I guess the lamentation that was felt was for the inability to have children, which was a blessing in days of old.
Child Sacrifice and Exodus 22:29
by joey jojo 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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liam
truthlover123
Judges 11:38-40 tells of the rest of her life as she went back to her father and never had intimacy with a man. She was not killed as you say.
The bible translations of these account are all written in English. Thus they have to follow the rules of Grammar. In this case we follow the rule of Subject-verb agreement. Which means that the subject in the account must match the verb describing its action.
The Subject is Jephthah. The action is Jephthah Doing what he vowed, which was Quote;
“whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I come back in peace from the Ammonites, I will surely offer it up to the Lord as a burnt offering.”
There is no ifs or buts, it was very plain and simple. “ I will surely offer it up to the Lord as a burnt offering.”
There is NOTHING written about remaining a virgin, nothing written about not having intimacy, or all the other made up excuses that comes from apologists.
Hundreds of different translations say the same thing, HE (Jephthah DID SOMETHING TO HER.)
Jephthah KILLED her. Which is why She didn’t have intimacy with anyone.
Judges 11: In different Translations.
GNT After two months she came back to her father. HE DID WHAT HE HAD PROMISED to the Lord, AND SHE DIED STILL A VIRGIN.
NCB she returned to her father. HE DID WHAT HE HAD PROMISED IN HIS VOW TO DO TO HER.
KJV And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, WHO DID WITH HER her according to his vow
ICB After two months she returned to her father. Jephthah DID TO HER what he promised to the Lord.
GW At the end of those two months she came back to her father. HE DID TO HER what he had vowed
HCS At the end of two months, she returned to her father, and HE KEPT THE VOW HE HAD MADE ABOUT HER.
That’s why the All the women in Israel “Mourned Her every Year”
MOURN; Definition; To show grief for a death by conventional signs, as by wearing black clothes.
It’s ridiculous to believe that ALL the Women of Israel made a special holiday to mourn a girl who never had intimacy. There were probably hundreds of girls at that time who never had intimacy. There is always virgins in every generation, both men and women. But a girl who never had intimacy could still experience Life and enjoy the many things life offers.
But a Father who sacrifices his innocent, humble daughter, robs her not only of children, but the more precious gift of all……….LIFE.
What Jephthah did is the cruelest, sickest, malicious, act of all time. And any God who even conjures up such a thing, is malevolent to the max.
But people mourn when humans die because they recognize that death is the end-all event that stops life forever.
Heck, they even made a statue of George Floyd and mourned him in the USA when he died in police custody. And he was not innocent.
But, in my life time or of what I've read of history, I have never heard of mourning every year for a girl who died a virgin. And never heard a yearly holiday was made to mourn some girl who never had intimacy.
These are the stories that are waking up the new generations. We've finally entered the era where information will eventually destroy the idea that the bible is the inspired word of God.
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KerryKing
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/jephthahs-daughter-midrash-and-aggadah
This is an interesting read about Jephthah. The writer of Judges doesn't say how God received the sacrifice, but the explanation above seems sensible.
Jephthah doesn't come across as someone who actually knew the God of Israel, he was an outsider, the High Priest should have annulled the vow as unlawful under the Mosaic Law, but he didn't.
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peacefulpete
Yes the search is poor. This topic has been discussed in depth. Being short of time, I'll just say the textual and archeological evidence points to human sacrifice being a part of Yahweh worship and not an aberration done by apostates. The OT texts as we have them today often betray a change in this regard. Some stories such as Abraham sacrificing his son and Jeptha doing the same had some clumsy efforts to modify the conclusions. Also, one of the origin stories for the Levites was as an alternative to offering up firstborn after the exodus. The idea of 'redeeming' a child with money is another example of history revisionism. Ezekiel 20 seems to offer another approach to the past; it was all a test or a drama to prove God's moral superiority.
BTW from an earlier comment I made:
"Something interesting is that in 7 of the 8 "Molech" mentions, the definite article precedes Molech, IOW, it likely refers to a particular sacrifice method not a god. The one instance where there is no definite article is 1Kings 11:7 and there the LXX has Milcom, suggesting the Masoretic is a scribal error. Many etymologies have been proposed but a new and persuasive one is simply a ProtoSemitic word for 'sacrifice'. In light of this "the Moloch" references were likely a child sacrifice to Yahweh, which later scribes deny was officially prescribed."
In the end the stories were collected with respect but harmonized somewhat to reflect 5th century BCE ideals.
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resolute Bandicoot
Glad I'm mentally free from all of this messed up ideology.
RB
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joey jojo
Pete, any chance you can post a link that discusses this verse pls? My search skills clearly suck.
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peacefulpete
87
Does Jehovah accept human sacrafice or not?
To be honest many of the comments I made and even some by Leolaia years ago show how are our own learning has progressed.
The core of the issue is understanding the way the OT was produced. It is a collection compiled by a 5th century BCE scribal committee (likely). Some of the collection reflects earlier religious practice, some of it is idealizations of a mythic past. Trying to divine which is which has occupied scholars for over a century. Generally, the 'argument from embarrassment' prevails, that is, material that would be embarrassing to a later redactor is assumed more ancient. That might not always be true, because author's do sometimes use archaizing language and scenes to give a work the look of antiquity. Also, if the author had a polemicizing agenda, he might well create a fictional storyline to make his point.
However, the general consensus is that isolated legends involving human sacrifice reflect a historical cult practice, given the archeological evidence of such practice (especially east of Jerusalem). It has been suggested the Abraham/Isaac story (Akedah) originally had Abraham successful in killing his son, but the change to the story with a substitution of a lamb/ram itself serves as an origin story of allowing substitution in some circumstances. This rite of child sacrifice continued in some parts of Canaan until Roman times. (they made it illegal)
The "Law" that forbid such sacrifice was a product of religious reformers of the 5th century, (though it is reasonable that at least elements of it predate that). They incorporated at least two earlier efforts at a code that differed rather extensively.
So....The present OT includes a number of stories involving human sacrifice (not just child). These at times appear to have been modified with awkward additions, (such as Jeptha) or edited (as with the Akedah) but other times shockingly left unchanged. (e.g. 2 Kings 3, King of Moab offers his son up and it works to repel the Israelite/Judahite coalition).
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liam
peacefulpete
However, the general consensus is that isolated legends involving human sacrifice reflect a historical cult practice
Well that explains a lot about the human species.We were savages from the very beginning.
But now we have technology.
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peacefulpete
liam...I've often said religion is merely an enabler.
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joey jojo
Thanks Pete, I probably should have been clearer. I was looking for a specific topic based around that scripture. The article you linked was great though.
Its interesting that when searching for 'child sacrifice' on the forum, lots of hits for blood transfusions come up. Its a bit chilling to think that worldy government intervention was needed to stop the JW version of child sacrifice in modern times.