Yes, Terry, I can agree with what you said in your last post.
As I have read through this thread, however, I can see that Hasini and Alcyone have made important points when they say that it is altogether too easy to condemn an entire society because of
one shortcoming of the society in question. It is also too easy to assume a position of superiority just because you have been born in a country that fortune and circumstances have smiled on. That's true... that's absolutely true. And yet, and yet... I'm not backing down from my position that a society
does not deserve the same respect as any other if it is severely misogynist. It also does not deserve the same respect as any other if it is extremely racist, or if it openly accepts a system of slavery, or if it allows people to be executed for criticizing the government, etcetera.
Let me try to explain what I mean by offering yet another example from the Old Testament (which is an incredibly fascinating document, by the way). Anyway, my example is from the book of Judges, which according to many scholars contains the oldest descriptions of the life and society of the people whose land would eventually be known as Israel. What sort of life did these people live? It is very interesting to look at the terms on which God and the children of Israel entered into their Covenant, when the Israelites were given the law of Moses. The Israelites had to keep this law, but what would they receive from God in return?
20 Behold I send an Angel before thee to keep thee in the way and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared 21 Beware of him and obey his voice provoke him not for he will not pardon your transgressions for my name is in him 22 But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice and do all that I speak then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies and an adversary unto thine adversaries 23 For mine Angel shall go before thee and bring thee in unto the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites the Hivites and the Jebusites and I will cut them off 24 Thou shalt not bow down to their gods nor serve them nor do after their works but thou shalt utterly overthrow them and quite break down their images 25 And ye shall serve the LORD your God and he shall bless thy bread and thy water and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee 26 There shall nothing cast their young nor be barren in thy land the number of thy days I will fulfil 27 I will send my fear before thee and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee 28 And I will send hornets before thee which shall drive out the Hivite the Canaanite and the Hittite from before thee 29 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year lest the land become desolate and the beast of the field multiply against thee 30 By little and little I will drive them out from before thee until thou be increased and inherit the land 31 And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines and from the desert unto the river for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand and thou shalt drive them out before thee
Sorry about the long quote, but I think it is important. What God promises Moses and the Israelites if they keep his law is not that they will get to spend eternity in heaven. No, instead God promises the Israelites that they will be successful here on earth. Specifically, God promises that the Israelites will be able to defeat their enemies, they will control the land, they will have enough to eat, they will not suffer from sicknesses, and people, livestock and the land will all be fertile.
To me, this suggests that the people who get such a promise from God know all too much about being harassed by enemies, about not having enough to eat, about suffering from diseases, and about barely being able to make new life survive on the hard and barren soil that they hoped to claim as their own.
In short: This was a people that was literally fighting for its very existence. The people were fighting to succeed as a nation, and they were fighting to survive as individuals in spite of diseases and starvation.
When life is very hard, it is probable that the people become hard, too, in order to survive. One thing that the people in the Old Testament do all the time is sacrifice animals to God. By ritually killing and burning animals the Israelites were hoping to please and appease God, so that he would bless the Israelites in return. Because in this barren land, they so desperately needed God's blessing.
In a nation where it is absolutely natural, indeed mandatory, to sacrifice animals, it must become tempting to give God an even grander gift - by sacrificing humans, too. The custom of sacrificing people to the gods is one that has existed in huge parts of the world.
This is the so-called man from Tollund, a man who was ritually sacrificed in Denmark about 2,400 years ago.
What does the Bible say about sacrificing people to God? It forbids it. This, for example, is what Deuteronomy 18 says:
9 When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire,
Here the Bible says that other nations in that area practised child sacrifice (that is almost certainly what is implied by the words about making one's son or daughter "pass through the fire). So killing one's child and sacrificing him or her to God was not acceptable according to the law of Moses. Even so, the custom of child sacrifice existed and was apparently practised among many nations and peoples of that area and at that time.
Now for the story from Judges. In chapter eleven of that book, we are told the story of Jephthah from Gilead, a great warrior. He is going to lead an attack on a people called the Ammonites. But to ensure God's help in the battle against the Ammonites, Jephthah promised God that he would sacrifice "whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites" (Judges 11:31). In other words: Jephthah promised God that he would
kill the first member of his household who came out to meet him when he returned home victorious from his battle.
So who was it who came to meet Jephthah, then? It was his daughter. His only child. Jephthah is stricken when he sees his daughter, because he really didn't want to kill her. But she was the first person who came to meet him, and he had promised God that he would kill that person.
11:35 And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back.
How does his daughter react? She knows that a vow that a man makes when speaking to God is unbreakable. Her father made a vow which, due to extremely unfortunate circumstances, means that he must kill her. He must kill her and sacrifice her to God. Should she try to talk him out of it?
11:36 And she said unto him, My father, [if] thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth;
No. The daughter knows how extremely important her father's faith in God is, and she knows what the law of Moses says about vows. The daughter concludes that neither she nor her father has a choice. He must kill her, and they must both accept it.
All she asks for is a reprieve of two months.
11:37 And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows.
11:38 And he said, Go. And he sent her away [for] two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.
But after two months, her time was up.
11:39 And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her [according] to his vow which he had vowed
He did with her according to his vow what he had vowed; in other words, he killed her.
Can I respect this society, where a father can ritually kill and sacrifice his circa fourteen-year-old daughter because of a vow he has made? I can give no short and simple answer. I feel an incredible sympathy for the daughter, and for her maturity and unbelievable courage. I sympathize with the father's anguish, when he realizes that his religious belief forces him kill his daughter according to the vow he has made.
I also feel a general sense of sympathy and respect for the fight for survival that this people, the Israelites of ancient Israel, had to fight all the time. And I can understand that they would sacrifice animals to make the mighty God help them, and I can understand that they were tempted to sacrifice people, too.
But, bottom line: I can't respect Jephthah's decision to promise God that he would
kill the first member of his household that came out to meet him when he returned victorious from his battle. Bottom line, I can't respect a society that gives the head of a household the right to kill any other member of that household and sacrifice him or her to God.
And just picturing a father taking a knife in one hand, and grabbing his daughter with his other hand, and then plunging the knife into his daughter's heart... no, I can't respect it. I can't respect a society or a father that allows such a thing to happen. Or at the very, very least, I can't respect that society the way I would respect a society that wouldn't allow such a thing. And Jephthah's society apparently
did allow it. Because even though the law of Moses forbids child sacrifices, there is no condemnation of Jephthah's behaviour in the book of Judges.
There are reasons for why it happened. And that kind of thing happened in Scandinavia, too.
We should try to understand. There are always reasons for why things are the way they are. And being lucky yourself doesn't give you the right to condemn others who are less fortunate.
But that doesn't mean we should have to say that one society is always just as good and just as worthy of respect as any other.
Let me just say that in the case of Jephthah's daughter, some people did remember, and mourn. They remembered and mourned year after year. The people who mourned were young women:
And it was a custom in Israel,
11:40 [That] the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.
The daughters of Israel mourned Jephthah's daughter. They did not not allow her death to be forgotten. And thereby, they did not allow other young women to be sacrificed so easily because their fathers had uttered a hasty vow to God.
The young women of Israel did not allow themselves to be that victimized any more. Now
that is something I can so fully and completely respect.
Ann