I just want to be clear on your position. Do you think it is ok for people to kill their children and sacrifice their life to God?
“Judges chapter 11 contains a story in which a Judge named Jephthah makes a vow to God to sacrifice the first thing that comes out of the door of his house in exchange for God's help with a military battle against the Ammonites. Much to his dismay, his only daughter greeted him upon his triumphant return. Judges 11:39 states that Jephthah kept his vow.
The 1st century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus understood this to mean that Jephthah burned his daughter on Yahweh’s altar, whilst pseudo-Philo, late first-century C.E., wrote that Jephthah offered his daughter as a burnt offering because he could find no sage in Israel who would cancel his vow.
According to Jewish tradition Jephthah was punished along with the high priest Phinehas, who could have annulled Jephthah’s vow but refused. A modern commentator, Solomon Landers, believes that a plausible alternative is that Jephthah’s vow was most likely modified and that she was not in fact sacrificed, but rather, her fate may have been perpetual virginity or solitary confinement. This is seen by others to be contradicted by scripture which says: "That from year to year the daughters of Israel assemble together, and lament the daughter of Jephte, the Galaadite, for four days"(Judges xi,40) on the basis that people do not mourn for the living.”
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