The limitations of popular, devotional readings of scripture
The story of Jephthah in Judges 11-12 is a great example of the inherent limitations in popular, devotional readings of scripture.
If you don’t know the story, Jephthah makes a deal with God to win a war. In exchange for success on the battlefield Jephthah vows to sacrifice to God whatever comes out of his house to greet him when he returns. I’m guessing he assumed it would be the family cat or dog or little ewe lamb. He probably wasn’t expecting it to be his daughter.
But that’s what happens. Jephthah wins the battle and when he returns home his daughter comes out of the house to greet him.
And because Jephthah believes that God gave him success in battle in response to his vow, Jephthah believes he has to follow through. If he fails to honor his vow God could renegue on the victory or allow some greater calamity to befall him and his people.[1]
Jephthah is understandably wrecked by the unforeseen turn of events, but what can he do? The story doesn’t record the details, but the reader understands that after giving her a short time to mourn with her friends, Jephthah murders his daughter.
For God.
This is one of those stories where it appears on the surface that God is endorsing the kind of violence that really troubles the modern reader. These are the stories that make people not want to read their Bibles or be Christian.
But stories like this don’t just trouble modern readers. They troubled ancient readers as well. The earliest Christians who were convinced that the God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ was the very same God who engaged their ancestors in the pages of their scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) struggled to understand how the same God who died on the cross could endorse violence like this.
Unwilling to give up their faith, however, their approach to stories like this was to look for what Saint Augustine would later call “hidden kernels of truth that can be plucked out for the nourishment of charity.”[2]
In other words, they asked themselves what they could take from the story that might benefit them in their Christian walk, very similar to popular devotional readings today. For instance, the author of the Book of Hebrews highlights Jephthah as a model of faithfulness alongside characters like Gideon, Samson, and even King David.[3]
The way that New Testament authors reconciled stories like the story of Jephthah was to spiritualize them. Jephthah becomes a model of faith. He made a vow to God and even though it cost him greatly to keep it, he kept it.
You should too, or so the devotional logic goes.
And while that may be a perfectly reasonable and helpful way to approach the Jephthah story, it sidesteps some pretty serious questions about God’s character. Did God accept Jephthah’s vow? Did God actually give Jephthah victory in battle in exchange for a sacrifice? In other words, had Jephthah just marched into battle without consulting God first, would God have prevented him from being successful? And when Jephthah’s daughter came out of the house to greet him, did God actually want Jephthah to follow through on his vow? Would God have been angry with Jephthah and caused some great calamity to befall him had Jephthah renegotiated after realizing his promise would mean having to kill his own daughter?
The author of the Book of Hebrews avoids all these thorny questions by spiritualizing the Jephthah story and making it about faith. That was a perfectly acceptable technique in the ancient world and remains a perfectly valid way to approach scripture today if all you’re looking for is “what you can get out of it.” But in my experience, it does not satisfy the critical inquirer who’s seriously debating whether the God of Christianity can be loved and trusted.
What does seem to satisfy (at least moreso) is considering the possibility that just because something is written in the Bible does not mean it reflects a completely accurate view of God. An interesting feature of the Jephthah story is that God takes no direct action. Jephthah assumes he can make a deal with God, and he clearly attributes his victory to God’s intervention (based on his vow), but God never enters the story to speak or act. God never says, “Sounds good. Deal.” Or, “I know you weren’t expecting it to be your daughter, but a vow’s a vow.” Or, “If you don’t follow through, something terrible is going to happen to you.”
Those were all common assumptions in Jephthah’s day, which the story clearly reflects, but there is no voice in the story that endorses or affirms those perspectives. The story doesn’t affirm Jephthah’s beliefs. It merely reflects them.
What else could it do? If this is how everyone in the ancient world thought about God, including the author of the story, you should expect the story to read as if Jephthah was correct in his assumptions.
But that doesn’t mean he was, just because the story is in the Bible.
Is it possible that God had nothing to do with the battle, just like God had nothing to do with your recent soccer game? Is it possible good people from both sides were praying to God for victory? And if God had nothing to do with the battle, Jephthah killing his daughter was wrong. He may have believed he was honoring God when in fact it was something God didn’t want him to do.
Let me give you another example of this. In the book of Joshua, we read that the Israelites conquer the town of Jericho, the first settlement they attack upon entering the promised land. Next up is a town called Ai. This time, however, they lose.
Everyone is wondering what happened?
They reason that they must have lost because God had abandoned them and that God must have abandoned them because someone in their camp had been disobedient. And sure enough, when they go looking for an offender, they find a man named Achan who had stolen some supposedly forbidden items from Jericho the day before. After killing Achan and his family they attack Ai again and this time they are successful, reinforcing the belief that they had been unsuccessful the first time because God had withdrawn his support. That is the perspective the story reflects. It does not endorse or affirm that perspective. It simply reflects it as the belief of the people writing the story.
Interestingly, however, the Ai story also says that when the Israelites lost the first offensive against Ai they only sent 3,000 troops, believing victory would be easy against such a small, unfortified settlement. The second time, however, they sent 30,000 troops and didn’t just try to hit Ai head on like Civil War soldiers lined up across from each other in an open field exchanging canon blows but instead engaged in some guerilla warfare tactics the people of Ai were clearly not expecting.
So, did they lose the first battle because they were disobedient and God abandoned their cause or because they were arrogant and didn’t take enough troops? Were they successful the second time around because they purged the evil from among them and God rejoined their cause or because humbled by their loss the first time they took enough troops the second time to actually get the job done?
We know how they rationalized things because that is the perspective the story reflects. That does not mean it is the perspective “the Bible” endorses. Just because Jephthah believed God gave him victory in battle and would be pleased with him if he murdered his own daughter to fulfill a vow does not mean God actually gave him victory in battle or was actually pleased with what he did.
Just because the Bible reflects it does not mean it affirms it.
It is an immutable law that you can only communicate with people in language they can understand. To divinely change conceptual convictions—like God accepts vows and gives people victory in battle—would be for God to engage in a kind of gnostic magic, something God does not do. If a person believes that by making a vow to God he is more likely to win a war, believes he won the battle because he made a vow to God, and then believes he needs to keep his vow or God may renegue on the victory, God can’t just sit that person down and say, “Let me tell you how you’re entire conceptual way of understanding God, life, and reality is wrong.”
God will eventually be able to reveal those truths in and through the person of Jesus, but it will take countless more incremental steps. Jephthah just wasn’t there yet.
But we are, or at least we ought to be. Because of Jesus we know the character of God. Because of Jesus we know that God does not want you to make these kinds of vows and he certainly doesn’t want you to follow through with them if they involve harming your children. God does not endorse this kind of violence and certainly not as a form of faithfulness to him.
Jephthah was simply mistaken. It was an honest mistake. It was a mistake he couldn’t help but make. And it was a mistake God couldn’t just bypass. So, it’s in the Bible as part of the record of God dealing with people and people dealing with God. But just because it is in the Bible does not mean it reflects a completely accurate truth about God.
Only Jesus does that.
[1] While they were technically his people in the sense that he was their half-sibling (same father but Jephthah had a prostitute for a mother), Jephthah had been living estranged from his clan for some time because they refused to share their inheritance with him. They only summon him because they recognize he’s a great warrior and they need him to defeat their enemy. All that to say, I’m not sure how concerned Jephthah was with the welfare of “his people.” Odds are he was mostly in it for the power and authority they promised him if he won.
[2] Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, 3.12.18.
[3] Hebrews 11:32
If you don’t know the story, Jephthah makes a deal with God to win a war. In exchange for success on the battlefield Jephthah vows to sacrifice to God whatever comes out of his house to greet him when he returns. I’m guessing he assumed it would be the family cat or dog or little ewe lamb. He probably wasn’t expecting it to be his daughter.
But that’s what happens. Jephthah wins the battle and when he returns home his daughter comes out of the house to greet him.
And because Jephthah believes that God gave him success in battle in response to his vow, Jephthah believes he has to follow through. If he fails to honor his vow God could renegue on the victory or allow some greater calamity to befall him and his people.[1]
Jephthah is understandably wrecked by the unforeseen turn of events, but what can he do? The story doesn’t record the details, but the reader understands that after giving her a short time to mourn with her friends, Jephthah murders his daughter.
For God.
This is one of those stories where it appears on the surface that God is endorsing the kind of violence that really troubles the modern reader. These are the stories that make people not want to read their Bibles or be Christian.
But stories like this don’t just trouble modern readers. They troubled ancient readers as well. The earliest Christians who were convinced that the God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ was the very same God who engaged their ancestors in the pages of their scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) struggled to understand how the same God who died on the cross could endorse violence like this.
Unwilling to give up their faith, however, their approach to stories like this was to look for what Saint Augustine would later call “hidden kernels of truth that can be plucked out for the nourishment of charity.”[2]
In other words, they asked themselves what they could take from the story that might benefit them in their Christian walk, very similar to popular devotional readings today. For instance, the author of the Book of Hebrews highlights Jephthah as a model of faithfulness alongside characters like Gideon, Samson, and even King David.[3]
The way that New Testament authors reconciled stories like the story of Jephthah was to spiritualize them. Jephthah becomes a model of faith. He made a vow to God and even though it cost him greatly to keep it, he kept it.
You should too, or so the devotional logic goes.
And while that may be a perfectly reasonable and helpful way to approach the Jephthah story, it sidesteps some pretty serious questions about God’s character. Did God accept Jephthah’s vow? Did God actually give Jephthah victory in battle in exchange for a sacrifice? In other words, had Jephthah just marched into battle without consulting God first, would God have prevented him from being successful? And when Jephthah’s daughter came out of the house to greet him, did God actually want Jephthah to follow through on his vow? Would God have been angry with Jephthah and caused some great calamity to befall him had Jephthah renegotiated after realizing his promise would mean having to kill his own daughter?
The author of the Book of Hebrews avoids all these thorny questions by spiritualizing the Jephthah story and making it about faith. That was a perfectly acceptable technique in the ancient world and remains a perfectly valid way to approach scripture today if all you’re looking for is “what you can get out of it.” But in my experience, it does not satisfy the critical inquirer who’s seriously debating whether the God of Christianity can be loved and trusted.
What does seem to satisfy (at least moreso) is considering the possibility that just because something is written in the Bible does not mean it reflects a completely accurate view of God. An interesting feature of the Jephthah story is that God takes no direct action. Jephthah assumes he can make a deal with God, and he clearly attributes his victory to God’s intervention (based on his vow), but God never enters the story to speak or act. God never says, “Sounds good. Deal.” Or, “I know you weren’t expecting it to be your daughter, but a vow’s a vow.” Or, “If you don’t follow through, something terrible is going to happen to you.”
Those were all common assumptions in Jephthah’s day, which the story clearly reflects, but there is no voice in the story that endorses or affirms those perspectives. The story doesn’t affirm Jephthah’s beliefs. It merely reflects them.
What else could it do? If this is how everyone in the ancient world thought about God, including the author of the story, you should expect the story to read as if Jephthah was correct in his assumptions.
But that doesn’t mean he was, just because the story is in the Bible.
Is it possible that God had nothing to do with the battle, just like God had nothing to do with your recent soccer game? Is it possible good people from both sides were praying to God for victory? And if God had nothing to do with the battle, Jephthah killing his daughter was wrong. He may have believed he was honoring God when in fact it was something God didn’t want him to do.
Let me give you another example of this. In the book of Joshua, we read that the Israelites conquer the town of Jericho, the first settlement they attack upon entering the promised land. Next up is a town called Ai. This time, however, they lose.
Everyone is wondering what happened?
They reason that they must have lost because God had abandoned them and that God must have abandoned them because someone in their camp had been disobedient. And sure enough, when they go looking for an offender, they find a man named Achan who had stolen some supposedly forbidden items from Jericho the day before. After killing Achan and his family they attack Ai again and this time they are successful, reinforcing the belief that they had been unsuccessful the first time because God had withdrawn his support. That is the perspective the story reflects. It does not endorse or affirm that perspective. It simply reflects it as the belief of the people writing the story.
Interestingly, however, the Ai story also says that when the Israelites lost the first offensive against Ai they only sent 3,000 troops, believing victory would be easy against such a small, unfortified settlement. The second time, however, they sent 30,000 troops and didn’t just try to hit Ai head on like Civil War soldiers lined up across from each other in an open field exchanging canon blows but instead engaged in some guerilla warfare tactics the people of Ai were clearly not expecting.
So, did they lose the first battle because they were disobedient and God abandoned their cause or because they were arrogant and didn’t take enough troops? Were they successful the second time around because they purged the evil from among them and God rejoined their cause or because humbled by their loss the first time they took enough troops the second time to actually get the job done?
We know how they rationalized things because that is the perspective the story reflects. That does not mean it is the perspective “the Bible” endorses. Just because Jephthah believed God gave him victory in battle and would be pleased with him if he murdered his own daughter to fulfill a vow does not mean God actually gave him victory in battle or was actually pleased with what he did.
Just because the Bible reflects it does not mean it affirms it.
It is an immutable law that you can only communicate with people in language they can understand. To divinely change conceptual convictions—like God accepts vows and gives people victory in battle—would be for God to engage in a kind of gnostic magic, something God does not do. If a person believes that by making a vow to God he is more likely to win a war, believes he won the battle because he made a vow to God, and then believes he needs to keep his vow or God may renegue on the victory, God can’t just sit that person down and say, “Let me tell you how you’re entire conceptual way of understanding God, life, and reality is wrong.”
God will eventually be able to reveal those truths in and through the person of Jesus, but it will take countless more incremental steps. Jephthah just wasn’t there yet.
But we are, or at least we ought to be. Because of Jesus we know the character of God. Because of Jesus we know that God does not want you to make these kinds of vows and he certainly doesn’t want you to follow through with them if they involve harming your children. God does not endorse this kind of violence and certainly not as a form of faithfulness to him.
Jephthah was simply mistaken. It was an honest mistake. It was a mistake he couldn’t help but make. And it was a mistake God couldn’t just bypass. So, it’s in the Bible as part of the record of God dealing with people and people dealing with God. But just because it is in the Bible does not mean it reflects a completely accurate truth about God.
Only Jesus does that.
[1] While they were technically his people in the sense that he was their half-sibling (same father but Jephthah had a prostitute for a mother), Jephthah had been living estranged from his clan for some time because they refused to share their inheritance with him. They only summon him because they recognize he’s a great warrior and they need him to defeat their enemy. All that to say, I’m not sure how concerned Jephthah was with the welfare of “his people.” Odds are he was mostly in it for the power and authority they promised him if he won.
[2] Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, 3.12.18.
[3] Hebrews 11:32
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