What does the Bible say about burning children to death?
The "God" of the Bible occasionally commands people to kill children (Side note: When fundamentalists claim that there’s no basis for morality other than Scripture, it's honestly baffling), and we will look at other examples of God commanding people to kill MANY children and babies, but let’s look now specifically at the story of Jephthah (Judges 11:29-40).
Jephthah (UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF GOD) made a vow to God that, if God would help him destroy the Ammonites, Jephthah would sacrifice whoever came out of his tent to greet him when he returned home. ….then God DID help Jephthah destroy the Ammonites and then Jephthah’s daughter greeted him when he came home.
So, after two months (plenty of time for an omnipotent and/or compassionate God to change the plans) of mourning because she never had a chance to have sex with a man, Jephthah offered his daughter as a burnt offering to God!! How unfortunate for Jephthah’s (unnamed) daughter. If you still insist on Biblical infallibility, this story is a real workout for your faith.
Maybe you could claim that God wasn’t complicit in this human/CHILD-sacrifice. Or that He didn’t know who would come out of the tent (does it matter who??). Or that He couldn’t stop it (let alone express any disapproval)…. Well, if this is a book written by the God who created blue whales, butterflies, and human
language, it’s not exactly His best work, because he could have communicated a little more clearly.
Fundamentalists spend an insane amount of time (like we, ourselves, used to do) trying to prove that some very clear biblical passages mean exactly the opposite of what they "seem" to be saying. And they also spend an insane amount of time trying to prove that some extremely ambiguous passages make an air-tight justification for their own personal phobias and bigotries.
Discussion
What are your thoughts on child sacrifice? How do you interpret the story of Jephthah and his daughter? We, the founders of Question Fundamentalism, are of course 100% against any practice of human sacrifice. And we are asking you not to malign the Creator by claiming that the Bible is the infallible words of God.