Amaleq13

I wondered about this, too, but I also know that I've seen rural homes in 3rd world countries where farm animals were allowed into the house. I don't know if that would apply here.

JEST2ASK

A lot of your arguements assume (IMO) that the writtings (or at least traditional basis) for the Levitical laws were known by the people (culture / tribes) during the historical period of Judges, before the united Kingdom - (*if it did in fact exist) and before the developed theology of the exile / post exile writters - I do not agree with that outlook - as pointed out there is evidence that the story of Abraham in it's earliest form may not have had the same ending nor theology as commonly held in modern circles ... I think it is speculative to interpret parts of the bible through the lens of the whole / over-arching view ... That discussion though is for another time & place (and best left for other better equipped minds to formulate )


I quoted Hebrews to point out that Jephtah's legacy was a very favorable one as compared to many other figures / leaders... see Kings & Chronicles
... which leads to more questions about the knowledge of the writter of Hebrews than about the character of Old Testaments figures....

Sorry way over my head and a derailment of the central issue

LP675

Probably right. Unfortunately for you I need do no such work. All I need to do is maintain the verse means what is says (as opposed you having to maintain it does not mean what it says).

Exact cause of death is irrelevant. The prohibition relates to �burn(ing) …daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.�. Jephtah contravened the prohibition by burning his daughter in fire as a sacrifice to his God. The prohibition is silent on the exact cause of death (as is the account in judges for that matter- I think you are making assumptions based on regulations regarding sacrifices, which given Jephtah’s track record regarding obeying God’s commands are probably not sound).

So I am a little puzzled as to why you think cause of death is relevant, as long as a daughter is a burnt sacrifice it contravenes the prohibition.
Nonsense. As soon as I have time I am planning for laughs to go through that SAB page. But even if we accept for the purposes of the present argument that God has commanded human sacrifice in certain cases (conquered peoples, specific persons, firstborn sons or whatever) we have a specific prohibition of burning daughters as a sacrifice, so the other passages allegedly dealing with other forms of human sacrifice are irrelevant.

Before I can respond I have to know what exactly do you mean by:
and :
and:
and:

LP675

I wonder at your pursuing yet another half baked line of reasoning with such gay abandon.

God is in a sense a witness to every deal that has ever been made in human history, as he is aware of them. This was a custom of the time, like swearing an oath today. It doesn’t mean he is part of this deal, the deal is between the elders and Jephthah, and God has not got to do anything to fulfill His contractual obligations under the deal, he simply isn’t involved in the deal.

The legal doctrine of ‘privity of contract’ is one which simply enshrines the common sense notion that those not a party to a contract do not acquire rights or incur liabilities under the contract. We intend to use third parties as a means of fulfilling contracts all the time, that doesn’t mean they are involved in the deal (e.g. If I contract with you to put windows into your house using sub-contractors to install the windows, the installers are not involved in the deal). It is ludicrous to assert because God was ‘to be the means’ he is a party to / involved in the deal.
But it seems all this is irrelevant because now you have abandoned this ‘deal’ as any sort of precedent (as I understand you later argument).

Rubbish, it is further evidence that God had no part of the ‘second deal’ because he didn’t change his course of action to conform with the terms of the ‘agreement’.

I am again struggling to understand what you are exactly saying, it seems you have regressed into making vague statements:
What do you mean? Do you mean that because God has in the past helped Israel in battle this for some reason means Jephthah is justified in making any wild deal he wants with God and that God will want to be party to it? I am not following you.

It seems to me all the verse is evidence for is the fact that Jephthah in fact knew that God was already going to deliver the Israelites (which would contradict your assertion above), and that the second ‘deal’ was neither needed nor asked for.
Where did you explain this? In the post you suggested God should have caused Jephthah to lose the war?

Again what do you mean?
If mine is the correct interpretation so what?

Again you haven’t shown how this case is unique in any relevant sense from every other subsumed under “the problem of pain� question which I briefly outlined an answer to above.

Jack the Bodiless

And we don't have any actual information on how the Bible was customarily interpreted at the time Jephtah supposedly lived, or when the story was written. You're taking a literalist stance: "these words say it's forbidden, therefore it was forbidden". I'm taking a contextual stance: "this bit warns the Hebrews not to engage in typical Caananite religious practices (which included infanticide of the firstborn)".

We don't know how it was supposed to be interpreted. However, there is a suspicious lack of any sign that Jephtah was indulging in a forbidden style of worship (for the time). If he was, then why is there no comment to that effect in this story?

As for the rest: I was pointing out that the Bible is the story of God, and his interactions with his "chosen people". Normally, the authors go to great lengths to credit God with events depicted in the Bible. Military victories are due to God: defeats are God's punishment. Major events are simply not viewed as "independent of God" in the Bible.

Biblically, God appears frequently to punish transgressions, even of a trivial nature: especially transgressions involving inappropriate forms of worship (burning incense without a permit, burning the wrong sort of incense, touching or looking inside the Ark of the Covenant, and so forth). It may not be inconsistent with real life for God to simply do nothing when one of his most important subjects performs or commissions what's supposedly a horribly "wrong" act of worship, but it's inconsistent with his actions in the rest of the Bible.

It seems that you are also under the impression that Jephtah would have performed the sacrifice himself, even though this was after the formation of the Levitical priesthood with its monopoly on religious rituals. This implies, not just that Jephtah ignored or misinterpreted God's ban, but that the priesthood did too.

Amaleq13

Please avoid irrelevant insulting comments like this in the future. They add nothing to one's claims and only serve to create the impression that the one making them lacks any substantive argument.

God is specifically described as explicitly involved in this story. Appealing to irrelevant generalities does not address the specific details of this story. Given God's subsequent involvement, it is clear that God is being depicted as paying particular attention to this specific deal.

Again, this generality is obviously irrelevant to this particular story since is clearly depicted as an active participant.

That is what the text explicitly states. Jephthah specifically claims that God will enable him to win, he cites an earlier intervention by God on behalf of Israel, and God is explicitly described as actually intervening to allow the victory. What is truly ludicrous is to deny what is so plainly stated in the story.

Given that you quote my position to the contrary in this very post, I have no idea why you would state such an obvious misconception.

It is further evidence only to the reader of the story. Jephthah has no knowledge of this and God makes no effort to correct his entirely reasonable misunderstanding.

I don't see how this statement can be considered in any way "vague". Jephthah is clearly aware that God has intervened on behalf of Israel in the past and clearly expects God to intervene on behalf of Israel in the future. Since he is, subsequent to the deal with the elders, leading them in battle, that means he expects God to intervene on his behalf. That is the very nature of a precedent (ie it establishes a reasonable basis for a specific expectation).

I will repeat the main points that lead to the conclusion you have yet to refute as clearly as possible:

Jephthah's expectation of intervention is reasonable and based on God's previous actions.

Jephthah's misunderstanding that the deal was accepted is reasonable and based on God's recent actions.

God's actions created the expectation and the misunderstanding which makes the results at least partially God's responsibility.

God's failure to take all of this into consideration and prevent the resulting murder of Jephthah's daughter is morally indefensible.

It justifies Jephthah's expectation that God would intervene in the upcoming battle.

I agree that this is precisely the point that Jephthah missed but God's subsequent intervention does not help in any way to make that clear and, given God's omniscience, God would surely no that Jephthah had missed this point. In fact, God's intervention actually helps Jephthah miss the point. That God chooses to allow this point to be made by allowing the murder of his daughter is where God commits the moral blunder. Since the point could obviously be made without the murder of the girl, allowing the point to be made through the murder of the girl is an unnecessary evil. Please note that an "unnecessary evil" is a problem for the more general PoE so your perpetual retreat to that generality has been cut off.

I have repeatedly explained this throughout this thread despite the fact that it is quite clearly indicated by the story. It is pretty obvious that Jephthah goes through with his deal because he assumes God's intervention means the deal was accepted.

Your interpretation of other parts of the Bible is irrelevant to the story. There is nothing in the story to suggest that Jephthah is even aware of these other parts of your Bible.

This story is clearly set apart from the general issue of the Problem of Evil by the fact that God's actions created the misunderstanding that resulted in the unnecessary evil. You have, so far, offered nothing substantive to argue against this point.

LP675

This one dropped off the front page. I am just waiting on another response in another thread. It is tempting to let this one die though.

SkepticalIdealist

I just spent a couple of hours reading all of the posts in this thread, and I would like to add some comments. The subject was well covered (and re-covered at some points!) But here's a few things that I don't think were mentioned yet:

It seems to me that we can either rip the story out of the Bible and consider it in isolation, or we can consider it as part of the Bible (and reflect on how other parts of the Bible relate to it). But we can't have it both ways (or a little one way and a little the other).

If the story is considered in isolation, it merely tells us of a man of war who made a vow to his god to offer up in sacrifice the first being that "came to meet him" out of his house -- as long as his god granted him victory over his enemies. It is unclear whether his god was a "real" god and heard the vow (as one would assume a "real god" would.) But Jephthah obviously believed his god had heard him, and the writer of the story tells us that his god did indeed deliver the enemy into his hands. Jephthah then felt oath-bound to sacrifice his daughter. We are not told what his god thought of all of this. I think that if most Christians were to read this story anywhere else but in the Bible they would conclude that Jephthah's god was not real since it did nothing to prevent the tragedy, and thus was an accomplice to the murder.

One other important thing we can learn from the story itself (without yet looking at any other part of the Bible) is that at the start of the story, "the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah." (Jg. 11:29) I think one could safely assume that this phrase means that Jephthah was acting under the guidance and/or power of his god, and thus his actions would be in accord with his god's will. This would bolster the notion that his god was not adverse to the oath-bound sacrifice.

When we relate the story to the rest of the Bible, we open a can of worms, because different people will relate it to different parts of the Bible (as we've seen in this thread). While it is true that there was a specific command not to burn one's children in the fire in sacrifice, it is also true that there was an important command stating "Thou Shalt Not Kill," which should've precluded the very basis of this story. No killing means no killing off of a nation whose land you had stolen and who had made previous overtures of peace to you (Jg. 11:13). But, even more to the point: it means no killing in sacrifice to the very god who said "Thou Shalt Not Kill!" We must ask: why would Jephthah imagine that a god who commanded no killing would go for this deal: "Let me kill the Ammonites, and (as your reward) I'll also kill whoever meets me out of my house when I return!"

If this god could lay down a strict law against killing, and shortly thereafter command killing (as we see in many places in the Bible), then we have precedent for god approving/commanding/accepting something that he had previously outlawed. Given this precedent, the argument that states "god couldn't have approved of this sacrifice because he previously laid down a law against it" doesn't hold up. God said he "hated" human sacrifice? So what, this same god is said to "hate" liars, and yet "loved" Abraham, David, etc., who are shown deliberately lying in the Bible. He is also shown ordering a "lying spirit" to deceive someone. So, he "hates" and loves/approves/accepts/orders the same thing at different times according to the Bible. So, there is really no reason to assume that he disapproved of Jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter.

And in fact, as has been pointed out: the Bible book of Hebrews actually praises Jephthah as one of the great "men of faith"! With that, it's hard to uphold the argument that the Jephthah story is put there as a bad example (to show us not to make foolish vows).

Someone in this thread said "The best way to determine what God’s will is or what he would want is simply to read what God actually says he wants." Well, that would be nice if there were some book that God had actually written. The Bible certainly isn't such a book, and "simply reading it" will not help you to determine what God wants since there are contradictory "wants" of the god[s] portrayed in that odd assortment of writings. So, we have people who will "interpret" the Bible for us: expounding the parts they want us to follow, and "explaining away" the parts that they don't.

I don't have the "inside scoop" that some seem to have when they tell us how God behaves and why he does what he does (honestly, I don't think they have that scoop either -- though they may have some sort of scoop, and I won't describe what it would normally be used for). But I do know this: anyone who watches unjustified suffering which is in their power to prevent is immoral. Since the Bible tells us that its god sees everything and is "almighty," and Jephthah's daughter didn't deserve to die, there is an inescapable conclusion here. I don't think it's too hard to figure out.

BDS

Geez. Why are a bunch of atheists complaining about a good story? Do you guys like only the sappy "hearts and flowers" stuff?

I hate to disillusion those whining about how God is "just so brutal", but Jephthah's daughter would be dead by now, anyhow, so it doesn't really matter, does it?

I hope you wimps don't hate Byron's poem about the destruction of the Sennacherib, too. It's good stuff:

http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem348.html

LP675

Welcome!
Wow, you are a sucker for punishment .

Correct.

Yes, but which actions? The spirit comes upon him and then he decides to advance against the enemy after he had failed in his negotiations. Then he makes the deal, who knows how long after (in terms of days or hours). If it read “the spirit came upon Jephthah and he declared ‘I will sacrifice my daughter’�, then you might have a more compelling case.
We in effect have laws which say thou shalt not kill. But we can also kill in self defense, war, execute criminals (if your in the USA) etc. So there are exceptions to prohibitions on killing, that’s not to say they are contradictory.
I am not sure you it could be said it was stolen, (Jephthah doesn’t seem to agree with the Ammonite King’s take on the situation), but I would hardly call “get out or we will kill you� ‘overtures of peace’.
I don’t think you have a grasp of the levitical laws.
Again, I really don’t think there is any contradiction here. Our government says on the one hand to not murder each other, but orders our soldiers to kill our enemies.

Judges 8: 27 “Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.�

Here we have Gideon leading Israel into Idol worship, and yet the same passage in Hebrews you spoke of “By faith …etc… And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised…�

So despite Gideon being praised, it doesn’t mean he made no foolish mistakes. There are in fact great parallels between Jephthah and Gideon. There are not many perfect ‘heroes of the faith’ besides Jesus.

A Christian rejects this view. The bible is scripture, and in that sense ‘God’s book’. You are entitled to reject this idea, but you can’t expect Christians to agree with you of course.
‘Problem of Pain’ question, answered above.