did you realize that Jeptha's daughter was actually burnt at an altar as a Burnt Offering? Check Judges 11 in some other translations for the clearer language. Jehovah was cool with that since jeptha was fulfilling his vow. Also God foretold that Josiah would turn the false priests into burnt offerings. Abraham was close to killing and burning Isaac up and finally as mentioned elsewhere, God sent his own son to earth and had him killed as a sacrifice to make himself happy. god is cool with human sacrifices, but don't you ever celebrate your kids birthday, he hates that.
Birthday celebrations and Jeptha's daughter
by Skinnedsheep 6 Replies latest jw friends
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adamah
Jephthah was identified as the son of a harlot, and portrayed as a foolish and vain character (sort of like Lot was, who was never intended to be viewed as a hero, by the author of Genesis). Jephthah led YHWH's forces to defeat the Ammonites (BTW, Lot was the Baby Daddy of their forefather, birthed by his incestous relationship with his daughters, BTW), and Jephthah asked for God's help to grant him military victory after making that hasty vow. He was victorious, and returned home.
Here's the Hebrew Encyclopedia (from 1906) with more details of how rabbis have viewed him:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8584-jephthah
It's an example of how Jehovah was seen as regularly entering covenants with humans without making a personal appearance, and as the article points out, the Jews interpreted the story as a warning NOT to make foolish and hasty vows to Jehovah such as Jephthah did, since the person is expected to honor their end of the deal after Jehovah holds up his end of the bargain. A deal is a deal!
The callous example of Jehovah's acceptance of her as a child sacrifice was only a side-effect of the story; the main point was NOT to back out of a promise made to God, or worse things could happen. Jephthah feared God's retaliation to him for not following through on his promise more than he loved his daughter and was worried about killing her (remember too that children/daughters were considered property, and easily-replaced).
The Bible, whether OT or NT, is consistent in placing God above ALL family members, whether you're looking at the account of Abraham's binding of Isaac, Jephthah's sacrificing of his daughter, or Jesus' words of coming to separate families (Luke 14:26 says whomever doesn't hate their own father and mother, wife, children, nephews, second-cousins on your sister's side, etc. EVEN HATES HIMSELF, hating his OWN LIFE, is not worthy to be Jesus' disciple)!
The Bible's family values at their very finest, and what high moral standards for us to follow!
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SAHS
“Skinnedsheep”: “Did you realize that Jephthah's daughter was actually burnt at an altar as a Burnt Offering? Check Judges 11 . . .”
You are actually incorrect in this statement.
The Scriptural passage at Judges 11:30, 31 (NWT) does state: “Then Jephthah made a vow to Jehovah and said: ‘If you without fail give the sons of Ammon 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 Ammon, must also become Jehovah’s, and I must offer that one up as a burnt offering.’ ” (It seems that all the other translations also use the term “burnt offering.”)
HOWEVER, this must be taken as symbolic, as can obviously be seen by the following marginal Scripture cross-references for the term “burnt offering” from the Watchtower Library:
(Deuteronomy 18:10) There should not be found in you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, anyone who employs divination, a practicer of magic or anyone who looks for omens or a sorcerer,
(1 Samuel 1:24) Accordingly just as soon as she had weaned him, she brought him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull and one e′phah of flour and a large jar of wine, and she proceeded to enter the house of Jehovah in Shi′loh. And the boy was with her.
(1 Samuel 1:28) And I, in my turn, have lent him to Jehovah. All the days that he does happen to be, he is one requested for Jehovah.” And he proceeded to bow down there to Jehovah.
(Psalm 66:13) I shall come into your house with whole burnt offerings; I shall pay to you my vows
(Jeremiah 7:31) And they have built the high places of To′pheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hin′nom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, a thing that I had not commanded and that had not come up into my heart.’
Also consider this: at Judges 11:37, Jephthah’s daughter herself says to her father, “Let this thing be done to me: Let me alone for two months, and let me go, and I will descend upon the mountains, and let me weep over my virginity, I and my girl companions.” At Judges 11:39, 40, it says, “And it came about at the end of two months that she made her return to her father, after which he carried out his vow that he had made toward her. As for her, she never had relations with a man. And it came to be a regulation in Israel: From year to year the daughters of Israel would go to give commendation to the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days in the year.”
So, the “burnt offering” of this young woman was actually symbolic of her religious service, as she would “become Jehovah’s” (vs. 31), and this would also involve maintaining her virginity – thus she would be denied, or sacrifice, her otherwise normal right to have relations with a man.
So too, if every year the daughters of Israel were going to give commendation to her, then she must not have been dead – she must have been alive in order to receive and appreciate such commendation!
So, therefore, in consideration of the above, I respectfully deduce that you are in error.
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Apognophos
That's one way to read the account, SAHS. Some scholars think that the story comes from an early time in Israelite history before they left behind the human sacrifices of the neighboring nations, or else it simply shows the danger of making such a rash vow. The vague language of the passage is considered suspicious; if she was serving in the temple, why not just say so? Weeping over her virginity doesn't tell us much because she would have been lamenting the lack of children no matter what was to happen to her. The phrase that the Watchtwer dubiously rendered "give commendation to" is more commonly translated as "lament" or "commemorate". Why would the daughters of the area go to the trouble of doing this every year if all that happened was that she became a sort of nun?
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Skinnedsheep
Why would jeptha shown a form of mourning (renting his garments) that was traditionally used for death rather than rejoicing that he could give jehovah the best( his daughter) ?
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scotoma
Shame on Jehovah for including such an ambiguous story that couldn't be accepted at face value but puts his servants in the position to be groveling apologists.
This is called special pleading. It is the failure to apply rules to a situation that is of special personal interest without giving sufficient to support the exception.
Some special pleaders would say Jehovah put this in the Bible to test out his subjects willingness to defend him.
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adamah
SAHS said-
The Scriptural passage at Judges 11:30, 31 (NWT) does state: “Then Jephthah made a vow to Jehovah and said: ‘If you without fail give the sons of Ammon 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 Ammon, must also become Jehovah’s, and I must offer that one up as a burnt offering.’ ” (It seems that all the other translations also use the term “burnt offering.”)
HOWEVER, this must be taken as symbolic, as can obviously be seen by the following marginal Scripture cross-references for the term “burnt offering” from the Watchtower Library:
Nope, not symbolic (and what does that even mean to suggest Jephthah made a 'symbolic VOW'? YHWH followed thru quite literally on the vow by handing Jephthah victory over the Ammonites, and it wasn't a 'symbolic victory', repaid with a 'symbolic vow'.... That's just asinine.)
BTW, personal vows weren't fulfilled involving others, as if the burnt offering of his daughter was made by a priest at the Temple: it was a personal vow, and was between God and whomever made the vow to do what he promised or be cursed by God with far worse. The story loses it's punch-line if it's not literal, since the set-up is obvious: you could see what was coming, when who says something silly and ambiguous like Jephthah's vow to offer in burnt sacrifice the first living being that emerges from the gate? Granted, the courtyard in which animals were kept was inside the compound, but it was an accident waiting to happen to make a vow like that, and the reader could see that one coming from a mile away....
Women and children were mere possessions, and hence it was the patriarch's right to do anything he wanted with them. The idea of her becoming a nun or being unable to have sex by taking a vow of celibacy is silly: Catholics and their nuns living in convents were still FAR OFF in the future, so that's an anachronistic interpretation.
You cited these scriptures:
(Jeremiah 7:31) And they have built the high places of To′pheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hin′nom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, a thing that I had not commanded and that had not come up into my heart.’
(Deuteronomy 18:10) There should not be found in you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, anyone who employs divination, a practicer of magic or anyone who looks for omens or a sorcerer
Those are references to sacrificing one's firstborn children to the foreign God, Molech, telling the Hebrews not to worship any other Gods. The problem was not so much child sacrifice, per se, but worshiping and offering sacrifices to a foreign God, which was explicitly prohibited in Exodus 22:20:
"Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the LORD must be destroyed."
You forgot to mention Leviticus 18:21, which mentions Molech as the foreign God of the Canaanites, who was Jehovah's chief competition for worship, and Jehovah is a jealous God:
"Do not permit any of your children to be offered as a sacrifice to Molech, for you must not bring shame on the name of your God. I am the LORD.
Adam