judges 11:30-38, and sure enough, both versions said "burnt offering."One version had a foot note that stated that it's not clear if Jephthah killed her or kept his vow by "consecrating her to perpetual virginity." Being as women then were only deemed worthy through childbearing, I could see how it would be a great sacrifice either way. But why not use the term, sacrifice, instead of burnt offering? That seems very specific to me. Also, in the account of Samuel, there is no mention of the word "burnt offering." In fact, his parents offered up a sacrifice when they took him to the Temple.

Does anyone else have any info about this?

Thanks

Narkissos

NRSV:

And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD, and said, "If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the LORD's, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering." (...)
Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, "Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I cannot take back my vow." She said to him, "My father, if you have opened your mouth to the LORD, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the LORD has given you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites." And she said to her father, "Let this thing be done for me: Grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, my companions and I." "Go," he said and sent her away for two months. So she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to the vow he had made. She had never slept with a man. So there arose an Israelite custom that for four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

In the narrative, the virginity issue works as an etiology for an old Israelite custom ("four days every year...") which is not part of the later Torah. It is secondary to the vow story which implies human sacrifice (ha`alitihu `ola, the priestly technical term for "burnt offering"). Notice that the original vow applies to "whoever comes out" -- be it human or animal, male or female, virgin or not. So it cannot mean "virginity vow". The narrative does not redefine the import of the original vow into another.

Edited to add: if it was not sacrifice, what did Jephtah do with her (lit. "to her") when she returned to him?

Also: the syntax of the following sentence in Hebrew corresponds exactly to the pluperfect of the NRSV: "She had never slept with a man". It does not refer to an ongoing virgin life.

Cicatrix

"Notice that the original vow applies to "whoever comes out" -- be it human or animal, male or female, virgin or not. So it cannot mean "virginity vow". The narrative does not redefine the import of the original vow into another."

Interesting. Thanks, Narkissos.

Do you have any more information on the burnt sacrifice vows, or Israelites making vows to God in general? This is a new concept for me I'd like to learn more about.

Also, what was the importance of the custom of lamenting Jephthah's daughter "four days of the year." Was this just a way of justifying an already existing older tradition?

Edited to add:
I noticed that you said it was an older tradition. Was this perhaps an attempt to syncretize a custom that could not be eradicated?

Narkissos

Do you have any more information on the burnt sacrifice vows, or Israelites making vows to God in general? This is a new concept for me I'd like to learn more about.

"Burnt sacrifices" (`ola) are mentioned together with "vows" (neder) in a number of places (e.g. Lv 22:18; Nb 15:3,8; 29:39; Dt 12:6,11; Ps 66:13). Of course in the Torah setting they don't apply to humans. Humans which happen to be the object of a "vow" are to be redeemed (that's what Leviticus 27 is about).

However, in Genesis 22:2 Isaac is also to be offered as a "burnt offering" (and this does not mean perpetual virginity...).

Another interesting parallel in the context of war is 2 Kings 3:26f, where a human sacrifice to Moab's tutelary god (Kamosh) results in overpowering Israel's god (Yhwh).

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.

From this we can understand the reason for Jephtah's vow in its original, polytheistic, context: it was potentially a powerful weapon for the battle.

Actually the narrative in Judges puts no blame on Jephtah, it rather commends him for fulfilling his vow...

*******

Also, what was the importance of the custom of lamenting Jephthah's daughter "four days of the year." Was this just a way of justifying an already existing older tradition?

Edited to add:
I noticed that you said it was an older tradition. Was this perhaps an attempt to syncretize a custom that could not be eradicated?

I guess so, although this custom is not attested anywhere else afaik.

Carmel

hello! My name is Abe. I understand you have a question about sacrificing your kids. I know all about it,

caveman

Country_Woman

Thanks, Jephthah's daughter is one of the stories that let me question the Watchtower. being so specific in the words, yet there is a harmless explanation.

avengers

hello! My name is Abe. I understand you have a question about sacrificing your kids. I know all about it,

You know all about it? I sacrificed my kids to the Watchtower. If there's anybody outthere with a gun they have permission to shoot me.

How can people become so blind as I was. How many lives have been offered to the Great Jahweh, the God of The Watchtower?

So if Jephta's daughter really did get crispy critters, she would then just be one of a long list of victims.
(my granddaughter included)
Wouldn't surprise me if they really did have a human bbq.

But let's say she had to stay virgin the rest of her life. It seems that she really didn't have a problem with it.
Notice that it says: "She had never slept with a man."Doesn't anywhere mention the ladies. They went into the mountains bewailing her virginity. She and her "companions".
How do you bewail your virginity? And even if she did stay a virgin it doesn't state anywhere that she never had sex.
Maybe she was lesbian and enjoying it. With all respect.

Thanks, Jephthah's daughter is one of the stories that let me question the Watchtower. being so specific in the words, yet there is a harmless explanation.

Absolutely. Their words get so twisted, yet being a sheep you accept it. No wonder all the medication. my 2 $ 0.01 Andy

Cicatrix

"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."

Wow. This is an interesting translation. The KJV says "And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land."

The Living Bible says "Then he took his oldest son, who was to have been the next king, and to the horror of the Israeli army, killed him and sacrificed him as a burnt offering upon the wall. So the army of Israel turned back in disgust to their own land."

If you peruse the different battle scenes in the Bible, it usually states Jehovah was with them and they prevailed, or Jehovah was not with them, and they lost. In that context,it does seem that they lost the battle because the wrath came from the other god. Jehovah is silent on the matter here. Unusual for him.The last one and the WTS version seem to be attempting to explain away the fact that the Israelites lost the battle and Jehovah was silent on the matter.

This loss of a contest with other gods happened in one of the contests between Jehovah's prophets and those of another god at one point, too, although I'm not sure which god it was.We often heard about the contest between the Baal worshippers and Jehovah's worshippers at meetings, but never this other account;)

Cicatrix

Btw, thanks again, Narkissos:)

metatron

The best interpretation on Jephthah was that the very terseness of the account reveals that the writer didn't want to go into detail

- which would have happened if she was actually put into tabernacle service. The account doesn't even mention the tabernacle.

I recall that the Hebrew word translated "give commendation to" is elsewhere rendered as "recounted". If his daughter was

recounted , from year to year, she was dead.

I have also heard that the 'softer' interpretation has no historical or traditional basis and dates from a much later period

when they wished for a different ending to the story.

metatron

Jephthah's daughter

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