What is it about?
Within the biblical canon, Judges 11 is a text of terror - a father makes a foolish oath and a daughter is sacrificed. Filtering the text through a typical feminist hermeneutic, the text is deconstructed and the story’s victim, Jephthah’s daughter, is rendered a submissive pawn of a patriarchal society. Using a feminist, Pentecostal hermeneutic, one can read Jephthah’s daughter with new eyes, seeing her as a courageous daughter who takes a radical stand against her father’s world that is determined by greed and violence. As Judges 11 is read with the Spirit, the reader herself experiences transformation as she enters into the Spirit’s grief, brooding, and transformation of this nameless daughter and of all those who hear, with her, the unheard voice of God.
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Why is it important?
This article provides a prime example of the generative work Feminist Pentecostal hermeneutics offers the biblical reader. Employing a Spirit-Word hermeneutic, Jephthah's daughter is heard anew and is reimagined as a model of faithfulness and action rather than being reduced to a submissive, nameless victim.
Perspectives
As a devoted reader of Christian Scripture, the texts of terror have always been disturbing - something to skim over in confusion rather than delve into as a means of hearing the voice of God. As I became familiar with the Pentecostal Spirit-Word hermeneutic, I began to both see and hear Jephthah's daughter anew. Rather than playing a minor role in the overall book of Judges, I began to see her as a linchpin character who protests the martial valor of her father and the men wreaking havoc upon her people.
Abigail Sham (Greves)
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Daughter of Courage: Reading Judges 11 with a Feminist Pentecostal Hermeneutic, Journal of Pentecostal Theology, September 2016, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/17455251-02502001.
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