What would a person who would pay to have his or her child rent asunder and picked out of the womb in pieces (or flushed down the toilet) *not* do? What diabolical evil could give such a person pause? (I can't resist answering myself, "Driving an SUV, perhaps?") "Modern" libertinism certainly is a confused "philosophy." Elijah was far wiser, and not at all excessive or irrational in his treatment of the priests of Baal.

I carried a sign in the West Coast Walk for Life that read, "Abortion is Human Sacrifice." And I agree with Peter Kreeft, et al. that its all-to-broad acceptance evidences a particularly pernicious and widespread idolatry. God save us!

†

And yet Abraham was asked to sacrifice his own son ...

I heard recently that 90% of Down's Syndrome babies are murdered in-utero these days. How proud would Hitler be of that accomplishment?!

@Don Roberto:

Worse than driving an SUV would probably be "not recycling," or else "starting a for profit corporation."

Matt,

1. God's command was a test of faith, and a statement that all good things are
from him and his and can be recalled at will without injustice; Abraham's good faith being shown, God rescinded the demand.

2. The whole episode is meant to symbolize God's rejection of the abhorrent Canaanite practice of child sacrifice and its replacement with the acceptable, surrogate victim, the ram (which like Isaac, God also provided as a free gift). It also foreshadows God's giving of the life of his willing Son for us (the Lamb of God!), a loss he does not require of us.

Your example does not prove your point.

Best,

Richard

I thought he was told he didn't have to, Matt. I thought that was the moment in human history in which human sacrifice began to ebb as the default religion of mankind.

In David Foster Wallace's novel, The Pale King, part of the story involves a Christian teenage couple dealing with the right to choose an abortion. I thought that Wallace captured the entire teen Christian ethos pretty well. One of the things to remember about abortion is that it is pervasive. 1 in 3 American women have first-hand experience with abortion (I think that is the reigning statistic). Think about that next time you walk through the supermarket or dine at your favorite fast-food restaurant that employs half the youth group of a local evangelical church (and closes on Sundays).

I guess what I see is that the Christian youth groups of today are pretty much like the Hebrew youth groups of the time of the prophet Ezekiel that Weigel mentions.

Anyway, along these lines, here are two plums pulled from an article written by Leon Kass. (The second quote mentions parents, and we may as well read it as referencing parents of teenagers, as well as young parents of unborn children.)

"To make naturally polygamous men accept the conventional institution of monogamous marriage has been the work of centuries of Western civilization, with social sanctions, backed by religious teachings and authority, as major instruments of the transformation, and with female modesty as the crucial civilizing device."


"Absent newly discovered congregational and communal support, individual parents will generally be helpless before the onslaught of the popular culture."

Default religion is a little hyperbolic. Human sacrifice was a part of many types of polytheism but only emphasized among some. For instance Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter became a point precisely because Greeks almost never engaged in human sacrifice. It wouldn't have been considered such a tragedy by Phoenicians.

Hello, Matt, Richard, maineman,

Here is how Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac looks to me.

"It was by faith that Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac. He offered to sacrifice his only son even though he had yet to receive what had been promised, and he had been told: Isaac is the one through whom your name will be carried on. He was confident that **God had the power even to raise the dead**; and so, figuratively speaking, he was given back Isaac from the dead."
-- Hebrews 11:17-19

Abraham, with astounding faith, believed God would raise Isaac from the dead in order for God's promise to be fulfilled. That promise to Abraham was that his descendants would be "as numerous as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore." Abraham and Sarah had been told that "Nothing is impossible for Yahweh. I shall come back to you at the same time next year and Sarah will have a son." (Gen 18:14) God had already done the impossible for Abraham. Isaac's very existence, his having been born to an elderly couple way beyond child bearing years, was ongoing proof to Abraham that God keeps His promises and that "Nothing is impossible" for God. Abraham was convinced Isaac would be restored to him when he consented to the sacrifice of his only son. God, instead of restoring Isaac's life after Abraham sacrificed him, stopped Abraham before he had finished carrying out the sacrifice. Abraham had already demonstrated his huge faith in God. God Himself was the Father Who would actually carry out the sacrifice of His only Son out of love for us.

If you read some of the Rabbinical commentaries on the "Sacrifice of Isaac", it's rightly pointed out that Abraham is an old man when Isaac was conceived, and even older when asked to sacrifice. Isaac was a young man entering his prime. Isaac could not have been bound against his will.

So many of the rabbis suggest Isaac willingly offered himself as a sacrifice to God and/or trusted the loving God of his father had another purpose in mind.

Re my default religion comment, the thinking is as follows (per Gerard): in early man the way that unbridled projection and intra-tribe violence were contained was to focus the rage of the group on the sacrificial victim, who was somehow mythologically associated with whatever ills had befallen the tribe.

Jesus' crusifixion destroyed (demythologized) that model given that the victim was clearly innocent and other ways to keep human cruelty in check were promoted (following centuries of work in this direction by the Jews in particular) with notable success.

Whether abortion qualifies as a return to human sacrifice designed to eliminate perceived ills is another question, but is worth considering.

The "child sacrifice" in the Bible passages quoted is both human sacrifice and idolatry. It is not the equivalent of abortion. More nearly equivalent to abortion would be child abandonment, which may very well have been practiced in Ancient Israel, although I don't believe it is referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Harry,

Eloquently put.

Best,

Richard

In addition to everything else that has been said about Abraham, another salient point is that Abraham *did not want to sacrifice his child,* or, as Harry posits, was willing to do it only because he understand that it was not ultimate. How that provides a counterpoint to a piece lamenting the idea that people *do want to sacrifice their children* is not really clear to me.

At least the Old Testament pagan cultures had a misguided excuse, of sorts. They sacrificed their children so their gods would protect the larger society from disasters. Today, we sacrifice our children for nothing more than convenience and selfishness. This makes me wonder just which culture God will judge most harshly. Ora pro nobis.

Also for Matt, here is how the original telling ended.

11 But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” 13 Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. 14 Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the LORD it will be provided.

Genesis 22:11-14

@Maineman: Hitler supported the highway system too. That doesn't mean we should do away with highways.

Having a child with serious mental and physical disabilities is a huge responsibility and at times a financial burden to a family. Many pro-lifers are politically conservative, and are not willing to vote on the legistation nor the politicians who support the legistation to fund the social programs needed to help these families.

While I admire the parents that choose to care for their children with Down Syndrome and other disabilities, I would never claim that a parent who chose to abort a fetus that tested positive for Trisomies should be compared to Hitler. Hitler murdered millions of already born children and adults with disabilities. This is about a parent's right to decide on whether or not to bring a child with these issues into the world in the first place.

I have to wonder, am I the only one that considers this "freedom of choice" controversy, just plain old child sacrifice at the feet of the goddess Liberty that we all seem to worship here? Liberty from the responsibility of raising a child? Liberty from God's commandments? Liberty to live for ourselves? Liberty from our husband ruling over us?
Could this Image of Liberty, be the Image of the 4th beast in Daniel, and the image of the beasts name worshiped in Revelation?
Hasn't this freedom of choice been relegated only to women? Isn't the choice to conceive mutual? Yet the father has no choice, at all past that point, he cannot stop her legally from sacrificing the unborn "for her liberty", and if she chooses to keep it, he is required by law to support the child, even if she chooses a different daddy, the state steps in to be the provider, and deems the father a dead beat dad, making him pay.
I am making the point that the children that physically survive the "freedom of choice for women only" fiasco, that has produced single mother families, where dads come and go, Has produced children that cannot make any connection to a father that loves, protects, guides, and provides for them, has authority in the home, and is there everyday for them , and when they hear the Bible read, or go to church, what do they think of a heavenly Father? The only father these kids know, isn't there for them everyday, can't be depended on, and is an embarrassment to them, when they hear how they are just like that no good *****, that ruined their mothers life when she met him.
May I add Isaiah 3:12? As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.

Kay says, "This is about a parent's right to decide on whether or not to bring a child with these issues into the world in the first place."

The inescapable logic of this is that a parent, not God, decides whether a child's life has value or not, which is a rejection of God's valuing every person’s life regardless what their medical condition. He not only knew us in the womb - He knew us before we were conceived. When we from our knowledge of good and evil, that we received in biting into the fruit, decide to destroy human life, we have placed ourselves in opposition to God with our imagined superior moral knowledge.

I recall a Twilight Zone episode where two loving parents have been informed that the world is going to end and there is no way for it to be prevented. When the end draws near, they decide to sedate their children to death with pills, and the children die with no pain; and miracle of miracles, the catastrophe is avoided, and the world does not end.

@Kay: Once you decide that killing an infant in the womb is different in some fundamental respect than killing a child or adult outside the womb, the argument is already over. It all depends on your presuppositions - what you bring to the table before you've heard anyone's arguments. Someone who accepts the fetus/infant dichotomy can nearly always be persuaded that abortion is acceptable, while someone who denies this distinction will almost never accept it (the exception being sociopaths who think murder is also acceptable). It is quite simple: if a fetus is a baby, then killing it is murder. If it is not, killing it is not murder. Once you've decided your stand on this point, you've decided it on all the others related to abrtion as well. Two people who argue conclusions using entirely different premises are having an argument that cannot be won. The real argument is in the definitions. If a fetus is a child, then killing one with Downs Syndrome is comparable to Hitler's murder of adult Downs Syndrome patients, particularly when it is as systemic as his killings were. You and I agree that killing someone is wrong, but we disagree on what constitutes a person.

Today, would not Abraham be considered mentally ill and be arrested if his intentions were known? Would we not all agree that this arrest would be warranted?

David Nichol,

You write, "More nearly equivalent to abortion would be child abandonment..."

No, there is a distinct and radical difference: when one is abandoned, one is left alive. Even if one were abandoned to a desert where little chance of survival exists, the person is still alive. Abortion is murder, pure and simple, the child not having an iota of a chance for survival, and whether that sacrifice takes place on an altar of Baal or on an altar of human need, it is always pleasing to Baal.

@Tom: "Today, would not Abraham be considered mentally ill and be arrested if his intentions were known?"

It depends. If a doctor is embraced as a god with superior, authoritative knowledge of what the Good consists of, and he tells a woman that he deems it right and good for her to kill a child in her womb, and that he, in his moral superiority, would be pleased with her decision to do so, and she kills the child, how much different is the dynamic? The only real difference is that the doctor is another god, and he won’t stay the execution.

@Gil and Benaiah: Actually God does have something to say on the worth of the life of the unborn verses that of the born:

"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."
-- Exodus 21:22-23 (When the unborn child dies, the man simply owes a fine, but if the woman were to die, then he would owe his life.)

And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver. -- Leviticus 27:6 (Note that there is no mention of the price of children before that age. And male children are worth more in general.)

Gil,

God himself commands the slaughter of children in the Old Testament. The story of Jephta's daughter (Judges 11) is a story of God countenancing human sacrifice, and there is no reprieve at the last minute.

I think the special condemnations Weigel quotes from Psalms and Ezekiel are more about idolatry than about killing children. However, objectionable modern-day abortion may be, it does not hold water, in my opinion, to claim it is some kind of idolatry. It may have some value as a metaphor, but it is nothing near to what idolatry was in the Old Testament.

Strange David, the standard interpretation of that story is that the daughter became a dedicated virgin "and knew not man". Why else would she mourn with her friends that she would not marry? Any reason your interpretation should be substituted?

With respect to child sacrifice in the Hebrew Scriptures, two things come to mind:

(1) The putative examples of divinely commanded sacrifice don't seem to be actual instances of it. Thus, Jews refer to the Abraham-Isaac story as the "binding of Isaac" and NOT as the sacrifice of Isaac. Moreover, Mike is quite right about the standard understanding of the story of Jeptha's daughter. And, indeed, in Jeremiah, YHVH quite explicitly says that He never commanded child sacrifice.

(2) Perhaps taking into account that fidelity to God's command might seem to require Abraham to form the intent to kill his only son, Aquinas notes that God is Lord of life and death. What's wrong in murder is one person taking the life of another (and, with murder, of an innocent) of their own accord. But the situation is not the same with God. And if God can rightly bring about the death of any person (either by causing or permitting it), then there seems to be no formal difference between his commanding a human person to carry out the decree or a virus or a falling meteorite.

Just some thoughts worth contemplating.

But here's a third thought . . . God commands killing in the Old Testament. Matt's implied argument would suggest that if God commands killing, then there's no such thing as murder. But clearly an altogether Holy, just, and good God might command killing in some instances AND the prohibition against murder be perfectly intelligible.

David Nickol,

You are radically mistaken when you write, "The story of Jephta's daughter...is a story of God countenancing human sacrifice. Here's what Jephta says: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”

This is Jephta's design, not God's. If you are implying that because God did not intervene in Jephta sacrificing a human person he is guilty of human sacrifice, then God is guilty also in not intervening in stopping those who have abortions, even in his name as if, as Kay seems to believe, the sacrifice is something God desires, and not she herself in his name.

Kay,

Here is the NIV translation of the passage you offer: “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life."

In any case, Jesus overturned many ancient laws, including the law that allows a man to put away his wife, i.e., divorce her, except in a case of adultery. Jesus is the fulfillment of the law, and all the Mosaic laws coalesce in Jesus where they are fulfilled, and that fulfillment clarifies where God’s providential away had not yet revealed its fullness. And Jesus spoke through Mother Teresa of Calcutta when she told us often enough not to abort babies, but to bring them to her, just as Jesus told the persons of the time he walked among us to bring the children to him.

David Nickol,

If you want a deeper understanding of the all-pervasiveness of idolatry, I recommend the book "God Without Being" by Jean-luc Marion, especially the chapters that compare the idolatrous and the iconic gaze. The idolatrous aspect of abortion will then become crystal clear.

“Today, would not Abraham be considered mentally ill and be arrested if his intentions were known? Would we not all agree that this arrest would be warranted?”
– Tom

Yes, that would be true *today*. It didn't happen *today*. The context in which it happened was an ancient culture very different from ours. Step one in completely missing the point of the accounts of God's interaction with Man in Old Testament is to forget that.

The key to understanding the Old Testament is to remember that “Nothing is impossible for God.” It is an account of the interaction between a supernatural being – God – and natural beings – Man. We should fully expect this account to depict God engaging in supernatural activity and have mere mortals engaging in natural activity – except where they are being used by God to accomplish the supernatural.

Christians believe in supernatural realities, the first of which is God Himself. They expect divinely inspired Scriptures to be filled with examples of God providing proof to Man of His existence, of the truth of His sayings, and of the legitimacy of His authority over us, by bringing about that which only a transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient, supernatural being could bring about. That is exactly what the Scriptures contain. (Much modern Scripture scholarship begins with being oblivious to this fundamental truth, and therefore ends in completely boring, faith-destroying exegesis.)

In ancient cultures child sacrifice was common. Was there really a deity who could legitimately ask of parents the sacrifice of their children? Only One. And He didn't really want that. What He wanted, and got, from Abraham was an example, for our sakes, of great faith in His power (even to raise the dead) and in His goodness (Abraham believed God would keep His promise – even if raising the dead was necessary for Him to do that).

“-- Exodus 21:22-23 (When the unborn child dies, the man simply owes a fine, but if the woman were to die, then he would owe his life.)”
-- Kay

“ … Moses, by reason of the *hardness of your heart*, permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication [an illegitimate marriage], and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.”
-- Jesus

The fulfillment of the old Law that Christ brought about raised the standard of morality. God, in His dealings with His people, took into account where they were at. They were hardhearted. The astounding love of God for us revealed in His Son hadn't taken place yet. It *has* been revealed to us. We have no excuse for being so hardhearted about marriage or about the life of the child in the womb, who God has revealed He has loved passionately and heroically unto death on a cross long before the child is even conceived.

“God himself commands the slaughter of children in the Old Testament. The story of Jephta's daughter (Judges 11) is a story of God countenancing human sacrifice, and there is no reprieve at the last minute.”
-- David Nickol


God calls life into being. God calls it back to Himself when He is good and ready to do so. He commanded us: “Thou shalt do no murder.” When God calls someone home to Himself, it is not “murder” on His part, nor was it “murder” on the part of God's people in the Old Testament if God had authorized by His command the killing of people – even children. God has such authority. Mere mortals don't. Under the New Covenant, far from being authorized to kill others – even if we feel completely justified in doing so – we have been commanded instead to “turn the other cheek.” There is a new, higher moral standard. I am not saying there is no such thing as legitimately killing in self-defense. There is. I am just pointing out that it is silly to draw conclusions about what God considers “moral” from the Old Testament without referring to the New Testament as well. Each verse in the Bible must be considered in the context of the whole of Scripture.

By the way, we can't be certain the life of the daughter of Jephte was actually sacrificed. The Scriptures do not explicitly say this happened. It could also be that the “sacrifice” was her being consecrated to God as in remaining forever a virgin: “And the two months being expired, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed, and she knew no man.” (Judges 11:39) It seems to me it is more likely this verse would end with something like “and he put her to death,” not “and she knew no man” if Jephte had actually killed her. Or maybe she was actually killed. If that is the case then we can't be certain that Jephte didn't just misunderstand what God really expected of him.

David Nichol,

God's voice doesn't come into the Jephthah story. Not every character or act in the bible is presented as good and wise and pleasing to the Lord. The Jephthah story is best taken, I think, as an admonition not to make rash oaths. It is paralleled in Greek mythology. Idomeneus took an oath to Poseidon that if he reached home safely he would sacrifice the first living thing that he saw. That turned out to be his son, whom he duly killed. The gods were angry and sent a plague to Crete that led the Cretans to drive Idomeneus into exile.

The daughter of Jephthah died because of her own piety--she insisted that her father keep his oath to the Lord. It is not recorded that Jephthah's damned fool oath or his daughter's death were pleasing to God, though I think that God was most likely angry with Jephthah while moved by the piety of his unfortunate daughter.

Best,

Richard

Tom,

If Abraham was ordered by the Supreme Being to give back a gift, his son, it doesn't matter what we would think about it now in this spiritually blind and deaf age. As God says more than once, My thoughts are not your thoughts.

Best,

Richard

Mike Melendez,

You ask: "Any reason your interpretation should be substituted?"

Yes, the actual text of the story.

*****
34When Jephthah returned to his house in Mizpah, it was his daughter who came out to meet him, with tambourine-playing and dancing. She was his only child: he had neither son nor daughter besides her. 35When he saw her, he tore his garments and said, “Ah, my daughter! You have struck me down and brought calamity upon me. For I have made a vow* to the LORD and I cannot take it back.”q 36“Father,” she replied, “you have made a vow to the LORD. Do with me as you have vowed, because the LORD has taken vengeance for you against your enemies the Ammonites.” 37Then she said to her father, “Let me have this favor. Do nothing for two months, that I and my companions may go wander in the mountains to weep for my virginity.” 38“Go,” he replied, and sent her away for two months. So she departed with her companions and wept for her virginity in the mountains. 39At the end of the two months she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. She had not had relations with any man.
**********

She mourned with her friends that she would not marry because she was going to die. How do you interpret, "At the end of the two months she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed"?

Or you might check this out:

**********
The most prominent act in Jephthah's life was his vow to sacrifice to Yhwh whatsoever came first out of his house to meet him if he should return victorious. His vow fell upon his only daughter, who came out to meet him dancing to the sound of timbrels. Jephthah, having given her a respite of two months, consummated his vow. After this it became the custom for the daughters of Israel to lament four days in every year the death of Jephthah's daughter (Judges xi. 34-40)
**********
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8584-jephthah

Kay,

As for the different penalties put on the killing of an unborn child and his mother in the Old Testament, as Jesus says of divorce, God allowed things in those days that fell short of full righteousness because of the hardness of His people's hearts.

Best,

Richard

Sorry for the overpost--a lot of points needed attention.

we dropped the bomb in WW2 killing innocents... but they say if we did not drop the bomb, and the war dragged out and out and out, the death toll would have been much higher.. would you have been willing to drop the bomb if you knew - in the big picture - it would save more lives than it ended? Perhaps God faced a similar scenario...

I have about 5 minutes left on my computer time at the library, and why I was hesitant to make an attempt to explain Marion's take on idolatry, but I will try: all idolatry is constituted by the individual's gaze; in other words, idolatry is always self idolatry, setting oneself up as THEE GOD, and the god-individual projects some sense of himself as thee god onto an object, preferably one that glitters, like a golden calf, but it could be an idea or an image that glitters and glows and thereby dazzles. When the gaze returns from the selected object of one's projected sense/aspect of oneself as thee god onto an object, one is exalted. In abortion, one has a sense of oneself being thee god over human life, and the object is an image of oneself being liberated from slavery to a child in any capacity and any degree, and that’s why child sacrifice is the ultimate form of idolatry, because the worship of self as thee god finds its highest expression there, the negation of the highest expression of God’s creative act, the creation of a human person.

What a refreshing. intelligent discussion. Two things.

1.We seem so to neglect the 1 in 3 men who are also affected by abortion. I have had too many discussions including the phrase, "she killed your child." She will have to live with that terrible truth, but so will he. And so will I. "She killed his child" hurts me, grieves me.

2. Someone once asked me if I was "pro-choice" and I answered "yes." I believe a woman has a choice whether to have sex or not, and I believe she has a choice to use birth control or not, and those are her choices, the end. To one girl I included, "you know, honey, they aren't flinging it around out there on the streets." Sperm does not meet egg by some fluke. Let us pay attention.

Paul says: "Moreover, Mike is quite right about the standard understanding of the story of Jeptha's daughter."

I disagree. I have already written one message on this that has not appeared yet, but here is another. The following is from the notes in the Hebrew Study Bible:

**********
Before going out to battle Jephthah makes a vow, stating that if the Lord will give him victory, he will make Him an offering of the first thing that comes out of his house. After defeating the Ammonites he returns home, where he is met by his only daughter, who had come out to greet him, and he is forced to carry out his vow. In practice, the brief account of the war is incorporated within the account of the vow, depicting in detail and in a way that emphasizes the tragedy of this fateful, irreversible error. Biblical literature struggles with the norm of offering human sacrifices, which was apparently practiced throughout the First Temple period (2 Kings 21.6, 23.10; Jer 7.31; etc).
***********

A following note says:

**********
The formulation of the oath, referring to one coming out of the door of his house, suggests a human rather than an animal sacrifice.
**********

Now, a later note does say: "The text shies away from explicitly depicting her sacrifice, which leads some ancient and modern interpreters (e.g., Radak) to suggest that she was not actually killed."

But, John L. McKenzie says, in Dictionary of the Bible:

**********
The vow of Jephthah can be understood as nothing but a vow to offer a whole burnt sacrifice; and it is unlikely that an animal was any more likely to come from the door of his house than a human being. Many exegetes have attempted to deliver Jephthah from his vow by supposing that his daughter was consecrated to Yahweh. There was no such consecration in the Israelite religion. The vow and its fulfillment are indicative of the primitive character of the religion of Jephthah, and of many of his contemporaries, who retained this story as an example of genuine devotion.
**********

Galene:

You are right to remind us that men fit prominently into this equation. To supplement your point, let me mention that contraception and abortion also cater to some of the worst traits we males possess.

The former renders the female sterile, yet at the same time keeps her sexuality artificially viable. The latter allows her to be dumped, alone with her "choice". In combination, they allow the male first to use, and then to walk out, as desired by his selfishness.

Thanks, Mark.
I do believe that it falls to women to protect themselves or then their unintended children. Man can be rats, no doubt, but that is no excuse for women to be stupid.

I think we so often center on the theology of this problem and exclude the humanity. The theology is pretty obvious, "thal shalt not kill," The humanity is complex. We are to love and forgive as Christ did. Women who kill their unborn children must be loved and forgiven by the Church Universal. They grieve and rarely have any support in their grief. Men have no support as far as I know.

And, I find myself too often in strange a place where I am also grieving over a friend's lost child.

And if they make it out of the womb alive 85% are given over to public schools for 13 years

So David, the Jewish interpretation of Jephthah, at least of some Jews, is of human sacrifice. We know that human sacrifice is no longer part of the Jewish faith. When did it change and why?

@ David Nickol,

I'm not sure notes in a study bible should be dispositive here. Frequently such notes fail to capture traditional understandings. But the interpretation Mike mentions has been around for quite some time--especially in Christian circles. Minimally, it's less than clear that human sacrifice too place here. Again, the Hebrew God says in Jeremiah that He NEVER commanded child sacrifice--which is also a fairly standard Jewish position (hence the binding, not sacrifice, of Isaac). Moreover, it is underscore, as noted by another note above, that God here never commands or orders the sacrifice of the Jeptha's daughter. The scripture never says God so much as sanctioned it. So the Jeptha case cannot be invoked here. And, at any rate, on traditional Christian thought--a necessary condition of an act being murder is that the act be contrary to the command of God. So God commanding killing, in any instance, can't be invoked in the abortion argument. There's no analogy or parallel here. Eleonore Stumps essay in Divine Evil repays reading here.

Mike,

You ask an interesting question, and the answer is that I don't know. All I am saying is that the following means that Jephthah killed his daughter as a burnt offering: "At the end of the two months she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed." His vow was to offer the first thing that came out of his house as a burnt offering to God, his daughter was the first thing to come out of the house, he believed he had to keep the vow, his daughter agreed, and "he did to her as he had vowed" clearly means he used her as a burnt offering. There's no getting around it, and I would add that there is no need to get around it. It is not my argument that God is shown in the Old Testament as approving human sacrifice. As Richard says above, "God's voice doesn't come into the Jephthah story." God does command some things elsewhere in the Old Testament that it is extremely difficult to justify (the slaughter of all men, women, children, and cattle of the Amalekites), but there is nothing attributed to God in the story of Jephthah that needs to be explained away.

Paul says: "And, at any rate, on traditional Christian thought--a necessary condition of an act being murder is that the act be contrary to the command of God. So God commanding killing, in any instance, can't be invoked in the abortion argument."

My understanding is that murder is not wrong because God says so, but rather that God says murder is wrong because it is. It would have been murder (objectively) for Abraham to kill Isaac, and it was murder to kill the women and children of the Amelekites. It was wanton slaughter of innocent human beings. It is thinkable, I suppose, that God would test Abraham as recounted in the Bible, but it is unthinkable that God would order the slaughter of women and children. God cannot command someone to do something wrong, because it would be against his nature, but *if* God commanded someone to commit murder, it would still be evil. Something evil cannot be turned into something good by a command of God. Otherwise "good" has no meaning.

@ David,

Concerning these other things in the Old Testaments--such as the Amelekites, it is worth reading Nick Wolterstorff's essay in Divine Evil? The supposedly wiped out Amalekites keep reappearing--suggesting that the phraseology should be construed less than literally.

And perhaps the David Nickol is construing the Jephtha passage quite literally in English when the Hebrew requires a bit more caution in translation. But if not, there's an old Jewish line (I think represented in Josephus, among others) about how Jephtha failed to follow the law.

As to child sacrifice--burning children is strictly forbidden in Deuteronomy 18:10:

"Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire"

David Nickol, a biblical reflection:

“First he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them —THOUGH THEY WERE OFFERED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAW.” (Hebrews 10:8)

And you can go further:

“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire— but my ears you have opened — burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require.” (Psalm 40:6)

“For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6)

“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13)


“Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me.” (Hebrews 10:5)


What many Christians are still coming to terms with is Jesus’ ongoing deconstruction of revenge and sacrifice, revealed in God’s name that completes all his names: Love. We can't begin to comprehend this Love in its fullness, but the best revelation of it is Christ's passion. From the Cross he said, "Forgive them Father, they know not what they do." Who was the exception? The Roman soldier that whipped him and spit on him and then laughed? The Sadducee and the Pharisee who argued best to have Christ crucified, and would continue the rest of their days attempting to justify it? The local and foreign spectators who took the day off to see what would was rumored to be the most spectacular crucifixion to date?

The title of a Hans Urs von Balthasar book sums it up best: “Love Alone is Credible.”

@ Kay and everyone else who has been involved in having, assisting (as I did) or justifying (as I did) abortion (for if I had been there for those women in the love that is Christ the abortion might well have been avoided): Let's not persecute those who, as those gathered at the Cross, knew not what they had done:

“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13)

For another viewpoint, a quick search in Wikipedia offers the following:
Ethelbert William Bullinger,[9] looks at the word "and" in the Jephthah's vow (Judges 11:31: "whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering"). As he explains [10] the Hebrew prefix "" that is translated in the above passage as "and" 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. Bullinger goes on to give examples from the Bible where the same word has been translated as "or". According to him, the right translation of this passage is: "whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, or I will offer it up as a burnt offering." Jephthah's daughter, being the first that came out of the house, was thus, according to Bullinger, dedicated to God. He also says: "In any case, it should have been unlawful, and repugnant to Jehovah, to offer a human being to Him as a burnt-offering, for His acceptance. Such offerings were common to heathen nations at that time, but it is noteworthy that Israel stands out among them with this great peculiarity, that human sacrifices were unknown in Israel."

George,

Really like the article. Have never seen the connection between abortion and human sacrifice before. But it is a true application of God's law in today's society.

What is great about our God is how the Psalm ends:
Nevertheless, he looked upon their distress, when he heard their cry. For their sake he remembered his covenant, and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love. He caused them to be pitied by all those who held them captive. Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise. Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, "Amen!" Praise the LORD! (Psa 106:44-48 ESV)

When God's people are convicted by the Law, when they repent of their sins, God "hears their cry" and delivers them. Thanks be to God who save us from our sins by giving His Son to die for them.

Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, "Amen!" Praise the LORD!