{"id":62346,"date":"2022-12-27T07:00:33","date_gmt":"2022-12-27T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=62346"},"modified":"2022-12-27T05:42:52","modified_gmt":"2022-12-27T10:42:52","slug":"12-27-flashback-rash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/","title":{"rendered":"12\/27 Flashback: ‘Rash’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

From December 27, 2012, \u201cRegarding Jephthah\u2019s daughter<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

I linked yesterday to Rachel Barenblatt\u2019s poem on \u201cthe nameless daughter of Yiftach<\/a>\u00a0(in English, his name is usually rendered Jephthah).\u201d<\/p>\n

The story of Jephthah is told in\u00a0Judges 11<\/a>, with the fate of his daughter described in\u00a0Judges 11:34-40<\/a>. Before going to battle with the Ammonites, Jephthah made a vow to God:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord\u2019s, to be offered up by me as a burnt-offering.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He defeats the enemy and returns home, and then:<\/p>\n

There was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, \u201cAlas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Barenblatt teaches me something I hadn\u2019t known about this story, and about the winter holy days we celebrate in December: \u201cTekufat tevet,<\/em> the winter solstice, is regarded as the date when Yiftach\u2019s [Jephthah\u2019s] daughter was killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The darkest day of the year seems appropriate for such a dark story. Note that this tradition assumes that Jephthat\u2019s daughter \u201cwas killed.\u201d That is undeniably what this story suggests \u2014 a sacrifice to God \u201cas a burnt-offering.\u201d Barenblatt\u2019s powerful poem reflects on this.\u00a0Read the whole thing<\/a>, but here is the final stanza:<\/p>\n

when he burned her bones
\nno prophet spoke God\u2019s anger
\nand the maidens mourned alone<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She also points us to Alicia Ostriker\u2019s long poem\/ritual script\/cantata \u201cJephthah\u2019s Daughter: A Lament<\/a>.\u201d Ostriker begins with the final verse in the story of Jephthah and his daughter as the basis for this ritual: \u201cAnd it was a custom in Israel, that the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is in the Bible, so for Christians, this story is part of\u00a0our<\/em>\u00a0story.<\/p>\n

And we don\u2019t even know her name.<\/p>\n

Some interpreters of this story have latched onto a slightly less horrifying reading, suggesting that Jephthah\u2019s daughter was not killed as a sacrifice, but was instead dedicated to God, set apart in seclusion as a perpetual virgin.<\/p>\n

I certainly prefer that reading to the plainer one, but as much as I\u2019d prefer to read this story that way, I don\u2019t find the case for this reading very persuasive. This is the book of Judges \u2014 a relentlessly bloody collection of tales of slaughter, rape, terror and even a\u00a0suicide bombing<\/a>. There\u2019s little in the chapters preceding or in the chapters following the story of Jephthah that suggests we should look for a less horrifying way of spinning this story.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0entry on Jephthah in the Jewish Encyclopedia<\/a>\u00a0mentions this alternative interpretation, but dismisses it:<\/p>\n

According to some commentators \u2026 Jephthah only kept his daughter in seclusion. But in Targ. Yer. to Judges xi. 39 and the Midrash it is taken for granted that Jephthah immolated his daughter on the altar, which is regarded as a criminal act; for he might have applied to Phinehas to absolve him from his vow. But Jephthah was proud: \u201cI, a judge of Israel, will not humiliate myself to my inferior.\u201d Neither was Phinehas, the high priest, willing to go to Jephthah. Both were punished. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rabbinical commentary on the story is fascinating:<\/p>\n

The Rabbis concluded also that Jephthah was an ignorant man, else he would have known that a vow of that kind is not valid; according to R. Johanan, Jephthah had merely to pay a certain sum to the sacred treasury of the Temple in order to be freed from the vow; according to R. Simeon ben La\u1e33ish, he was free even without such a payment (Gen. R. l.c.; comp. Lev. R. xxxvii. 3). According to Tan., Be\u1e25u\u1e33\u1e33otai, 7, and Midrash Haggadah to Lev. xxvii. 2, even when Jephthah made the vow God was irritated against him: \u201cWhat will Jephthah do if an unclean animal comes out to meet him?\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, when he was on the point of immolating his daughter, she inquired, \u201cIs it written in the Torah that human beings should be brought as burnt offerings?\u201d He replied, \u201cMy daughter, my vow was, \u2018whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house.\u2019\u201d She answered, \u201cBut Jacob, too, vowed that he would give to Yhwh the tenth part of all that Yhwh gave him (Gen. xxviii. 22); did he sacrifice any of his sons?\u201d But Jephthah remained inflexible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What impresses me in this commentary is the rabbis\u2019 condemnation of Jephthah\u2019s vow as \u201cnot valid.\u201d That\u2019s quite different from the way I was taught this story in my own evangelical\/fundamentalist Christian tradition, in which this story is almost always referred to as that of \u201cJephthah\u2019s\u00a0Rash<\/em>\u00a0Vow<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

That word \u2014 \u201crash\u201d \u2014 is treated as the key point of this story, which is presented as a cautionary tale against imprudent or reckless promises. I don\u2019t recall ever hearing a Sunday sermon on the story of Jephthah, but I probably heard a half-dozen Sunday school or Bible class lessons, and all of them pointed to this as the moral of this immoral story: Don\u2019t make rash vows, because you will be bound by them just like Jephthah was.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s monstrous \u2014 almost as horrifying as the original story. Those well-meaning Sunday school teachers all assumed, as Jephthah did, that he was absolutely\u00a0bound<\/em>\u00a0by his vow, no matter what. And thus they all repeated Jephthah\u2019s error \u2014 assuming that such vows and rules might somehow matter more than the life of Jephthah\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n

That seems to me to be precisely the opposite of what this brutal little story actually illustrates. It shows us the lethal ignorance and sinful pride of remaining \u201cinflexible.\u201d The story of Jephthah is the story of everyone who decides that vows and codes and rules must be absolute. That way of thinking always ends in death.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That way of thinking always ends in death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n12\/27 Flashback: 'Rash'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"That way of thinking always ends in death.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"12\/27 Flashback: 'Rash'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"That way of thinking always ends in death.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-12-27T12:00:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-12-27T10:42:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/\",\"name\":\"12\/27 Flashback: 'Rash'\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-12-27T12:00:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-12-27T10:42:52+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"That way of thinking always ends in death.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"12\/27 Flashback: ‘Rash’\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\",\"name\":\"Fred Clark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Fred Clark\"},\"description\":\"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"12\/27 Flashback: 'Rash'","description":"That way of thinking always ends in death.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"12\/27 Flashback: 'Rash'","og_description":"That way of thinking always ends in death.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2022-12-27T12:00:33+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-12-27T10:42:52+00:00","author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/","name":"12\/27 Flashback: 'Rash'","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2022-12-27T12:00:33+00:00","dateModified":"2022-12-27T10:42:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47"},"description":"That way of thinking always ends in death.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2022\/12\/27\/12-27-flashback-rash\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"12\/27 Flashback: ‘Rash’"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47","name":"Fred Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Fred Clark"},"description":"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}