Editing Jephthah (section)

=== Possible origins ===
[[Israel Finkelstein]] has suggested that behind multiple and large-scale Deuteronomistic and post-Deuteronomistic additions and redactions, there may lie an oral story which reflects a conflict on the boundary between Israelite and Ammonite settlements in Transjordan, around the towns of Gilead and Mizpah. It may have been first written down in the 8th century BCE, when the Northern kingdom of Israel (Samaria) began to collect its heroic tales, royal stories, and foundation myths.{{Sfn | Finkelstein | 2016| page = 15}} Finkelstein has also suggested that the story of Jephthah's vow may have been added into the story as late as the Hellenistic period.{{sfn | Finkelstein | 2016 | p = 7}}

Some observers have noted the similarities between Jephthah and the mythical Cretan general, [[Idomeneus]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Frazer |first=James |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858052742800&view=1up&seq=7&q1=Idomeneus |title=The Library of Apollodorus; with an English translation by Sir James George Frazer. v.2 |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1921 |pages=394–395}}</ref> as related by [[Servius the Grammarian]] in his ''Commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Honoratus |first=Servius |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0053:book=11:commline=264&highlight=Idomeneus%2Crex%2CCretensium%2Cfuit |title=Vergilii carmina comentarii |at=11.264 |language=la}}</ref> Idomeneus had asked the gods to calm a storm, promising in return that he would sacrifice the first living thing he saw upon his return, which turned out to be his son. The similarity has caused some to wonder if they share a common ancestor.

A similar story about [[Meander (mythology)|Meander]] is given by [[Pseudo-Plutarch]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Pseudo-Plutarch, De fluviis, IX. MAEANDER |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0400%3Achapter%3D9 |access-date=2023-08-19}}</ref>

The story of Jephthah's daughter is also sometimes compared to that of [[Agamemnon]]'s daughter [[Iphigenia]]. In his play ''Jephthas sive votum – Jeptha or the Vow'', the Scottish scholar and dramatist [[George Buchanan]] (1506–1582) called Jephthah's daughter "Iphis", obviously alluding to Iphigenia,<ref>Debora Kuller Shuger, [https://books.google.com/books?id=QdvV815wPQwC&pg=PA136 ''The Renaissance Bible: Scholarship, Sacrifice, and Subjectivity''], 1998, page 136</ref><ref>[[George Buchanan]], ''[https://archive.org/details/sacreddramasofge00buchuoft Sacred Dramas]''</ref> and [[Handel]]'s 1751 [[oratorio]], ''[[Jephtha (Handel)|Jephtha]]'', based on Buchanan's play, uses the same name.