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Why, if Jephthah the Judge of Israel were a child
killer,
would Paul praise him for his “faith” (Hebrews
11:32-33)?
The rollicking and bloodthirsty Book
of Judges has been a stumbling block for some, with preachers recoiling in
horror from the very thought of engaging in a discussion of the incident of
Jephthah and his supposed sacrifice to God of his own daughter – his only child
in fact.
But was Jephthah really that
foolish?
Even those clever authors, I.
Kikawada and A. Quinn (Before
Abraham Was: The Unity of Genesis 1-11, Ignatius: 1985) are aghast at what
they regard as the callous and pitiless “Song of Deborah”, and also the antics
of the strong man, Samson, about whom they write (p. 134):
Samson
fits the pattern of a champion worthy of a people unworthy of their God--a champion strong
but stupid, willful, lustful, unclean; one of his great triumphs coming after
the humiliation of Judah (the once vaunted lion's whelp) and through the
ridiculous agency of the ass's jawbone; his other triumph coming after his own
humiliation by the uncircumcised and through an act tantamount to suicide. Even
in this final triumph the author takes care to deflect our sympathies.
Samson calls not for God's glory but for his own revenge. And then there is
the young boy who places Samson's hands on the pillars, the young boy who in an
act of kindness places Samson so he can rest, a young boy who for his kindness
will be crushed to death.
And they continue on in the same fashion (p. 135): “….Samson’s
willingness to defile himself for sweets is a nice commentary on his desire for
Gentile women”.
Samson is so stupid according to these authors’ way of
thinking that he even gets wrong his own riddle (ibid.): “Samson’s answer is
completely wrong. In particular, we can now understand the suggestion made by
Torczyner in the 1920s that the correct solution to this riddle is “vomit”.”
This supposed “solution”, however, completely misses
the point of Samson’s riddle - Samson knew exactly what he meant by it. Here
follows an account of the more enlightened explanation of the riddle by
professor Cyrus Gordon.
Peter
Buckley | January 14, 2012
One of Britain’s iconic foodstuffs is Lyle’s
Golden Syrup. Everyone knows the century-old design: a round tin can with a lid
you prise off with a knife; racing green bodywork with the golden words arching
over a central picture of a dried dead lion, and emanating from its stomach is
a swarm of bees. A strange image for a foodstuff?
Under the logo are the words: “Out of
the strong came forth sweetness”, a reference by its creator Abram
Lyle to a scene in the Bible. While no one is certain why this quotation was
chosen, Abram Lyle was a deeply religious man and it has been suggested that it
refers either to the strength of the Lyle company which delivers the sweet
syrup or possibly even to the trademark tins in which Golden Syrup is sold.
Lyle’s is “Britain’s oldest brand” according to the Guinness Book of World Records , having
remained almost unchanged since 1885. So the lion corpse definitely hasn’t done
them any harm!
The full quote, a riddle, is “Out of
the eater something to eat came forth, and out of the strong something sweet
came forth” (Judges 14:14 NWT)
This is a good example of a bible account in
the style of journalism, accurately conveying what took place. Samson killed a
lion and later found that bees had made a hive in the carcass, from which honey
was dripping. The strong aversion of most bees to dead bodies and carrion is
well known. However, the account states that Samson returned “after a while”
or, literally in the Hebrew, “after days,” a phrase that can refer to a period
of even a year (The expression “from year to year” in Hebrew is literally “from
days to days”). The time elapsed would allow for scavenger birds or animals and
also insects to have consumed the flesh or the burning rays of the sun to
desiccate the remainder. That a fair amount of time had passed is also evident
from the fact that the swarm of bees not only had formed their nest within the
lion’s corpse but also had produced a quantity of honey. He told nobody about
the lion or the honey, but made a pact with the Philistines that within a week
they could not solve the riddle. In translation there is no possible way to
solve this riddle without being in on the secret about the lion and the bees.
The Philistines found out the answer from Samson’s wife Delilah, who had nagged
Samson into telling her. They [succeeded] by saying to Samson just before the
week expired: “What is sweeter than honey, and what is
stronger than a lion (a-ri)?” (Judges 14:18)
It happens that while ‘a-ri’
is well-known in the sense of ‘lion’ it is at the same time a very rare word
for ‘honey’ preserved in Arabic, but nowhere in extant Hebrew literature. The
biblical text is cleverly constructed, because up to that point in the account,
it refrains from calling the lion ‘a-ri’. Instead the solution is
kept from the reader by calling the lion a ‘ke-fir a-rayot’ (maned young lion)
and later, ‘a-ryeh’
(apparently distinguishing the larger African from the Asian lion),
neither of use in solving the riddle. One example of how every word is there
for a reason.
Saint Paul did not share the negative opinions of
modern commentators about the Judges, including in his praise of them “Samson and
Jephthah” (Hebrews 11:32-33): “And what more shall I say? I do not have time to
tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah …. who through faith conquered
kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised …”.
The
following item provides us with a far more realistic interpretation of the
Jephthah incident (from http://www.htdb.net/1901/r2897.htm):
JEPHTHAH'S
VOW--A BETTER TRANSLATION.
The original, Judges
11:30, when properly translated, reads thus:
'And it shall be that whoever comes forth of the doors of my house to meet me,
when I return in peace, from the children of Ammon, shall surely be Jehovah's,
and I will offer to him a burnt offering.' The vow contains two parts:
(1) That person
who would meet him on his return should be Jehovah's, and be dedicated forever
to his service, as Hannah devoted Samuel before he was born. (1 Sam.
1:11.)
(2) That Jephthah
himself would offer a burnt offering to Jehovah.
Human sacrifices
were prohibited by the Law (Deut.
12:30); and the priests would not offer them.
Such a vow would have been impious, and could not have been performed. It may
be safely concluded that Jephthah's daughter was devoted to perpetual virginity;
and with this idea agrees the statements that 'she went to bewail her
virginity;' that the women went four times in every year to mourn or talk with
(not for) her; that Jephthah did according to his vow, and that 'she
knew no man.'
We are glad that
our attention is called to this evidently better translation, which clears away
the difficulty, and shows that the burnt-offering was one thing, and the
devotion of the daughter another thing. We are to remember, too, the testimony
of the entire Old Testament, to the effect that prior to our Lord's birth all
the women of Israel coveted earnestly the great blessing and privilege of being
possibly the mother of Messiah, or amongst his forebears. We are to remember,
also, the exultant language of the Virgin Mary when finally it was announced to
her that she had won this long-sought prize: "Henceforth all shall call me
blessed"--all shall recognize me as the one who has attained this blessed
privilege of being the mother of Messiah.
Possible Literary Appropriations of the Jephthah
Story
We may get
glimpses of the famous story in later literature, e.g., Greek, Islamic.
(i)
Agamemnon and Iphigenia
The Homeric masterpieces,
Iliad and Odyssey - thought to be the “classics” and “key works”
of “western civilization” - are replete with biblical allusions.
I have previously
pointed out:
Similarities to The Odyssey of the Books of Job and Tobit
The Book of
Tobit apparently influenced other Greek literature as well, as we read at (http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=12-02-036-f):
…. some readers have found in [the
Book of] Tobit similarities to still other pagan themes, such as the legend of Admetus. …. More convincing … however, are
points of contact with classical Greek theater. Martin Luther observed
similarities between Tobit and Greek comedy … but one is even more impressed by
resemblances that the Book of Tobit bears to a work of Greek tragedy—the
Antigone of Sophocles. In both stories the moral stature of the heroes is
chiefly exemplified in their bravely burying the dead in the face of official
prohibition and at the risk of official punishment. In both cases a venerable
moral tradition is maintained against a political tyranny destructive of piety.
That same Greek drama, moreover, provides a further parallel to the blindness
of Tobit in the character of blind Teiresias, himself also a man of an inner
moral vision important to the theme of the play.
Bearing just as obvious a
connection with non-biblical literature, I believe, is the demon Asmodeus
(Tobit 3:8), who is doubtless to be identified, on purely morphological
grounds, with Aeshma Daeva, a figure well known in ancient Iranian religion. …. Moreover, Tobit’s nephew Ahikar
(1:22) is certainly identical with a literary character of the same name, time,
place, and circumstances, found in the Elephantine papyri from the late fifth
century B.C. …. In short, whatever may be the case relative to questions of
historical dependency, Tobit’s cultural contacts with the ancient world of
religion, philosophy, and literature are numerous and varied. ….
[End of quote]
One
could greatly multiply examples such as these.
And it
may be the case, too, that the story of Agamemnon and Iphigenia owes something
to the Judges’ story of Jephthah and his daughter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigenia):
The Achaean (Greek) fleet was preparing to go
to war against Troy and had
amassed in Aulis. While there, Agamemnon, the
leader of the expedition, killed a deer in a grove sacred to the goddess Artemis. She
punished him by interfering with the winds (either by becalming them or by
blowing the ships back into port) so that his fleet could not sail to Troy.
The seer Calchas
revealed that in order to appease Artemis, Agamemnon must sacrifice his
eldest daughter, Iphigenia. Agamemnon at first refused, but, under pressure
from the other commanders eventually agreed.[4]
Iphigenia and her mother Clytemnestra were
brought to Aulis under the pretext of a marriage to Achilles, but
soon discovered that the marriage was a ruse. In some versions of the story,
Iphigenia remains unaware of her imminent sacrifice until the last moment,
believing that she is led to the altar to be married.
My comment: Though Iphigenia, like the daughter
of Jephthah, may not finally have been sacrificed.
The article continues:
Whether or not Iphigenia was actually
sacrificed depends on the source. According to Hyginus' Fabulae,
Iphigenia was not sacrificed.[4] Some
sources claim that Iphigenia was taken by Artemis to Tauris in Crimea on the
moment of the sacrifice, and that the goddess left a deer[5] or a
goat (the god Pan transformed) in her place. The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women called
her Iphimede (Ἰφιμέδη)[6] and
told that Artemis transformed her into the goddess Hecate.[7] Antoninus Liberalis said
that Iphigenia was transported to the island of Leuke, where
she was wedded to immortalized Achilles under
the name of Orsilochia.
(ii)
Prophet Mohammed and Jephthah
Now we also find
that poor ‘Abdullah, the father of Mohammed, in an episode that harkens back to
the era of the Judges, to Jephthah’s vow, in fact, wrongly construed (Judges
11:30): ‘… whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return
in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a
burnt offering’, was elected by his father, ‘Abdel Muttalib, as the one of his
ten sons to be sacrificed to God in thanksgiving.
Ultimately
‘Abdullah was spared that grim fate, due to an encounter between ‘Abdel
Muttalib and the shamaness, Shiya.
{Here, again, in
the case of the ruler and Shiya, we may have a reminiscence of king Saul of
Israel’s clandestine visit to the witch of Endor (I Samuel 28:7)}.
Another facet of
the Jephthah story will recur again in the biography of Mohammed, later, in the
quite different context of which person will have the honour of placing the
fabled Black Stone of the Ka’aba back on the eastern wall after repairs.
Abu Umayyah will
advise the assembled crowd to wait for the next person who will come through a
nearby gate in the courtyard of the Ka’aba. That person was, as fate would have
it, Mohammed himself.
A less traumatic
fate, however, than the one experienced by Jephthah’s daughter!
This whole wall
building episode in the story of Mohammed is somewhat like the biblical one of
Nehemiah. And Mohammed strangely has a contemporary “Nehemiah”.
See my:
Two Supposed Nehemiahs: BC time and
AD time
As I have come
to conclude in a two-part article:
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