What number judge was Jephthah?

Answer 1

In the Book of Judges, Jephthah was the eighth judge of Israel. However, (Jo Ann Hackett, The Oxford History of the Biblical World, "There Was No King in Israel": The Era of the Judges) says that although the framework of stories presents the judges as succeeding one another, the order of the stories seems to be based on a south-to-north, then east geographical model.

The judges are identified according to their home regions in approximate south-north order: Judah, Benjamin, Dan (possibly), Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar (just north of Manasseh), Gilead (in the eastern tribal allotment of Manasseh). Jephthah, listed as the eighth judge, also comes from Gilead (Judges 11:1-12:7). The order of judges then returns westward and south.

The order in which the judges are presented is so entirely artificial as to be no guide as to their real order of succession. So we can never know whom Jephthah really succeeded, if indeed he was a real, historical person.