7thangel

No, the simplest explanation is that they are just being who they are. Reason why I believe in predestination.

Let us not really make the thread mixed up. Here are some links which can help explain to you the non-existence of free will:

Omnipotence, Free Will and Choosing by Jamie L.

I believe that there is no free will by WorshipTreacle

Christian's free will

Bumble Bee Tuna

Wouldn't it be "BC 1001"?

-B

yguy

Though I am not Christian, I have decidedly Judaeo-Christian leanings. However, the daughter of Jepthah incident poses a major problem for Bible literalists. On another forum I did a thread on the passage in which I got responses from many professing Christians, and I don't think any two answers agreed. One said Jepthah killed his daughter to please God, one said he didn't kill her at all, one said he did, but against God's wishes... One Christian whose intelligence I respect made a valiant effort to reconcile the passage with the idea that God is just, but she herself was not satisfied with the effort. The problem is that "The spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah..." and the next thing you know he's making this insane vow. How could Jephthah have been defying God's will when he apparently made the vow under God's influence?

BTW, Evangelion, I've skimmed over your posts regarding Biblical idioms. How about telling us how any of that applies to the passage in question?

Mageth

BTW, Evangelion, I've skimmed over your posts regarding Biblical idioms. How about telling us how any of that applies to the passage in question?

Exactly. I've asked him to skip the theatrics and do just that more than once. He should have done that in his original post, IMO...

Evangelion

Sorry this has taken me so long, guys. I had a very busy weekend, and I'm on a different shift this week. (Currently doing my Health and Safety Rep course at work.)

But I'll try and pick up the slack here...

Evangelion

DP -

OK. I thought it would jump right out at you in the first few verses, but never mind. We'll get there soon enough.

Quite frankly, I wouldn't have minded if you'd thought otherwise. Either way, my argument remains the same because I personally believe that God was complicit in the terms of Jepthah's vow.

That would be...

Well, this seems clear enough to me. The Israelites would be punished for their idolatry. What form did this punishment take? It was a seige. (Hence the reference to people eating their children; this was by no means unusual under seige conditions.)

For example:

• II Kings 6:24-30.
  And it came to pass after this, that Ben-hadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria.
  And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver.
  And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king.
  And he said, If the LORD do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress?
  And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.
  So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son.
  And it came to pass, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his clothes; and he passed by upon the wall, and the people looked, and, behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh.

So in Ezekiel 5, God says that the Israelites would be punished for their idolatry by a terrible seige.

Nope. The Hebrew word in question simply means "a tax" or "computation." The people who were given as "tribute to the LORD" were those who actually escaped death. They were "redeemed" under the legislation of Leviticus 27:2-13, which declared that a man, woman, child or animal could be "bought back" with a sum of money.

That's one of the reasons why I directed you to Leviticus 27 in the first place.

OK, so they killed a whole bunch of people under God's direction.

Is this relevant to Judges 11, or did you have some other point in mind?

The translation "youths" (or "little children", as the KJV ludicrously renders it) is wildly misleading, since the Hebrew word in question does not mean any such thing.

Hence Adam Clarke's Commentary:

• Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head -
  aleh kereach, aleh kereach. Does not this imply the grossest insult? Ascend, thou empty skull, to heaven, as it is pretended thy master did!
  
  This was blasphemy against God; and their punishment (for they were Beth-elite idolaters) was only proportioned to their guilt. Elisha cursed them, i.e., pronounced a curse upon them, in the name of the Lord, beshem Yehovah, by the name or authority of Jehovah.
  
  The spirit of their offense lies in their ridiculing a miracle of the Lord: the offense was against Him, and He punished it. It was no petulant humor of the prophet that caused him to pronounce this curse; it was God alone: had it proceeded from a wrong disposition of the prophet, no miracle would have been wrought in order to gratify it.
  
  “But was it not a cruel thing to destroy forty-two little children, who, in mere childishness, had simply called the prophet bare skull, or bald head?”
  
  I answer, Elisha did not destroy them; he had no power by which he could bring two she-bears out of the wood to destroy them. It was evidently either accidental, or a Divine judgment; and if a judgment, God must be the sole author of it. Elisha’s curse must be only declaratory of what God was about to do. See on 2Ki_1:10 (note).
  
  “But then, as they were little children, they could scarcely be accountable for their conduct; and consequently, it was cruelty to destroy them.”
  
  If it was a judgment of God, it could neither be cruel nor unjust; and I contend, that the prophet had no power by which he could bring these she-bears to fall upon them. But were they little children? for here the strength of the objection lies.
  
  Now I suppose the objection means children from four to seven or eight years old; for so we use the word: but the original, nearim ketannim, may mean young men, for katon signifies to be young, in opposition to old, and is so translated in various places in our Bible; and naar signifies, not only a child, but a young man, a servant, or even a soldier, or one fit to go out to battle; and is so translated in a multitude of places in our common English version.
  
  I shall mention but a few, because they are sufficiently decisive: Isaac was called naar when twenty-eight years old, Gen_21:5-12; and Joseph was so called when he was thirty-nine, Gen_41:12.
  
  Add to these 1Ki_20:14 : “And Ahab said, By whom [shall the Assyrians be delivered into my hand?] And he said, Thus saith the Lord, by the Young Men, benaarey, of the princes of the provinces.”
  
  That these were soldiers, probably militia, or a selection from the militia, which served as a bodyguard to Ahab, the event sufficiently declares; and the persons that mocked Elisha were perfectly accountable for their conduct.

Blasphemy against God was customarily punished by death in the OT.

This part of the chapter is self-explanatory. God's argument here is that the Jews should not be owned by other men, since they already belonged to Him.

Thus:

• Leviticus 25:42
  For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen.
  
• Leviticus 25:55.
  For unto me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

Jesus consciously invokes this language in the New Testament, when he says "No man can serve two masters... ye cannot serve God and mammon."

God visits punishment upon those of His followers who prove unfaithful. It's pretty tough, I grant you - but that was the deal in those days. Certainly, the Biblical record is full of the many blessings which God's people enjoyed while they remained true to Him.

We are obviously dealing with an adult here (hence "a profligate and a drunkard"), and the problem is not just his behaviour towards his parents, but his behaviour towards other people. He is more than just a rebellious kid; he's a fully grown adult who has become a public nuisance. Yes, the Law of Moses was highly demanding. It was a tough way to live.

But was it unjust? By today's politically correct standards, yes. by the standards of the day, no.

The rules for servants and slaves were strict, but fair when compared with those of other nations. Corporal punishment was permitted, but capital punishment was prohibited.

Let's start with this one:

Outreach Judaism is an excellent Website. I have found myself indebted to it on many occasions, when researching the finer points of Old Testament Law and traditional Judaism. I also recommend the Jews for Judaism Website, which has a useful library of articles on many different subjects (most of them anti-Christian, of course.)

Here Rabbi Singer takes issue with the standard argument from mainstream Christianity. However, I am not a mainstream Christian, and I do not subscribe to the mainstream Christian atonement model.

Mainstream Christianity presents Jesus' death as a "blood sacrifice" which was "necessary for the atonement of sins." In fact (as Rabbi Singer points out) the Law of Moses did not always require a blood sacrifice for the atonement of sins, and in any case, human sacrifice was prohibited.

The atonement which was offered by Christ was that of a perfect life, lived in complete obedience to God's will. God wasn't actually interested in his blood, or any other part of him; God wanted to see a sinless life; a life of perpetual self-sacrifice.

This is spelled out very clearly in the Old Testament:

• Psalm 51:16-17.
  For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Jesus' life was indeed a life of humility and obedience. It was a perfect sacrifice; it was symbolic of the paschal lamb which was first slain in the days of the Exodus. The paschal lamb was physically perfect; Christ himself was morally perfect. Therein lies the fufilment of the type; not physical, but spiritual. In this context, therefore, he was indeed a "sacrifice for sin."

Ultimately, of course, Jesus did give his life up; he sacrificed himself for the good of others. But the power of his sacrifice lies not in his blood, nor even in his death; it lies in his sinless life, and his subsequent resurrection from the dead.

The author of Hebrews follows this same line of agument, paraphrasing Psalm 40 to confirm the point.

Thus:

• Hebrews 10:7-10.
  Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
  Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;
  Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
  By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

The fact that Jesus was not physically perfect (as the Law of Moses would have required, had he been intended as a human sacrifice) but only morally perfect (which was obviously not a requirement of the sacrifices under the Law of Moses) serves to demonstrate the point.

The key phrase here, of course, is "dual propehcy." There are (you may be aware) plenty of Christians who accept that the Messianic prophecies of the OT have a dual fulfilment; a contempory and a future reference.

The difference with modern Jews, of course, is that they simply refuse to accept any application of the prophecy to Jesus of Nazareth. So really, this comes down to a point of personal interpretation, with both sides (Jewish and Christian) bringing their respective biases to the argument.

The "dual prophecy" debate is an age-old debate, and will doubtless continue long for centuries yet. Sometimes the Christians win (and gain a few converts as a result); sometimes the Jews win (and gain a few converts of their own.) I really don't see that there's any point in rehashing it here.

The issue is not "Was Jesus the promised Messiah?", but "Did Jephthah really sacrifice his daughter on an altar, and if so, did God approve?" Let's try and keep this thread on track, please.

I don't believe in original sin myself, so I'm quite happy to agree with the Jews on this one.

The reference is to Christians who were slaves or servants to unbelievers. They were to submit to their masters and not rebel, following the example of Christ's own humility. (See also Philippians 2 and Isaiah 53.)

Mention is also made of Christians who were the slaves or servants of Christian masters:

• I Timothy 6:2.
  And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.

The book of Philemon is written to one such Christian master. Paul exhorts him to deal more kindly with his servant (Onesimus) who has run away (probably because he was ill-treated.)

Thus:

• Philemon 1:10-16.
  I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds:
  Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me:
  Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels:
  Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel:
  But without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly.
  For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him forever;
  Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, especially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord?
  If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself.
  If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught, put that on mine account;

Not exactly the language of heartless oppression, is it?

Evangelion

Ab_Normal -

Exactly.

And the fact that He didn't stop Jephthah dead in his tracks, should tell us something about the nature of the "sacrifice" which Jephthah had vowed to make.

Evangelion

Mageth -

Which translators are you talking about? The translators of the KJV?

Yes, they obviously took some liberties in a variety of different places. The transposition of Greek and Roman currency into English currency ("shilling; penny") is a classic example.

I don't know - but I can hazard a guess.

You see, the KJV was not translated by a small group of men. It was actually translated by a massive translation committee, with the final product being reviewed by a handful of experts. For example, Genesis - II Kings was translated at Westminister, while I Chronicles - Ecclesiastes was translated at Cambridge.

Generally speaking, it's a pretty fluid rendition of the Hebrew and Greek. (As it should be, since its translators borrowed heavily from Tyndale's translation!) But there are some minor discrepancies in (a) style, and (b) translation, and these are due to the fact that there were so many different people working on the translation itself. There was no way to guarantee a uniform style, and so we have some inconsistencies.

*snip*

And as I already pointed out, this is totally irrelevant.

Again:

• The Hebrew literally says: "he knew his wife..." The translators rendered this: "He knew his wife."
  
• The Hebrew literally says: "...to cover his feet." The translators rendered this: "...to cover his feet."

I would have thought that this was clear enough for anybody.

Heck, you can go and look it up for yourself. Get a concordance. Get a lexicon, for crying out loud. Look it up.

• The Hebrew literally says: "He knew his wife." The English translation says "He knew his wife."
  
  The Hebrew literally says: "...to cover his feet." The English translation says "...to cover his feet."

Honestly, I don't know why you're still going on about this. It's a complete non-issue.

Evangelion

JEST2ASK -

Ummm... what exactly is the relevance of this comment?

???

???

???

Evangelion

yguy -

That last point is the kicker. It serves to demonstrate that Jephthah's vow was not about the literal, bloody sacrifice of his daughter (as the KJV implies), but was about something else entirely.

Did you read Leviticus 27?

That would have made life a lot simpler.