ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) (04/14/91)
There's an extremely interesting book by Martin Gardner, who used to
write the "Mathematical Games" section of Scientific American, and
who has been active in CSICOP. I recently read his book "The Whys of
a Philosophical Scrivener".
Having been a reader of Gardner's for some time, and never quite having
been able to make out what his religious beliefs were (what is one to
make of someone who likes both G.K.Chesteron and the tedious H.G.Wells?),
I was interested to find out that Gardner was raised a Christian, but now
calls himself a "philosophical theist".
There was one point he raised which really bothers me.
Hebrews 11 is the famous chapter on the heroes of faith: Abel, Enoch,
Noach, Abraham, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah
... HANG ON A MINUTE THERE! What's _Jephthah_ doing in that list?
Here's the actual passage, taken from the NIV:
Heb 11:32: And what more shall I say?
I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson,
Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets,
:33: who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice,
and gained what was promised;
who shut the mouths of lions,
:34: quenched the fury of the flames,
and escaped the edge of the sword;
whose weakness was turned to strength;
and who became powerful in battle and
routed foreign armies.
Now, the story of Jephthah is found in the "Book of Monsters",
in Judges chs 11 and 12.
I call it the "Book of Monsters" because a commentary I once read
pointed out that the author of Judges seems to have gone out of his
way to paint the champions in the blackest possible colours. A
modern reader is appalled by most of these people. The commentator
suggested that maybe the author _intended_ us to be appalled. Take
Deborah, for example. The gloating in Judges 5:28--30 over Sisera's
mother is disgusting. Is that accidental? Surely not, because
Deborah's account of Sisera's death in 5:25--27 is untruthful
(Jael didn't crush Sisera's head with the mallet, she drove a tent-peg
through it, and he didn't fall at her feet, he was already lying on
the ground). And Jael's action was about the blackest possible sin
imaginable in the Near East: a breach of hospitality between allies.
Yet Deborah-the-monster glories in this wickedness. The author
_could_ have made Deborah seem attractive, but he has done everything
possible to make her repulsive. In episode after episode, the same
thing happens: the author provides repellent details he could _easily_
have concealed. It's too systematic to be accidental. It's as if the
author were saying "So, you think _kings_ are bad? Well, the Good Old
Days were _worse_!"
Jephthah is presented in quite an unflattering light. He is introduced
as the son of a prostitute. He is made to talk (in 11:24) as if
another God (Chemosh) were real. And after winning a battle against
the Ammonites, the next thing he does is fight in a battle that kills
42,000 people of the tribe of Ephraim, most of them while they are
running away. This is a hero of faith?
But the worst thing about Jephthah is his rash vow and consequent
sacrifice of his daughter. Never mind the author of Judges, how
could the author of _Hebrews_ possibly have thought well of someone
who had committed human sacrifice?
I can think of only three explanations, and I'm posting this in order to
ask for more.
1. The author of Hebrews didn't mean to write "Jephthah"; either he
made a slip of the pen or it has crept in during subsequent copying.
-- I have put my trust in God's Word, but I do not believe that
copyists are infallible. (Ever heard of the "wicked Bible"?)
2. The author of Hebrews had a different Jephthah in mind.
-- That's not impossible. There are _many_ cases of famous
people with similar names living around the same time. (When
I was an undergraduate I once received someone else's results,
because we had the same name, not just the same surname.)
However, one would expect to find evidence for this other
Jephthah.
3. The author of Hebrews knew a different story about Jephthah.
-- This strikes me as a real possibility. Is there are real
scholar around who knows what the Aramaic paraphrase of Judges
says about Jephthah? I have seen it in a commentary on Judges
that some ancient writers claimed that Jephthah didn't kill
his daughter, that what was commemorated was his condemning
her never to marry rather than an actual killing. The story as
we have it says "He did to her as he had vowed", but maybe there
was another version of the story.
Or am I reading too much into Hebrews 11? Is the author claiming no
more than "_once_ in his life, Jephthah trusted God in a battle against
Israel's oppressors"?
Abraham's readiness to sacrifice Isaac is a problem too, but
(a) ready or not, he didn't actually _DO_ it, and
(b) Kierkegaard has dealt with that at length.
--
It is indeed manifest that dead men are formed from living ones;
but it does not follow from that, that living men are formed from dead ones.
-- Tertullian, on reincarnation.
[F.F. Bruce's commentary on Hebrews (New International Commentary on
the NT) notes that the list in Heb may be related to the list of heros
in I Sam 12:11. (Apparently Jerubbaal is Gideon, and the LXX and
Peshitta suggest that Bedan is Barak.) Maybe there are certain heroes
that tended to come to mind for the period of the judges.
As to Jephthah, I'm not sure I think he's as much a monster as you
paint him. It's clear that the author of Judges does to some extent
see this as a period of anarchy, when there was no king. But I am
reluctant to judge people by later standards. I find some of the
things that repel you indications that later editors have not touched
up the stories, and thus evidence for the historical accuracy of the
account. E.g. it's a fairly common claim by scholars that in early
Israelite history the Lord is not necessarily seen as the only God.
Rather he is the God with whom Israel has their covenant, and the only
one they worship. This is henotheism - a commitment to a single God
even though others exist. Clearly by the time the story was finally
written down, Judaism was monotheistic, but Judges preserves some
relics of earlier religion. Note that Jephthah clearly sees the Lord
as supreme, since in 11:27 he calls on the Lord to judge between the
Israelites and Ammonites. It's also possible that the use of Chemosh
was simply an expedient of diplomacy (F.F. Bruce suggests this as a
possibility.) When you're trying to prevent a war, you don't start by
denying the existence of your adversary's god.
The NRSV Oxford Annotated suggests that Jephthah could reasonably have
expected that the first thing he would encounter on coming home would
be an animal, and he probably had not intended human sacrifice. They
claim that the Hebrew does not suggest that a person was necessarily
intended. Of course in a later period human sacrifice would have been
so far out of the question that he would have presumably have worded
the vow differently or found some other way to carry it out. It's
sort of interesting that in Handel's Jephthah, an angel intervenes and
the sacrifice is turned into a vow of virginity. But I've seen no
suggestion that this is based on any historical tradition.
At any rate, most Israelite heroes also sinned in serious ways.
Consider Samson and David. Jephthah did also rely on God in his war
with the Ammonites, and delivered Israel thereby. I doubt that the
author of Heb. was trying to suggest that people had to be perfect.
--clh]crf@mace.princeton.edu (Charles Ferenbaugh) (04/18/91)
In article <Apr.14.02.18.34.1991.20031@athos.rutgers.edu> ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes: >[Asking why Jephthah is included in the list of heroes in Heb. 11, after > some of the "monstrous" things he did in his life. Then:] >Or am I reading too much into Hebrews 11? Is the author claiming no >more than "_once_ in his life, Jephthah trusted God in a battle against >Israel's oppressors"? Probably that's all that's being claimed. Last night I happened to run across the following passage in 1 Samuel; the context is Samuel's recounting of Israel's history just before anointing Saul king. "...But [the Israelites] forgot the LORD their God; and he sold them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of Jabin king of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab; and they fought against them. And they cried to the LORD, and said, `We have sinned, because we have forsaken the LORD, and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth; but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve thee.' And the LORD sent Jerubbaal and Barak, and _Jephthah_, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side; and you dwelt in safety...." (1 Samuel 12:9-11, RSV; emphasis added) So apparently, from very early on, Jephthah was remembered more for his deliverance of Israel than for his other, less virtuous actions. And if this is true even in Samuel's day, it's more likely to be true by the time Hebrews was written. Grace and peace, Charles Ferenbaugh
kroth@uunet.uu.net (Ken Roth) (04/25/91)
>Hebrews 11 is the famous chapter on the heroes of faith: Abel, Enoch, >Noach, Abraham, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah >... HANG ON A MINUTE THERE! What's _Jephthah_ doing in that list? Ah yes, another perennial(sp?) problem, one which has made many people wonder through the ages. I will not delete most of the article, to save myself typing time. [Heb 11:32-34 deleted] >Now, the story of Jephthah is found in the "Book of Monsters", >in Judges chs 11 and 12. [deleted some about why it can be called the 'Book of Monsters'] >But the worst thing about Jephthah is his rash vow and consequent >sacrifice of his daughter. Never mind the author of Judges, how >could the author of _Hebrews_ possibly have thought well of someone >who had committed human sacrifice? >I can think of only three explanations, and I'm posting this in order to >ask for more. >1. The author of Hebrews didn't mean to write "Jephthah"; either he > made a slip of the pen or it has crept in during subsequent copying. > -- I have put my trust in God's Word, but I do not believe that > copyists are infallible. (Ever heard of the "wicked Bible"?) You cannot allow for this, because a mis-copy this large would be caught for the very same reason you point out, it seems too strange. >2. The author of Hebrews had a different Jephthah in mind. > -- That's not impossible. There are _many_ cases of famous > people with similar names living around the same time. (When > I was an undergraduate I once received someone else's results, > because we had the same name, not just the same surname.) > However, one would expect to find evidence for this other > Jephthah. Nope, same Jephthah. [Possibly a different story known by author] Ok, I might as well start some major commenting here. One day when I was skimming through some texts in the college library, I came upon a thesis called 'Jephthah's and his Vow' (Or something like that). I was interested and picked it up to get an overview of the text. When I reached the conclusion, the first sentence was 'Jephthah killed his daughter.' Period, that's it. I have had a class with a discussion of this story at least once, and the only reasonable explanation is that he did, in fact, kill his daughter. There is no way to explain it away, and we should not even try. We have to say, looking back, that he did a great wrong. The wrong was not sacrificing his daughter, but making a foolish vow before God. The book of Judges has written in it, three times, the phrase 'everyone did as he saw fit'. And there are dozens of occasions of 'The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord'. These were times when everyone did what they thought to be right. Did God TELL Jephthah to kill his daughter? Or even to make the vow? No. >Or am I reading too much into Hebrews 11? Is the author claiming no >more than "_once_ in his life, Jephthah trusted God in a battle against >Israel's oppressors"? Well, Jephthah DID trust God in this battle. Just as David trusted God to destroy the wicked who seek to harm him, Jephthah trusted God to accept his sacrifice even before he gave it. He DID release the nation from the oppression of their neighbors. The moderator adds... >As to Jephthah, I'm not sure I think he's as much a monster as you >paint him. It's clear that the author of Judges does to some extent >see this as a period of anarchy, when there was no king. But I am >reluctant to judge people by later standards. Just to show that God uses fools like Jephthah (and me8-). I think it is also important to realize that we cannot judge the people of the ooollddddeenn days like we do people today. This does not excuse their actions, but puts them in the correct perspective. Some people say that the Israelites were cruel in killing whole groups of people off, including the women and children, but compare what they did to the Assyrians and such, and you will see that they were MUCH nicer than these other empires. Go in peace. Ken Roth