Hi all, especially the scholars amongst you ;)a
I was listening to Richard Dawkin's talk at Lynchburg VA and he was tlaking about how horrible the god of the old testament was- and he mentioned this:
That when Jeptha's daughter came out (and Jeptha had promised god he'd sacrifice the first thing out of his house) that he had to sacrifice her as a burnt offering. So the daughter went out into the wilderness to "bewail her virginity" and then came back and Jeptha burned her up.
The dubs always taught that the "sacrifice" was that Jeptha sent his daughter to the temple for the rest of her life as a sacrifice, not actually burned her up as a sacrifice...
What really happened?? Did the dubs twist YET another scripture around to make the bible seem more palatable???
Thanks for any info here,
--Kudra
Jeptha's Daughter- what actuallyt happened??
by Kudra 38 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Kudra
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Scully
It's kind of difficult to know exactly what happened 5000 years ago.
I am rather partial to the theory that Jephthah - being the righteous guy that he was - actually was hoping that his WIFE would come out to greet him after having been blessed with victory. Back then, under Mosaic Law, it was forbidden for a man to have relations with his wife AND the daughter of his wife at the same time. However, with the wife out of the picture.... he was free to do whatever he wanted with his daughter. In this case it would be totally ironic for his daughter to come out to greet him, since he would lose what he wanted, and still be stuck with his wife.
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found-my-way
Ok, Im not sure why they think she was burned alive, as this was not even mentioned:
here is the story from the New International Reader's Version:
34 Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah. And guess who came out to meet him. It was his daughter! She was dancing to the music of tambourines. She was his only child. He didn't have any other sons or daughters.
35 When Jephthah saw her, he was so upset that he tore his clothes. He cried out, "My daughter! You have filled me with trouble and sorrow. I've made a promise to the Lord. And I can't break it."
36 "My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the Lord. So do to me just what you promised to do. The Ammonites were your enemies. And the Lord has paid them back for what they did to you.
37 "But please do one thing for me," she continued. "Give me two months to wander around in the hills. Let me sob there with my friends. I want to do that because I'll never get married."
38 "You can go," he said. He let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills. They were filled with sadness because she would never get married.
39 After the two months were over, she returned to her father. He did to her just what he had promised to do. And she was a virgin.
So that became a practice in Israel. 40 Each year the young women of Israel go away for four days. They do it in honor of the daughter of Jephthah. He was from the land of Gilead.
If she was to be burned as a sacrifice, she wouldn't be be mourning for her virginity, she would be mourning for her shortened life.
Just my conclusion.
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asleif_dufansdottir
Yeah, well, ANY version of the Bible has a lot invested in trying to make it look like some OT character didn't *really* do a human sacrifice...and God didn't *really* accept it! Especially after how the OT badmouths other groups for human sacrifice to 'false' Gods.
My *personal* suspicion is that he really did kill her. But she wouldn't have been burnt alive. Hebrew sacrifices' (sheep, etc) throats were slit before they were burned.
And, any OT character would "bewail" their virginity because it was through their decendants that they lived on (there being some debate about whether the OT Hebrews believed in eternal life for individuals). If she died a virgin, with no children to live on after her, she was really, truly dead. Plus, wasn't she *his* only child (so *he'd* never have decendants either)? That would have been a double sacrifice for him...
I should ask some of my Jewish acquaintances how *they* interpret it. I'm taking an anthropology of religion class in the religious studies department...
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LtCmd.Lore
Ok, Im not sure why they think she was burned alive, as this was not even mentioned:
here is the story from the New International Reader's Version:
34 Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah. And guess who came out to meet him. It was his daughter! She was dancing to the music of tambourines. She was his only child. He didn't have any other sons or daughters.
35 When Jephthah saw her, he was so upset that he tore his clothes. He cried out, "My daughter! You have filled me with trouble and sorrow. I've made a promise to the Lord. And I can't break it."
36 "My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the Lord. So do to me just what you promised to do. The Ammonites were your enemies. And the Lord has paid them back for what they did to you.
37 "But please do one thing for me," she continued. "Give me two months to wander around in the hills. Let me sob there with my friends. I want to do that because I'll never get married."
38 "You can go," he said. He let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills. They were filled with sadness because she would never get married.
39 After the two months were over, she returned to her father. He did to her just what he had promised to do. And she was a virgin.
So that became a practice in Israel. 40 Each year the young women of Israel go away for four days. They do it in honor of the daughter of Jephthah. He was from the land of Gilead.
If she was to be burned as a sacrifice, she wouldn't be be mourning for her virginity, she would be mourning for her shortened life.
Just my conclusion.
Not even mentioned??? Not in the verses you quoted no, but then again you left out this very important verse? (Maybe you missed it, but methinks you deliberately chose to leave it out 'cause you didn't want to deal with it.)
[30-31: Then Jeph´thah made a vow to Jehovah and said: "If you without fail give the sons of Am´mon into my hand, it must also occur that the one coming out, who comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Am´mon, must also become Jehovah’s, and I must offer that one up as a burnt offering."]
That's pretty straightforward: "O did I say 'burnt offering'? silly me, I acctually meant that I would send her away to work for you..."
Heck, then why was Abraham so disturbed when god said: "Take, please, your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and make a trip to the land or Mo-ri'ah and there offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall designate to you." I guess that whole burnt offering = something else, was just a common mistake back then.
As far as the virginity thing... you know as well as I do that being barren was a HUGE disgrace at that time. That's why Hannah was all hysterical about not having a kid. (Interestingly, when SHE dedicated her child to god, she did not use the phrase 'burnt offering'.)
Besides, if she still had her whole life ahead of her, then why would she need two months to mourn first? She can be sad, and work at the same time. Two months ain't gonna change anything about your virginity. But if your life is about to end, then two months is worth the world.
From a god that condones rape, genocide, slavery, animal torture, parents stoning their children, and the eye-for-eye rule why is this account so surprising to you?
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found-my-way
Not even mentioned??? Not in the verses you quoted no, but then again you left out this very important verse? (Maybe you missed it, but methinks you deliberately chose to leave it out 'cause you didn't want to deal with it.)
[30-31: Then Jeph´thah made a vow to Jehovah and said: "If you without fail give the sons of Am´mon into my hand, it must also occur that the one coming out, who comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Am´mon, must also become Jehovah’s, and I must offer that one up as a burnt offering."]
That's pretty straightforward: "O did I say 'burnt offering'? silly me, I acctually meant that I would send her away to work for you..."
Heck, then why was Abraham so disturbed when god said: "Take, please, your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and make a trip to the land or Mo-ri'ah and there offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall designate to you." I guess that whole burnt offering = something else, was just a common mistake back then.
OOOPPPPS, my bad!
that was a BIG oversight on my part, not a deliberate omission....
I was basing my conclusion on the scriptures quoted...
I am totally open to either conclusion, that she was killed in a burnt sacrifice or that she was spared and had to live out her life in servitude.
I am not a JW apologist, and never will be...just to clarify...
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LtCmd.Lore
OOOPPPPS, my bad!
that was a BIG oversight on my part, not a deliberate omission....
I was basing my conclusion on the scriptures quoted...
I am totally open to either conclusion, that she was killed in a burnt sacrifice or that she was spared and had to live out her life in servitude.
I am not a JW apologist, and never will be...just to clarify...
Sorry. I shouldn't have accused you. I don't normally get so agressive about things.
It's just that people who deliberately twist scriptures to make god look good, REALLY irk me. (I think the JWs could convince people that Hitler was a hero, if they used the same tactics in discussing him as they do god.)
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Crumpet
I reckon she became what most virgins did when sent to the temple to service the priests...I'm thinking like the Oracle to the inbreds in the 300! Yuck!
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Narkissos
"My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the Lord. So do to me just what you promised to do.
He did to her just what he had promised to do.
What did he promise again?
There is strictly no excuse in the story to avoid its plain meaning, i.e. human sacrifice. Actually anything less than that would thwart the force and purpose of the narrative.
Human sacrifice, although rare in most periods, did exist in Israel just as in neighbouring countries. The closest parallel to Jephthah's case, in the context of a difficult war, is perhaps to be found in 2 Kings 3, which implies an Israelite belief in the efficiency of such sacrifice by the king of Moab, empowering Kamosh over Yhwh as it were in the midst of the battle :
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.
Jephthah's vow may be construed as doing exactly the same thing by anticipation.
Ezekiel 20:25f assumes that Yhwh went so far as requiring the sacrifice of all firstborns at some point:
Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live. I defiled them through their very gifts, in their offering up all their firstborn, in order that I might horrify them, so that they might know that I am Yhwh.
This belief is also in the background of the (later) Torah teaching that the Levites and/or a ransom price were to be substituted to the firstborn (Exodus 13:2,12ff; 22:29; 34:20; Numbers 3:12f,40ff; 8:16ff; 18:15ff).
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Kudra
Thank you so much for all you replies. I love having this resource!!!
I have just looked it up on the internet and have found several accounts of the story. Some say outright that she dies and others sort of imply it. I see that the WTS could weasel out of it... I still have the "Insight on the Scriptures" books and looked it up in there and they totally spin it.
They say that since Jehoohoo commanded the Israelites not "to let their children pass through the fire" yadda yadda, that Jephthah (yay I'm now spelling it right) would never have had human sacrifice in mind when he vowed to present the first one as a burnt offering... They even have a little bold heading stating that in the Insight book...
They say that it implies that AFTER he carried out his vow that she remained a virgin (I guess this would be the case for either death or being in the sanctuary). Also it says that her companions "visited" her every year for 4 days.
Looking it up in a few versions they all read "go to lament her", or, "it became a rule that they go sorrow for her". The Insight book notes that it does say "lament" in the KJV but in that footnote it says "Talk with". The dubs version says they go "and give commendation to the daughter of Jephthah" etc.
Commendation??? What is that? Where do they get THAT translation??
-K