Milada horakova biography of abraham
Whose Story? Which Sacrifice? On the Story of Jephthah’s Daughter
1 Introduction
Sacrifice is a popular theme in philosophical and theological discussions. The concept remains ambiguous, however, and the field is contested across anthropological, ethnological, sociological, and ethical perspectives. James Watt suggests that “every attempt to describe and explain ‘sacrifice’ always fails to encompass the whole range of ritual and nonritual behavior called sacrifice,” and that, ultimately therefore, it would be best to abandon the “label” sacrifice altogether. After discussing many of the authors Watt lists as tackling the issue of sacrifice from their various points of interest – including Robertson Smith, Hubert and Mauss, Burkert – I came to the same conclusion. However, what I have in mind when talking about sacrifice, and what Watt does not seem to discuss at all, is an interpretation of the individual’s experience of sacrifice. Thus, contrary to all the various approaches taken by anthropologists, ethnologists, and scholars of comparative religion, and many others who seek to interpret sacrifice as a social or socio-religious and cultic phenomenon, I aim to approach sacrifice from the existential–phenomenological angle, and in so doing I will draw from the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Jan Patočka, and Jacques Derrida.
The book of Judges is one of the most unusual books in the Hebrew Bible, and in few places is its eccentricity more evident than in the sacrificial story of Jephthah’s daughter (Judg. 11:29–40). The many recent accounts testify that this sacrificial story is a scholarly focus for various reasons. In “Gender Difference and the Rabbis: Bat Yiftah as Human Sacrifice,” Tal Ilan suggests that behind the unnecessary death of the young woman might have been simply the pride and ignorance of Jephthah and the priest Phineas; Mikael Sjöberg’s “Jephthah’s Daughter as Object of Desire or Feminist Icon” depicts the violent and gendered aspec On this date in 1975, 23-year-old Olga Hepnarova was hanged at Prague’s Pankrac Prison. On July 19, 1973, a splenetic Hepnarova had lived out the road rager’s fantasy by barreling her three-ton Praga RN lorry into a tram stop* — killing eight elderly commuters. Caught on the scene where her Truck of Death came to rest, Hepnarova’s authorship was not in question — only her culpability. Three days after the bloodbath, she was telling police about her hatred of and alienation from her “brutal” fellow-beings, of beatings from her father and every form of humiliation and disrespect among her peers. This had been a lifelong theme with Hepnarova; the wounds of the world pierced her deeply, and she had spent time in a psychiatric institution after a teenage suicide attempt. In her short working life, she’d been unable to hold down any job for long. Truck-driving, tragically, was only her latest (and last) gig. About the same time the tormented Hepnarova was owning her actions to the authorities, editors at two newspapers received nearly-identical letters she had posted before she made herself famous, touching much the same themes. I am a loner. A destroyed person. A person destroyed by people… I therefore have a choice – to kill myself or to kill others. I choose – TO AVENGE MY PERSECUTORS. It would be too easy to leave this world as an unknown suicide. Society is too indifferent, rightly so. My verdict is: I, Olga Hepnarová, the victim of your bestiality, sentence you to the death penalty. Doctors who examined her did not find her sufficiently off her rocker to have not known what she was doing, and the remorseless Hepnarova accepted the court’s verdict and sentence with equanimity. There are reports, however, that by the last day her placidity had crumbled and that she fought the execution team and had to be dragged, swooning, to the noose. For this documentary, hav To don Sarah’s skin is to embark on a journey through time, ideology, and the complex tapestry of women’s relationships within patriarchal structures. Sarah and Hagar, though rooted in the biblical narrative of Gen 12–23, transcend their literary origins to become powerful archetypes for intersectional feminism. The skin metaphor unfolds on two intertwined levels: first, through the literal transformation of their depicted skin – from the racially non-thematised West Semite and Egyptian/Bedouin of ancient times, to the stark contrasts of a white Victorian lady and a black slave, and finally to the complex notion of the Jewish identity of the twentieth century. This will be a minor point in my discussion, however, as others have already addressed it excellently. In this article, I would rather like to invite you to slip metaphorically into Sarah’s skin, to inhabit her situation and perspective. This act of empathetic imagination reveals that, stripped of historical and ideological context, Sarah emerges as a figure to whom women across cultures and times can relate. While intersectional explorations have often focused on Hagar as the oppressed slave, rightfully illuminating issues of race and class, this article shifts the lens to Sarah without diminishing Hagar’s crucial narrative. By centring Sarah, we uncover new layers of complexity in women’s experiences, examining how privilege intersects with gender oppression and how women navigate power dynamics within patriarchal structures. Sarah and Hagar became archetypes, respectively, for the law and the covenant, the church and the synagogue, for the free and the slave, Christians and Jews, but also for Muslims and Jews/Christians, papists and reformers, and whites and “others.” They represent, therefore, a history of division and dichotomy. Both, however, were women, and both were mothers This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources. This list is categorised by the reason for execution and the year of the execution is included. When a person was sentenced to death for two or more different capital crimes they are listed multiple times. Executed Today
Putting on Sarah’s Skin: Victim Identity in the Abrahamic Stories and Beyond
List of people who were executed
Arson and sabotage
Assassination
Espionage
Firearm offences
Military and civil conflicts, insurrections, and coups d'état
Ancient Times (pre AD 500)
Pre-Modern Era (500-1500)
Early Modern Era (1500–1800)
19th century
1900s
1910s
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
Since 1990
Murder
Mass murder
Serial killers
Piracy
Political opponents
Political purges
Executed during the Night of the Long Knives (all in 1934)
Executed during the Great Purge
Executed members of the 20 July plot
Prisoners of war
Religious figures