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| Jepthah apoplectic that his only child greeted him at the door, and now he has to set her ass on fire. |
The passage is Judges 11:30-39.
In that passage the protagonist Jepthah, a man driven from his home for being born illegitimately, is offered the opportunity to become the chieftain for the people of Gillead if he can defeat the Ammonites.
Jepthah is apparently not terribly sure of himself so he asks God to assist him in the battlefield, in exchange for a human sacrifice. And not any sacrifice mind you but "whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering."
Now mind you there is no verbal response from God cementing the deal, however after Jepthah returns victorious from the battle, he is greeted by his only daughter and immediately has a small nervous breakdown because it apparently never occurred to him that though she is his only child that she might be the person who would greet him at the door.
Jepthah becomes inconsolable so his daughter takes one for the team, "My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth."
All that she asks is that she be allowed two months to "bewail" the fact that she will die a virgin, and afterward she obediently returns at which time she is killed by her father, and her body burned.
Now keep in mind that this is offered up as an example of great morality in the Bible, much like the story of Job. Though in that parable God did at least spoke to Job AND spared his son.
However in this case Jepthah made the offer of the burnt sacrifice of a family member all on his own, assumed that the victory in battle meant that God had kept up his side of the bargain, and then slaughtered his only child to pay off a debt that most likely was all in his head.
This is why whenever anybody suggests to me that without God there can be no morality, I always answer that morality exists DESPITE the belief in God, not because of it.
In fact despite this horrible lesson on morality I would be willing to bet that there are very few Christians who would murder their children and burn their bodies as an offering to God, even if they believed with all their heart that God had intervened on their behalf in some way.
Like I have often said before, I am continually amazed that a religion based on Biblical stories of this type has gained the overwhelming acceptance that it enjoys today.
You know I really need to avoid reading the Bible for awhile. That thing gives me nightmares.
One of my many WTF issues with the bible is Numbers 5 11-22.
ReplyDeletehttp://biblia.com/bible/esv/Numbers%205.11-31
This is where God himself is supposed to have given Moses the recipe to force a woman to have an abortion if her husband thinks she might have had an affair.
Oh, and if he is wrong, it's not his fault.
Here are many more:
http://www.evilbible.com/god%27s%20not%20pro-life.htm
Never ceases to amaze me what terrible things are written in the bible, including in the new testament.
ReplyDeleteSlavery is condoned, rape is forgiven for payment, and killing children for being rebellious is condoned.
O/T, but BOTH of the Wasilla Witch's candidates lost last night in Mississippi and Oklahoma.
Too bad $arah you idiot, what did you expect?
Gryphen, you probably have read the bible more times than the entire collective of christians on your street.
ReplyDeleteI used to try to discuss the bible in my "just starting to doubt
religion days". My christian peers were clueless. They never read or studied it. They took other people's words for what it contained. It surely is bloody, violent and horrifying. More
believers need to read it.
Keep in mind that the New Testament replaced the Old. That's what the symbolism of the tearing of the veil in the Temple when Christ died is all about. Because so many 21st century pseudo-Christians ignore the New Testament, we've all focused too much on what was rejected.
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
Keep in mind that the New Testament replaced the Old.
DeleteIf that were true (not to be confused with "partly true") copies of the Old would not be bound within the same volume as, between the same covers as, the New.
Matthew 5: 17-18. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."
DeleteThose old tribes had some nasty stories. Nowadays we have thrillers and horror. It's what people like.
ReplyDeleteYes. Fiction.....
Delete"In fact despite this horrible lesson on morality I would be willing to bet that there are very few Christians who would murder their children and burn their bodies as an offering to God, even if they believed with all their heart that God had intervened on their behalf in some way."
ReplyDeleteGryph! Haven't spent much time in the South, have you!
I wouldn't be so hasty as to assume what you have. Those people are a twig of a different bent, if you know what I mean.
They are but I was stunned when I moved down here they seem to be the most immoral people I have ever met.. Learned real fast most are all related to each other, or have known each other in the biblical way. But to hear it they are good Godly people.!
DeleteBy the age of sixteen I came to realize the folly that is humankind..........have looked askance at the shenanigans ever since......one need only observe the realities of contemporary life to validate my opinion.......some sixty years later.....
ReplyDeleteMaybe they should inscribe the words "DON'T PANIC" on the cover of this book in large friendly letters.
ReplyDeleteThat's an apocrypha joke.
Why didn't the ASSHOLE Jeptha offer himself as a sacrifice? He was no different than the fools who shoot their family members then give up to the cops. They are all Cowards.
ReplyDeleteNightmares, yes! My parents took me to see The 10 Commandments when I was about 9. I had nightmares all night about it and was afraid to go to sleep for the next several nights. You see, I thought it was all true.
ReplyDeleteImagine my surprise when I finally learned that the Jews were NEVER actually enslaved in Egypt. Well, there went the whole case for the truth!
Christianity isn't "based" in the Old Testament, it is based in the New Testament. Except for the Fundamentalist brain-dead, that is. They seem to ignore the New Testament and all its oh-so-hard-to-do calls for compassion, mercy, and social justice.
ReplyDeleteThere are some disturbing pagan like elements to the old testament that people are always shocked to discover.There is an interesting book called The Whore by the Side of the Road written by a rabbi I think that talks about some of ancient weirdness in the bible.
ReplyDeleteM from MD
Alternative interpretation:
ReplyDeleteAs this is most likely from the Old Testament, I will Ignore the possibility/probability of this being written of whole/partial cloth during the Flavian period of Roman History.
Jepthah was an aspiring king of Gillead. Has victory over the Ammonites (Sidenote: there was a variety of religions featuring a deity with variations of the name Amon in the area around Thebes (Egypt) spanning from the 2200BC to 1000BC) and expects this to help his kingship.
He comes home to find that his daughter is pregnant/impure, and now, by the law of the old testament/wherever this took place, she is now to be stoned to death/executed.
But pregnant, unwed daughters still make for bad politics as proof of poor parenting/leadership and brings divine favor into question, so... he executes his daughter and claimed it was an offering to god in exchange for victory.
He now gets:
1.) Proof of divine favor (direct communication with god implied)
2.) Rid of a legal and/or political problem should her "lover" turn up to the new king demanding bribes or blackmail
3.) An "out" should someone claim to have slept with his daughter (She was going to die anyway, are you *sure* about the timeline?)
4.) A reputation for honesty/follow-through, even for unpleasant task
*and*
5.) Dampens the "don't you love your kids, though?" response from those who feel the religious law is too stringent, while retaining the support of those who support the law.
And we wonder why Republicans claim to be the party of Religion? Politics is certainly in the bible!
The Old Testament is the historical record of the Hebrew people's search for the one god and their growing conception of what that meant. They are coming from of a brutal area, and attribute everything to Jehovah, good and bad. Interesting to me that my Jewish friends are quite unfamiliar with much of their writings outside of the first five books. As a Christian, I've read far more than they ever have -- plus they don't know the New Testament that we supposedly follow!
ReplyDeleteI've pondered often what it is about these middle eastern desert religions that appeal to the Western mind. Tribal interactions could be just as brutal in Europe and the Americas, but the lessons on love and class and social responsibility as taught by Jesus are still powerful if practiced. He would only have been familiar with as much of the Old Testament writings as he had access to, but he drew entirely different inspiration from them.
Although Jesus shared his teachings verbally in a very limited setting, Christianity was really developed by Paul through his tireless travels and vigorous preaching.
You're preaching to the choir as far as I'm concerned. And amen on the nighmares.There's a set of books called "The Apocrypha" that weren't included in the Bible because they're too scary even for the thumpers, Roman Catholics aren't big on reading the bible, and we were expressly forbidden from reading it, took me a month to get my paws on it from the library. They recommend good reading with their ban list. Catcher in the Rye, last exit to brooklyn, etc.
ReplyDeleteSome call me a misanthrope but I'm not one. I like people but the fact is that more people are stupid than are not. It's just the way it is.
ReplyDeletewww.evilbible.com/do_not_ignore_ot.htm
ReplyDeleteIf the difference between the moral examples in the old/new testament subject is used by anyone to defend Christianity, I ask you to check out the address above and the lines from the new testament (words from Jesus no less) that clearly show that the rules and codes of the old testament must be followed by those who worship with the new testament.
The old shrug and sigh and, "heh ... that's the old testament" excuse is just not valid, doesn't work and makes it plain that even Christians who have actually read all of the bible ignore the bits they don't like. Cherry picking with such holy, divine information,
All the best, folks,
Woody
The reason is no one could read the bible except priests for nearly 2000 years so Christians only knew what they were told. Most still haven't read it and if you point out passages like this they start yelling that you are taking it all out of context. "the Pat Robertson Defense for being stupid"
ReplyDelete