ATDTDA (17): Jephthah (466.6)

[Michael Lee Bailey]

still raises some interesting questions:

is there a celibacy tradition in Judaism?
-- probably: nothing new under the sun...

also, isn't that a nauseatingly oppressive 
abuse of paternal authority there,
either way?

Judaism did forbid human sacrifice, in fact
that Abraham / Isaac scene is one of the great
things to rejoice about in the Jewish tradition

Yet they remained a very warlike people, is this
a Freudian "return of the repressed"?
Saul and David and Solomon with all their wars,
Absalom, just as dead as Isaac would have been...

got to say, they did have some cool names though:
Jephthah, Ebenezer, Ahab, Jehoshaphat.




> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Morris [mailto:fqmorris at gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, September 7, 2007 01:11 PM
> To: 'Michael J. Hußmann'
> Cc: 'Pynchon List'
> Subject: Re: ATDTDA (17): Jephthah (466.6)
>
> 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
> >
> >
> >
>
>