A Tale of Two Human Sacrifices: Misinterpreting the Scriptures Within the Scriptures
It may not be novel to read that religion is often wielded as a means of avoiding cognitive dissonance between one’s own desires and what is mandated to be “right” or “wrong” within that particular faith. Of those faiths, the Quran and Judeo-Christian scriptures are often a favorite source for justification of one’s own personal agenda — either by innocent or willful ignorance of the reader of those scriptures for which they attempt to interpret.
The following account of Japheth, a military commander and judge over Israel, records the atrocity of sacrificing his own, consenting daughter to God in the book of Judges. Contrasted by the attempted sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, their actions are the result of their misunderstanding for the Law: a striking illustration and timeless lesson of the potential consequences that ignorance can bring about, especially in regards to the interpretation of religious mandate.
The Prophets (or the Neviʾim) comprise eight books divided into the Former Prophets and the Latter Prophets. The former contains the four historical works, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings; the latter, the oral discourses of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi: all originally one scroll). The Former Prophets are a collection of historical accounts written by prophets, while the Latter Prophets are the lives and teachings of prophets.
Prior to the discussion of Judges, it should be noted the definition of what a prophet is. According to Jewish tradition, a prophet, or messenger of God, is someone who is in communication, or otherwise has a relationship, with God. Today, the connotation of the word “prophet” may conjure images of an exclusive anointing of a select, “lucky” few — perhaps even a savior that withholds the key to everlasting life, if you will (i.e. a messiah). In reality and relation to that assumption, prophets were particularly common among the Jewish people. According to Old Testament scholars, there are 48 prophets and 7 prophetesses due to official records of them, however it’s speculated that upwards of 1,200,000 may have existed. A prophet had a particular function among the Jewish people as a kind of spokesperson for God, validated by the miracles they performed. Some prophets also held other offices, such as judge and priest (i.e. Moses), but not every prophet did. In fact, it was rarely the case.
The Book of Judges covers a chaotic period in Israel’s history from about 1380 to 1050 B.C.; it is a historical record of prominent military and civil leaders that fulfilled the role of a judge (i.e. someone who upheld “the Law”, or Ten Commandments and its annexes) during the time that the Jewish people, or Israel, had no king. Some of these judges were also prophets, others not. Written in approximately 1050–1000 B.C., it is believed that Samuel (one of the few prophets that also held the offices of judge and priest), is its author, supported by two evidences: the words “in those days there was no king in Israel” (Judges 17:6) were penned from a period when Israel did, and secondly, the declaration that “the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day” (Judges 1:21) refers to a time before David conquered the city in 1 Samuel 5:6,7. In the following paragraphs, the Book of Judges will be discussed in detail for the purposes of its clarification. Additionally, Hanoch Levin’s “The Binding” and Mieke Bal’s “Dealing/With/Women: Daughters in the Book of Judges” will be used for contrast in the case of burnt offerings, as it pertains to Jephthah’s daughter and Abraham’s son.
In Judges 11, Jephthah is identified as one of these judges. According to Samuel, he lived in Gilead (his father’s namesake) and presided over Israel for a period of six years in this office (Judges 12:7). The story of Jephthah begins with his familial ostracization as a bastard child of his father, driven out of his home by his half brothers (Judges 11:1–2). Jephthah relocates to Tob, where after some time, he is asked by Gilead’s elders to assume military command of Israel against the Ammonites. Being an opportunist, Jephthah accepts their offer on the condition that they appoint him as a Judge upon their victory (Judges 11:5–11). Jephthah vows to God that “if you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering,” (Judges 11:30–31, NRSV). Because the structure of typical familial dwellings in this region consisted of two stories, where the home was situated above a ground-floor barn, Jephthah expected to be greeted by his livestock first — not his daughter. Nevertheless, Jephthah keeps his vow to God upon Israel’s victory over the Ammonites, and with his daughter’s consent too.
According to the text, it is clear that God is responsible for Jephthah’s victories (Judges 11:29, 32–33). Contrary to initial impression however, God’s intervention on his behalf does not offer supporting evidence for Jephthah’s sacrifice as being mandated by him. Rather, the recording of these events is for the purposes of illustrating the tragic deterioration of Israel’s understanding of their own laws, and is in no way condoning human sacrifice, since Mosaic Law forbids it in Deuteronomy 12:31; 18:10. This cultural deterioration is a result of the political, social, and religious crises that Israel was experiencing during this point in their history. It is critical to bear this in mind when interpreting the historical accounts that this book records.
In the event of another notable instance of human sacrifice, it is recorded by Moses that God did command it in Genesis 22:1–19. But it is very clearly indicated that it was for the purposes of testing Abraham’s faith in him, and not because Isaac’s sacrifice is a requirement (Genesis 22:12). Therefore, it is for this reason that the Judeo-Christian God remains internally consistent throughout Genesis to Judges.
Hanoch Levin’s “The Binding” and Mieke Bal’s “Dealing/With/Women: Daughters in the Book of Judges” both offer interesting perspectives on Israel’s turbid history that Judges records. Levin’s script provides a satirical dialog between Abraham and his son, Isaac, one that can easily be imagined to have taken place in a modern day and age: a secular understanding for the theistic experience of the story’s author, Moses, or his leading subjects. Because the limits of obedience are arguably to oneself (rather than to a higher power) for someone who holds a secular viewpoint, Levin demonstrates this with his appropriation of Abraham and Isaac’s story to meet his own experience, rather than him meeting theirs. Perhaps even more interesting is Bal’s similarly secular, yet feminist analysis of the nameless, voiceless women within Judges. However, unlike Levin, she effectively approaches the issues from which she wishes to understand from the perspective of these women within their respective cultures. Bal perceives the story of Jephthah’s daughter as a heroine bravely navigating a patriarchal system for which she is confined to. She effectively names her Bath, or bat, meaning “daughter”, to bring dignity to her existence and experience as a woman. It’s by these means that Bal offers fresh insight to the realities of the corrupt societies that the Bible often records, whether by the events that transpire or how they’re written from a male-centric perspective, given that the book’s author was also subject to the culture for which he lived in. Despite Samuel penning Judges as both a record and critique for Israel’s history, he himself was still very much a byproduct of it. However, as one progresses through the Bible chronologically, the evolution of the cultural landscapes that its books exhibit dramatically shift with the biographies of Jesus. Jesus’ teachings are so radically different from his own culture, that unsurprisingly, they inspire an entirely new movement: a phenomenon that is discussed in The Political Climate of Jesus’ Time. Overall, the human fallibility that not only Judges, but the Bible as whole, records — whether intentionally or unintentionally — offers the reader an immersive, deeply personal experience that few other historical pieces of literature can illustrate.
In conclusion, Judges is a record of Israel’s tumultuous beginnings as a newly-formed government without a concrete national identity. The tale of human sacrifice committed by Japheth shadowed by that of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis, offers an excellent example for which the Bible should be understood: just because it written in the Scriptures, does not mean it’s a commandment from God, literal or figurative. Understanding the context of which something is written, and by who, offers an entirely other facet to the meaning of what is being recorded and/or communicated. By interpreting this work of literature solely by one’s own understanding rather than by the intention of its authors, at best, dilutes the beauty of it, and at worst, reduces it to a mere tool for the justification of one’s own personal agenda.
The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version, Genesis 22, Judges 11. Oxford University Press, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=NRSV
Levin, Hanoch. The Binding. Translated by Gilad Ebom. 1970.
Bal, Mieke. “Dealing/With/Women: Daughters in the Book of Judges”. The Book and the Text: The Bible and Literary Theory. Blackwell Pub. 1990. pp. 16–36