My mind races back to the days when as a young seminarian I studied theology at Catholic University. There were several ladies also taking classes and studying for degrees. When we studied the story of Jephthah’s daughter, my friend Theresa became agitated. She found the story in Judges 1:37-40 to be deeply disturbing. She wondered aloud if there might be some Scriptures that cannot be salvaged for Christian believers, today. In thanksgiving for his victory in battle, the Hebrew general pledges that the first who steps out the door of his home, he will sacrifice. He immediately laments his pledge because out steps his young daughter. She requests a short time to mourn her virginity and then we are told he did as he promised. Unlike the story of Abraham and Isaac, God does not stay his hand. It is a remnant story that betrays the fact that human sacrifice, while later regarded as offensive, had at one time been practiced by the Chosen People. As with a few other passages from the Bible, there was a debate during the formulation of the Lectionary for Mass that this story should be skipped. Nevertheless, while the Scriptures are edited and censored for polite sensibilities in the Lectionary, this reading was still included. It is terribly hard to preach upon. The young girl had courage and her father kept his promise to God; but as Christians, we are aware that some promises should not be made. The child mourns that she will never know the joys of being a wife and mother. It is a poignant and terrible story. Mary was probably not much older. Tradition has it that she had embraced celibacy and/or virginity as a servant of the Temple. This fuels the assumption by some authorities that Joseph was a much older man, betrothed to protect Mary in a male-oriented society. A friend of mine uses the story of the slaughtered girl to talk about the low premium placed on virginity in Jewish society in ancient days. We also see how virginity is embraced to honor God, either in a death to self (as with Mary) or in a physical death (as with Jephthah’s daughter). But I am of the mind that the story is too emotionally evocative for a level-headed analysis. It makes us very angry. How can the murder of the innocent ever please God?
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