The Literal Protestant

There are many ways that I understand the word sacrifice. Jeptha, the play, was confusing because firstly, I had never heard of the biblical story before and secondly, I had not been introduced to many religious texts until this year. In order to understand the political conflict of human sacrifice and the taking of one’s life, I attempted to modernize the issue… What I did to relativize this lecture to my current knowledge was think about a current issue that has been a part of Canada’s legal system recently, assisted suicide and euthanasia. Currently, assisted suicide is illegal in Canada. The importance of this law is what is considered the value that society puts on human life. In Jeptha, Buchanan creates a political battle with a similar question: who has the right to take someone’s life? To support his resistance theory, he is rejecting the monarchical and paternal tyrannical powers that are formed in the story. Jeptha is represented through Christianity, where sacrificial death (like that of Iphis) was a voluntary experience of figurative atonement devoted to the worship of God. In both contexts, whether biblical or modern, rational relativism directs a pattern of ethical humanism.