Atheism is Dead: Dan Barker - Scriptural Misinterpretations and Misapplications, part 7 of 14

Mariano has again written another awesome post refuting Dan Barker. This time the discussion is about Barker's assertion of God allowing and condoning child sacrifice. Mariano did an awesome job talking about it. I agree with his points. The one thing that I think a little differently about is about Jephthah's story told in Judges 11:30-39. In my NIV Bible it does have aq footnote that says that Jephthah did not sacrifice his daughter as a burnt offering but dedicated her to God so she could not marry or have children. What I learned from Mariano is that a literal translation (Young's Literal Translation) of the Hebrew from Judges 11:40 could be:

And it was an ordinance in Israel that the daughters of Israel went from year to year to the daughter of Jephthah, that they might comfort her for four days in a year.

instead of how I'm used to reading it:

And it is a custom in Israel, that the daughters of Israel went yearly to tell again of the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days in a year.

The Young's Literal Translation does seem to imply the thought that Jephthah's daughter did not die because it says that girls went to see her for four days every year. When I studies this, I looked at the words used (okay it was a lexicon, so it does not prove anything) and I could not find anything that made me think that it she did not die. Every other translation I could find says that the girls held a memorial for her every year.

Mariano even pointed out another point I had not considered:

Clearly, if we do not choose and pick but consider the greater context of the Torah we know that if it was a clean animal he would have offered it as a burnt-offering and if a human then they would be consecrated to the LORD.

I'm not sure where he got this from. I made comment on his blog to ask him about it and I'm sure he will get back to me soon. The truth is whether or not Jephthah sacrifice his daughter as a burnt offering has no bearing on Mariano's brilliant exegesis on why Barker is wrong. We got to face it. No where does God condone or prescribe for us to serve him by human sacrifice. That is why abortion is most-often an abominable evil. It's child sacrifice a foreign evil deity: our own selfish desires as people.


Atheism is Dead: Dan Barker - Scriptural Misinterpretations and Misapplications, part 7 of 14