By Mikael Sjöberg
When the new Swedish translation of the Old Testament was published in 2000, many writers felt impelled to expose the violence of the biblical texts. In the Ordfront magazine, feminist and cultural journalist Eva Moberg described the God of the Jews as a “full-blooded Nazi” and called for censorship (Moberg 2000). Swedish tax-payers phoned in to the radio and demanded to have their money back, since the translation had been financed with state funds. The debate shows that the Bible affects people far beyond the confines of the churches and synagogues. It is not unusual that the depictions of male violence against women and children are perceived as being the most offensive elements in the text. But is censorship really a credible feminist strategy? What problems or advantages follow different interpretive models of this controversial element of Western cultural heritage?
Jephthah and his daughter
The story of Jephthah and his daughter, found in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Judges, is a particularly clear example of male dominance and female subordination. Long before the creation of the state, the tribes of Israel were at war with the Ammonites. Judge Jephthah is leader of the armed forces of the tribes. He swears an oath to God that he will offer as a sacrifice the first being that he meets on returning home if he wins the war. Israel defeats the enemy and when Jephthah returns home he is welcomed by his only daughter with drumming and dancing. Devastated, he falls to the ground and accuses her of bringing disaster on him. She urges him to fulfil his promise, but manages to obtain a respite of two months to lament her “virginity”, that is, that she will die without having borne children. After the respite, the daughter returns and the father sacrifices her as a burnt offering.
The parallels of this story with Greek tragedies, for example, Agamemnon and Iphigenia, are obvious. This might also explain the great interest in the story within the fine arts from the Renaissance to the first half of the 20th century (Sypherd 1948). Not less that 100 Baroque oratorios were written on the theme, of which Handel’s and Carissimi’s are still performed. Romantic poets such and Byron and Tennyson have also produced interpretations of the myth, as have also artists such as Degas and Doré. The story has been presented in the forms of drama, ballet, sculpture and tapestry. Why this huge interest in a father that kills his own daughter? How is it possible that a story of male violence can function both as religious edification and high culture entertainment through the centuries? In a comparative narratological study (Sjöberg 2006), I have compared the biblical story with later reinterpretations of that story. I have used material from three antique and contemporary genres: Jewish history writing, musical oratorios and modern prose. The identification of five different interpretive strategies forms the result of my study. Here, I will present these in brief and discuss them with regard to gender, power and change. In order to clarify the link between then and now, I will also give example of corresponding attitudes in our own times.
Condemnation
A condemnatory strategy of interpretation means that the reader directly dismisses something in the text. It is, above all, the early Jewish texts that condemn Jephthah (Pseudo-Philon and Josephus). However, some of these dismiss the oath and not the sacrifice itself. What would have happened if Jephthah had first met a dog? The mere thought of an impure sacrifice causes greater indignation than the actual death of the daughter. Although condemnation today might seem like the ethically most obvious alternative, it is not unproblematic. By a one-sided focus on Jephthah’s guilt, another (literary) male figure walks free: God. This simplifies the question of who drives the development of events forward. The representative of the ultimate power remains intact, while the human minion is made the scapegoat. In a religious context this type of interpretation is attractive, since the character of the divine actor is undisturbed, but from a feminist perspective it must be regarded as inadequate.
Another problem pertaining to a narrow condemnation of Jephthah is that it runs the risk of confirming stereotypes of male perpetrator and female victim. The fact that the father kills his daughter must not be concealed. But the story depicts an active woman who engages in theological argument, negotiates a respite, wanders away, laments and returns. Although she does not possess the power to change her world, this does not mean that she lacks subjectivity. Paradoxically enough, her acts contribute to the performance of the sacrifice.
In contemporary writing, the strategy of condemnation has also been applied to the daughter. One narrator (Watson 1939) characterises her as childish and fanatical; it is her own fault that she does not manage to escape being sacrificed. Thus the asymmetry of power between the parties described in the biblical text is reinforced. The treatment of rape victims in Swedish courts of justice shows that this pattern of thought survives in our times.
Identification
Identification means that the reader recognizes herself or himself in some element of the text, that she or he, so to say, understands the text “from within”. In my material, this strategy is applied to Jephthah only in the most recent writing (Oz 1981). In a reflexive comment the narrator invites the reader to take the side of the father and think: it could have been me. Through such a reading, the perpetrator is turned into victim while the actual victim is made invisible. This interpretive strategy is a textbook example of androcentrism – the man functions as the norm even in his capacity of executioner. Purely hypothetically one can imagine that the strategy could be used to parody power, that one identifies with the enemy in order to dethrone him. So far, I have nevertheless not encountered such an interpretation.
My material does not provide instances of identification with the daughter. This does however happen in feminist Bible commentaries (Trible 1984). The nameless women in the Bible are thus remembered and celebrated. The strategy enables oppressed readers to realise that their own situation is not unique. Male violence has been a documented part of women’s reality for more than 2,500 years. This insight might, of course, lead both to resignation in the face of a seemingly unchangeable status quo as well as to inspiring strength to take on the struggle.
Glorification
Glorification means that the reader makes a positive value judgement of something in the text. When applying this to the daughter, it might for example be expressed in making the daughter into the heroine of the story, in her courage being praised by the narrator or other characters. This happens in only one the Jewish texts (Pseudo- Philon) and in Handel’s Oratorio (Novello 1851). I have occasionally found a similar stance in some biblical scholars (Gerstein 1989). Today however, most feminist researchers would probably agree with Cheryl Exum (1992) in that the celebration of a women’s subordination hardly constitutes a threat to, but rather a confirmation of the patriarchal order.
The Christian interpretation history of this story provides numerous examples of the strategy of glorification (Thompson 2001). The daughter has been described as a martyr and used to recruit nuns. Christians have also believed that she foreshadows Jesus of Nazareth. From the viewpoint of power, there is of course an immense difference between Christ Almighty and the powerless daughter of a local tribal leader. The significance of a vulnerable women’s sacrifice was also discussed in connection with Lars von Trier’s film Breaking the Waves (Lindell 2004). In parallel with the Christian history of interpretations of Jephthah’s daughter, some critics saw a Christ-like figure in the mentally ill character Bess, who lets herself be sexually abused to death. To me, elevating self-effacing to something exemplary hardly seems like an ethically responsible interpretation, regardless of whether it is done by film critics or theologians. The problem is that the fate of Bess or Jephthah’s daughter is a reality for many women!
Jephthah, too, is idealised in Christian tradition. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (11:32) parallels Jephthah with King David as an exemplification of faith, and in the apocryphal Book of Sirach (46:11) the judges are collectively blessed. An exegetic standard work by a male researcher (Boling 1975), quotes Sirach’s praise of the judges without adding any comments. The thought therefore presents itself that he has uncritically adopted the positive view of Jephthah from the religious tradition. Thus the violent men in the Book of Judges are given academic legitimacy.
Alienation
The strategy of alienation implies that the reader indirectly distances himself or herself from something in the text; this is the opposite of identification. Alienation does not involve, however, explicit condemnation, but – for example – negative characterisations of the actors in the story. This strategy is applied to the daughter in modern texts (Oz 1981), where she is described as an enigmatic, mysterious and above all sexual creature. In more or less subtle ways the daughter is turned into a stranger, someone whom the reader is not invited to sympathise with. An extension of this interpretive model offers the conclusion that the daughter dies because she is deviant. As in the strategy of condemnation, alienation means that focus is put on the woman instead of on the man. Implicitly, she only has herself to blame.
Western art history abounds with sexualized images of biblical women who are more often than not perceived as archetypal or naturally given. The most common motif is perhaps Eve after the Fall. In the role of the Other she arouses desire, not sympathy, in the assumed male beholder. Interestingly enough, today’s advertisers turn this logic upside down by presenting the position of the fallen woman as attractive to woman herself (Edwards 2003). By, for example, wearing the correct perfume (Serpent, Le Jardin) the female consumer can stage herself as an exotic/erotic object.
It is worth mentioning that I have not found any examples of the alienation strategy applied to Jephthah, neither in my thesis material nor in Nordic dramas from the early 20th century (Sjöberg 2003). So the androcentric principle also survives in cases where man is guilty of the most serious crimes, both according to antique Israeli jurisprudence and in contemporary Scandinavian legal practice.
Censure
The strategy of censure means that the reader denies or deletes central parts of the text. Of the five strategies, censorship is the most invasive. In my material, this occurs only in Handel’s Oratorio, where the end is rewritten. The sacrifice is interrupted by an angel, who explains that it is all a misunderstanding on the part of Jephthah, since human sacrifice is against the will of God. Instead of being killed, the daughter is taken away to serve the divinity. Here, this strategy works as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can be perceived as a denial of the father’s responsibility and the daughter’s suffering. In reality, a Deus ex Machina seldom appears to save exposed women and men! On the other hand it might be liberating to imagine a utopia where fathers do not have this power over their children. This is the case in the Jewish feminist Naomi Ragen’s (1989) depiction of the motif in modern times (Sjöberg forthcoming). There, Jephthah’s daughter flees from her violent husband, but returns and is rehabilitated by the Jewish Orthodox leaders.
In my opinion, the context is crucial for the attitude towards this strategy. I am glad that the story is not among the sermon texts in the Gospel Book of the Church of Sweden. But demanding censorship on state level is something totally different. I see above all two arguments against censorship. Firstly, it involves incapacitating the readers, suggesting that they would be unable to handle what they read. Secondly, it results in a denial of history, which as such constitutes an imitation of patriarchal exercise of power in the style of the medieval Inquisition. How can we understand the present without a knowledge of history?
Plural interpretations
As seen above, it is possible to find both advantages and disadvantages with most of the strategies.
Identifying with Jephthah can hypothetically be fruitful, while glorification of the daughter can support the prevailing order. Censure as an interpretive strategy can be both good and bad. My conclusion is to advocate for a diversity of approaches, with certain precautions. Yet all interpretations are not equally good. The alienation of the daughter is a strategy that denies any potential for change.
In this context, I see pluralism as something demanding and challenging. It means not to settle with the habitual, to be prepared to dismantle simplified perceptions of us and them, to be able to accept the fact that one does not possess the whole truth oneself. Advocating pluralism might be seen as battering at an open door. As a political ideal it is not particularly controversial, although opponents do exist. However, it is more difficult to form environments for creative and engaging discussions on ethically problematic texts.
Stories of men’s violence against women are part of Western religious and cultural history. If more people who have grown up in a “Christian” culture realised this, they would perhaps to a lesser extent project religious barbarianism on Kurds and Muslims, and think more about how the Judeo-Christian tradition continues to influence, for example, secularised Nordic societies. Perhaps then the surprise over men’s violence would lessen and the ability to see the real conditions of vulnerable women would improve?
Notes
Boling, Robert G. (1975) Judges, Anchor Bible, 6A; New York: Doubleday.
Exum, Cheryl (1992) Tragedy and Biblical Narrative: Arrows of the Almighty Cambridge: Cam bridge University Press.
Gerstein, Beth (1989) A Ritual Processed: A Look at Judges 11.40’, i Mieke Bal (red.), Anti-Covenant: Counter-Reading Women’s
Lives in the Hebrew Bible JSOTSup, 81; Bible and Literature Series, 22; Shef eld: Almond Press: 175-93.
Josephus (1926–65) Josephus (translation H.St. J. Thackeray et al.; )10 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lindell, Ingrid (2004) Att se och synas. Filmutbud, kön och modernitet. Göteborg och Stockholm: Makadam förlag. Moberg, Eva
(2000) Med en sådan Gud, vad ska vi med Djävulen till?, Ordfront magasin 1-2: 54-60.
Novello, Vincent (ed.) (1851) Handel’s Oratorio Jephtha. London: London Sacred Music Warehouse.
Oz, Amos (1981) Where the Jackals Howl (translation Nicholas de Lange and Philip Simpson) London: Chatto & Windus.
Pseudo-Philon (1976) Les Antiquités Bibliques (translation Jacques Cazeaux; 2 vols.; Sources Chrétiennes, 229-30) Paris: Les
Éditions du Cerf.
Ragen, Naomi (1989) Jephte’s Daughter. New York: Warner Books.
Sjöberg, Mikael (2003) ”Bortom stereotyper. En feministisk läsning av Jeftaberättelsen.”, Kvinnovetenskaplig tidskrift, nr
3-4 (”Genus och Gud”), s. 87-100.
Sjöberg, Mikael (2006) Wrestling With Textual Violence. The Jephthah Narrative in Antiquity and Modernity. Bible in the Modern
World 4. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press.
Sjöberg, Mikael (2007 forthcoming) “Jephthah’s Daughter as Desired Object or Feminist Icon.” Retellings: The Bible in Literature,
Music, Art and Film (Biblical Interpretation, vol 15, nr 4&5)
Sypherd, Wilbur Owen (1948) Jephthah and his Daughter: A Study in Comparative Literature. Newark and Delaware: University
of Delaware.
Trible, Phyllis (1984) Texts of Terror Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
Watson, Elliot Grant Lovegood (1939) A Mighty Man of Valour Bristol: Burleigh Press.
First published in NIKK magasin 2 2007 © NIKK
