Judges 19

I take great issue with Judges 19. So here’s chapter 19 in a nutshell: man picks a slave. Slave runs away. Man goes to retrieve slave. On the way home man, is trapped in random man’s house by a mob. Man offers up slave to mob. Slave is raped to death. Man cuts slave up into 12 pieces and almost destroys a tribe of people. Yelp, that’s it. 

This chapter upsets me on so many levels. Nothing in this chapter is right! Let’s learn together and unpack the part of this story that causes me the most angst. 

Wait – stop; you just called her a slave but KJV calls her a concubine. What gives?

To start off; in biblical times, a wife held a higher social status and had more rights and responsibilities than a concubine. A concubine was a woman who lived with a man, often as a form of secondary wife or slave, while a wife had a full legal and social standing as a marital partner. “ Google A.I. definition. 

KJV says, “so the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them,” Judges 19:25. 

Personally, I take issue with the King James Version of the Bible. I choose to believe it is not the be all and end all of biblical translations. 

I’ve been listening to Flavius Josephus; The Antiquities of the Jews. He was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for his writings on the Jewish Revolt of 66-70 AD and his history of the Jewish people. He is considered a crucial primary source for understanding Jewish history and the period of the First Jewish-Roman War, as well as the early history of Christianity. 

Josephus was not a popular man. Religiously, he was a pharisees. As a military leader, who initially served as a Jewish leader in Galilee during the First Jewish-Roman War, but he later surrendered to Roman forces and became a collaborator with the Roman Empire. This didn’t go over well with his fellow Jews. He’s forever branded by his fellow Jews as a traitor.

After the war, he wrote extensively about the Jewish people, their history, and the conflict with Rome. His most important works include “The Jewish War” and “Antiquities of the Jews”. 

In “Antiquities of the Jews”, Josephus starts with Genesis (the creation of all). I’m not finished with the book, so I’m not going to comment on things I haven’t read. But listening to his translations, verses what I’ve read from the KJV, it all sounds familiar. Same characters, same stories, there have been a couple times that I paused and was like, that’s different. But nothing to make me want to throw a book across the room. 

With that being said, I couldn’t wait to get to his take on Judges 19. His version of the story is radically different in a lot of aspects. Nowhere does Josephus call her a concubine. As a matter of importance (to me) he uses the word wife 5 times.

Let’s go back to KJV. It says, “so the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them,” Judges 19:25. On page 136 of The Antiquities of the Jews; Josephus writes, “but they proceeded to take her away by force”. 

KJV gives us this picture of a runaway slave and her owner that goes and gets her back only to offer her up as a scapegoat to save his own hide. 

Josephus paints a picture of a vulgar man, who marries a beautiful woman. But she doesn’t love him, the way he loves her. Which causes them to fight. A-LOT! She can’t stand it and goes to her parents. He goes to get her. Her parents intreat him to stay. When they get to Gibeah, the men of the city are so taken by her beauty that they form a mob. Josephus never mentions that they want to abuse the men of the house. KJV 22, “Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him.” The old man in the house does still offer up his daughter. Josephus details that they “but they proceeded to take her away by force”. 

Josephus makes me feel a lot better about this story. That the men of this city kidnapped her instead of her being pushed outside as a ‘here you go as long as you leave me alone’. There is still things that I take issue with in both tellings. 

He didn’t change my opinion about Ruth. 

My point in sharing this as my Testimony Tuesday isn’t to cause anyone to question their faith. At the end of the day, Jesus is my Lord and Savior. And the Bible is the word of God. 

As we know it, the Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek by approximately 40 different authors over a period of about 1500 years. 

If I’ve confused anyone by sharing my struggle to understand better a part of the Bible that upsets me, I do apologize. I feel like it has been laid on my heart to try to get a better understanding. 

Google A.I.

KJV 

Flavius Josephus; The Antiquities of the Jews

Bible Gateway

Britannica.com