Does Jehovah accept human sacrafice or not? (page 2)

TheEdge

.........make a great defence in Court though....

That might be a problem, and maybe an indication that the celibacy/consecration theme was later grafted onto the story. However there were actually at least two law codes, and both contradict each other at times. The Deuteronomy law code, which is associated with the reforms of Josiah, for instance insists on only one cultic site (in Jerusalem) whereas the law elsewhere in the Torah provides for various shrines all over the land. It would be instructive to compare the two in the matter you mentioned. Perhaps Narkissos might know more....

SpannerintheWorks

Gumbovah,

You KNOW the Bibble is a pile of poo poo but you keep trying to knock it down. Do you have a complex? WHY do you keep posting these (quite eloquent, actually) (well, for you anyway) posts to further discredit the Bibble as previously mentioned. WHY? WHY? WHY?

Do you really believe that there are people out there who are so fick that they need repitition...repitition...repitition...???

euripides

Critical objection to reading this story as it plainly states, namely the 'olah whole burnt offering sacrifice, can be traced to Rabbi Kimchi c. 1200 CE. He felt that it was simply morally indefensible for a reader to understand the text for what it says, "he did to her as he said he would" etc. though, as Leolaia points out, efforts to hint at a substitution through temple duties may have happened early on. In any case, the Israelites are completely familiar with this practice, cf. 2 Kings 3:26 and 27, where the King of Moab, Mesha, sacrifices his son on the wall with strategic results for his campaign. Compare also Jer. 32:35, where the prophet clarifies that Yahweh never commanded children to be "passed through the fire," implying that there were some who felt that he had.

Besides this, what do you think Abraham was thinking when God commanded him to sacrifice his son as a whole burnt offering? That it was such a mad suggestion as to be unheard of? Apparently this went on a lot more than many scholars are willing to concede to.

Euripides

gumby

Spannerbastard.....bite me! Nice to hgear from your sorry arse bud. I must continue in my bible bashing as I was called to do so. I was destined for this. Besides, I have no life!

CountryWoman.....you dare to doubt your buddy Gumby? I wouldn't kid about Jepthah's mom bein a whore. She was a whore......read the chapter I quoted from...Judges 11:1 She was a prostitute ( I used whore cuz she was married). Her old mans name was Gilead and he was married to the whore. He's the guys who name they use at bethel for special pioneers who go on foreign assignments.

His boy was Jepthah and Jepthah had the whore mom. Then dad dumped the whore and married another gal. She gave him two more boys(jews had boys 99% of the time) and these two boys didn't like their bastard brother with the whore mommy so they told him to hit the road.

Tashwanaa, excellent point! Hows bout you start a thread on that one? No bastards were allowed...yet the witnesser's say she was a nun eh? Poor her, she still never got to play naughty! We'll have believers scratchin their heads in no time. I already scatched my head a whole bunch and now I'm done scratchin.

Leolaia, I have the NIV and it actually used the word "burnt offering". Intrestingly, the commentary notes at the bottom of my bible said this point is hotly debated as to it's meaning. It said it obviously meant Jepthah sacrificed his daughter.

*just realises he's spelled sacrifice wrong throughout entire thread and spelled Jepthah wrong*

Gumshalom shalom

vitty

As I recall, in some sevice meeting somwhere, there is a difference between a BURNT OFFERING and a BURNT SACRIFICE

I cant remember what it was

I was always lead to believe his daughter was just to spend her whole life celebate

This just shows you how boring they made every aspect of the bible

We just excepted everything in a trance like boring " yeah, Ok"

gumby

Vittvin, if you read verse (39) of chapter 1 in Judges, you'll see it says "he did to HER as he had vowed". Verse (36) Jepthahs daughter says to her father who is weeping.." do to ME just as you promised(vowed). NIV

You'll find most agree she was offered as a human sacrifice. Read what the scriptures say and not how some apologist try to twist what it says to save gods face from shame.

Gumby

Narkissos

To me there is absolutely no doubt that Jephthah's story implies human sacrifice. The text just doesn't offer any alternative. `olah is the technical term for burnt offering, and it is never used figuratively in OT times to mean non-sacrificial temple service. The parallel with 2 Kings 3 which Euripides pointed to is excellent because it is also the sacrifice of a unique child offered to win a difficult battle (although in Jephthah's case the actual execution comes after the victory, but the vow to do it is viewed as efficient).

The contradiction with the Law (also re: the bastard issue -- and I don't mean Gumby ) simply does not exist, because the Law as we know it didn't exist when the story was created.

There is an interesting intermediate stage # 2 between (1) the accepted practice of human sacrifice in Israel and (3) the total prohibition of human sacrifice in the Torah. It is attested in Ezekiel 20:25f:

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 the LORD.

At this intermediate stage, the sacrifice of the firstborn is interpreted, neither as good, nor as non-acceptable and substituted with a ransom (as in the later Torah). It is described as a bad commandment from Yahweh, coming as a punition for Israel's infidelity to the "good commandments".

frankiespeakin

My personal opinion is that the OT gives us hints of human sacrifice that may have been reworked to make it less obvious. Abraham and Jephthah being two cases. The Abraham story give us no indication that this was an objectionable practice,,and niether does the Jephthah story. Much latter in the book of Jeremiah we find the objection to this practice.

Tashawaa

Nark

The contradiction with the Law (also re: the bastard issue -- and I don't mean Gumby ) simply does not exist, because the Law as we know it didn't exist when the story was created.

I'm not a scholar or the scholar BUT, one of the reasons I raised this issue, was because to someone with a JW background, Judges was written when the nation was under the Mosaic Law.

For me, I don't believe the bible stories as real historic accounts, and I don't get into the real issues of when & who wrote it - although, I'm learning more from yours and Leo's postings.

Does Jehovah accept human sacrafice or not?

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