ATDTDA (17): Jephthah (466.6)

[David Morris]

http://www.jba.gr/Articles/jbadec06b.htm

The link I included (above) in my post was "a chapter from the book of
E. W. Bullinger [himself]: Great cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 11,
Kregel Publications, 1979, pp. 324-331."

You may call it desperate, but it is an attempt to reconcile some very
apparent disparities in the text:

1.  Judaism forbade human sacrifice.

2.  The text doesn't say his daughter was killed as a "burnt
offering," it says she "bewailed her virginity" and that, implementing
her father's vow "she knew no man."

And, as for translation, Bullinger offers this (did you read this
before your last post?):

-----------------------------------------------
It is important to remember that the ancient Jewish Commentator Rabbi
David Kimchi (1160-1232) renders the words of the vow (Judges 11:31)
very differently from the A.V (editor's note: A.V. = Authorised
version, KJV) and R.V. (editor's note: R.V. = Revised version), and he
tells us that his father Rabbi Joseph Kimchi (died 1180) held the same
view. Both father and son, together with Rabi Levi ben Gerson (born
1288), all of them among the most eminent of Hebrew grammarians and
commentators, who ought to know better than any Gentile commentator,
gave their unqualified approval to the rendering of the words of the
vow which, instead of making it relate to one object, translate and
interpret it as consisting of two distinct parts.

This is done by observing the well known rule that the connective
particle ו (vau, our English v) is often used as a disjunctive, and
means "or", when there is a second proposition. Indeed this rendering
is suggested in the margin of the A.V.

The following passages may be consulted:

Genesis 41:44
"Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man
lift up his hand OR foot in all the land of Egypt."
------------------------------------------------------------------

I make no claims about literalism ( nor do I make unfounded assertions
about other's intents), and I have no faith.  I merely try to
rationally interpret the text, something many do not wish to attempt.

David Morris

On 9/6/07, Michael J. Hußmann <michael at michael-hussmann.de> wrote:
> David Morris (fqmorris at gmail.com) wrote:
>
> > The following web link explains that the vow had 2 parts separated by an "or" not "and."  He thus vowed to "dedicate to the Lord" OR "offer a burnt sacrifice," depending on whether man or beats first greeted him.
>
> That's a rather desperate attempt to save Jephta. I'm not aware of any translation of the Bible that has "or" rather than "and" here, not even the Companion Bible edited by Bullinger himself (where he offered the same explaining away of the the killing of Jephta's daughter, but kept it to the footnotes). It's the kind of tactics employed when one wants to read the Bible as literally true, and also wants keep one's faith -- generally not an advisable thing to do.
>
> - Michael
>
>
> Michael J. Hußmann
>
> E-mail: michael at michael-hussmann.de
> WWW (personal): http://michael-hussmann.de
> WWW (professional): http://digicam-experts.de
>
>
>