Child Sacrifice: YHWH command or condemn?

Child Sacrifice: YHWH command or condemn?

KOO Wai Hung

Alice Logan's paper “Rehabilitating Jephthah” tries to “rehabilitate” Jephthah's controversial vow in sacrificing “whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites” (Judges 11:31). Archaeological and literary evidences are stated by Logan in order to support a conclusion that the author of Judges views Jephthah 'positively.' Logan only stated the evidences briefly without much development of the arguments. This paper further investigates both archaeological (especially those findings in Carthage) and literary information about child sacrifice, and tries to gather information from scholars, both from the field of archaeology and biblical studies, that child sacrifice may once have been a 'pleasing' practice in YHWH's view. However, though child sacrifice may have been a pleasing act, it does not necessarily imply that the author of Judges views Jephthah positively in the current literary construct of the Book of Judges.