Human Sacrifice – I used to think Jehovah only liked smoke and blood from animals

Of course the best human sacrifices are virgin girls

Back when the Israelites were still wiping out their neighbors, Jephthah was made the captain of the combined armies of Israel. When the Ammonites attacked Israel, Jephthah sent messengers to ask why they were invading. The Ammonites responded, “It’s because the children of Israel stole our land when they came up out of Egypt.” Jephthah wasn’t versed well enough in Israeli history to know this was true, so he made up some story about how the Israelis didn’t actually take the Ammonites’ land and the Ammonites needed to back the F**K off.  Of course this message did nothing for the Ammonites so Jephthah moved to make battle.

Being the God-fearing man he was, Jephthah swore an oath to Jehovah that if the children of Israel were victorious against the Ammonites, he would offer whichever person first came out of his house to meet him when he got home as a sacrifice to the Lord. This must have worked because Jehovah helped Jephthah’s armies kill all sorts of Ammonites until the Ammonites didn’t have enough people left to mount an offensive.

When Jephthah got home he was really upset when his daughter was the first person to come out of his house to greet him. Because the daughter isn’t named in the bible, we will call her Autumn. You see, Jephthah really liked Autumn and she was his only offspring. Unfortunately Jephthah couldn’t go back on his promise and once he explained the situation to Autumn she understood that it was the only course of action. You see, she also believed that Jehovah would not have helped the Israelis kill all those Ammonites without the promise of a human sacrifice. This always makes my think of the scene in Dragonslayer where the kings daughter Princess Elspeth went willinging to be sacrificed to the dragon, as a virgin, to protect the townspeople from the dragon's wrath.

A Virgin Sacrifice for a Dragon

Autumn had a single request before she was sacrificed in accordance with Hebrew law. She just wanted to go into the wilderness with her friends so they could cry for two months because she was going to die a virgin. This made a lot of sense to Jephthah because he, like most men, believed that all females are eager for sex and can’t live properly without it.

Autumn bewailing her virginity

Two months later, Autumn came back home like she promised. Then she was sacrificed. For those that don’t know, this means a priest grabbed Autumn by the head and killed her in front of a crowd. Then the priest sprinkled her blood on an altar. Finally, Autumn’s fat and kidneys were removed and burned on the altar. This constitutes an “offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.”

Moral: the Lord doesn’t always stop a parent from sacrificing their child.

Ref: Judges 11:29-39 & Leviticus 3:1-6

Note: when I tell biblical stories this horrific, I always have a hard time typing by the end because I get upset. Also, when I started writing this I planned to focus on the whole “bewailing virginity” thing because it's funny, but by the time I got there; I just didn’t have it in me.