By: Curtis Johnson
Re: Moloch Repost [1/3]

        By Richard Smith's request, I repost (with slight trimming)
 my recent message to Frederick Rice:
 
 FR> The only place to my knowledge which mentions the name is in the
 FR> Christian mythologies.  The entry is obscure yet mentions sacrificing
 FR> children to "the fires of Molech."

 FR> Either it's pure fabrication like much of the mythologies else there
 FR> were many religions at the time which murdered children and "Molech"
 FR> was one of the deity constructs one of those religions used.

 _Scientific American_, Feb. 1975, "A Carthaginian Fortress
 in Sardinia," Sabatino Moscati, pp. 83-84:

 "As I have noted, the tophet, the open-air burning ground
 where human sacrifices were made to the gods, is directly attached
 to the temple at Monte Sirai.  The juxtaposition is unique. . . .
 Moreover, the ash-filled oven within the temple indicates that 
 human sacrifices were performed not only on open-air altars, as 
 they were at other Carthaginian tophets, but also inside a religious
 building.  Buried in the precincts of the tophet were urns
 containing the bones of the sacrificed.  They are all the bones of 
 children.  A number of sculptured stelae, or stone pillars, that 
 recorded the sacrifices also came to light.  Similar evidence of
 sacrifices is usually found within this kind of sacred enclosure;
 indeed, the number of sacrifices at Monte Sirai seems to have been
 lower than usual.  This can be understood if we take into 
 consideration the fact that Monte Sirai was a fortress and not a
 town."

 Carthage, of course, was founded by Phoenicians.

 Regarding the name Molech, it wasn't mentioned in the Sci Am
 article.  Hang on a minute. . .  Damn, my relatively recent Enc. Brit
 is missing that volume (along with others.)  Would you settle for
 the 1910-1912 edition?

 "...(in Hebrew, with the doubtful exception of I Kings xi.7,
 always "_the_ Molech"), the name or title of the divinity which the
 men of Judah in the last ages of the kingdom were wont to propitiate
 by the sacrifice of their own children.  Acording to the Hebrew 
 consonants it might simply be read "the king" (_melek_), an
 appellation for the supreme deity of a Semitic state or tribe.  The 
 traditional pronunciation (Moloch), which goes back as far as the
 Septuagint version of Kings, probably means that the old form was
 perverted by giving it the vowels of _bosheth_ "shame," the
 contemptuous name for Baal (q.v.).  In I Kings xi.7 (see above) it
 is the name of the god of the Ammonites, elsehwere called Milcom or 
 Malcom; but it appears from 2 Kings xxiii.10, 13 that the worship of
 Milcom at the shrine set up by Solomon was distinct from Molech
 worship, and the text should probably therefore be emended to the
 longer form (so the Septuagint).

 The phrase employed in speaking of these sacrifices is that
 of dedication--"to make one's son or daughter pass through (or by
 means of) fire to (the) Molech" (2 Kings xxiii.10; but elsewhere 
 without the the words "through fire" Lev. xviii.21); and it appears 
 from Jer. vii.31, xix.5; Ezek. xvi.20 seq., that this phrase denotes
 a human holocaust, [1]

 [1--In 2 Chron. xxviii.3 (parallel to 2 Kings xvi.3) a single
 letter is transposed in the phrase, changing the sense from 
 "caused to pass through the fire" to "caused to burn with fire."
 Geiger (_Urschrift und Uebersetzung_, p. 305) very unnecessarily 
 supposed that this was everywhere the original reading, and that
 it had been changed to soften the enormity ascribed to the ancient
 Hebrews.  The phrase "to give one's seed to Moloch" (Lev. xx.2 seq.),
 and the fact that these victims were (like other sacrifices) regarded
 as food for the deity (Ezek. xvi.20) explain and justify the common
 reading.]

                         and not, as sometimes has been thought, a
 mere consecration to Molech by passing through or between fires, 
 as in the Roman _Palilia_ and similar rites elsewhere (on which
 see Frazer, _Golden Bough_, 2nd ed., ii.40 sqq., iii.237 sqq.).
 Human sacrifice was common in Semitic heathenism, and at least the 
 idea of such sacrifices was not unknown to Israel from early times
 (see ISAAC; JEPHTHAH).  [2]

 [2--In Hos. xiii.2, the interpretation "they that sacrifice men" 
 is improbable, and 2 Kings xvii.17 and Lev. xviii., xx. are of 
 too late date by themselves to prove the immolation of children to
 Moloch in old Israel.  The "ban" [[Heb. chars. omitted]], which was
 a religious execution of criminals or enemies, was common to Israel
 with its heathen neighbours (cf. the inscription of Mesha), but
 lacked the distinctive character of a sacrifice in which the victim
 is the food of the deity, conveyed to him through fire.]

                               We learn from 2 Kings iii.27 that
 the piacular sacrifice of his son and heir was the last offering
 which the king of Moab made to deliver his country.  Even the
 Hebrew historian ascribes to this act the effect of rousing divine 
 indignation against the invading host of Israel; it would not, 
 therefore, be surprising if under the miseries brought on Palestine
 by the westward march of the Assyrian power, the idea of the 
 sacrifice of one's own son, as the most powerful of atoning rites,

 should have taken hold of those kings of Judah (Ahaz and Manasseh, 
 2 Kings xvi.3, xxi.6) who were otherwise prone, in their
 hopelessness of help from the old religion (Isa. vii.12), to seek
 to strange peoples and and their rites.  Ahaz's sacrifice of his
 son (which indeed rests on a somewhate late authority) was 
 apparently an isolated act of despair, since human sacrifices are 
 not among the corruptions of the popular religion spoken of by
 Isaiah and Micah.  In the 7th century, however, when the old worship
 had sustained rude shocks, and all religion was transformed into
 servile fear (Mic. vi.1 seq.), the example of Manasseh did not 
 stand alone, and Jeremiah and Ezekiel made frequent and indignant
 reference to the "high places" for the sacrifice of children by
 their parents which rose beneath the very walls of the temple from
 the gloomy ravine of Hinnom or Tophet.  (Jer. vii.31, xix., xxxii.35;
 Ezek. xvi.18 sqq., xxiii.37).  [3]

 [3--The etymology of the word Tophet is obscure; it is possibly of
 Aramaic origin and means "fire-place," cf. _tophteh_, "pyre." 
 (Isa. xxx.33).  The vocalization is artificial, the Masoretes having
 given it the vowel-points of _bosheth_.  See W. R. Smith, _Religions
 of the Semites_, 2nd ed., 377.]

                                     The children apparently were
 not burned alive; they were slain and burned like any other
 holocaust (Ezek. _loc. cit._; Isa. lvii.5), their blood was shed 
 at the sanctuary (Jer. xix.4; Ps. cvi.38).  Thus the late Rabbinical
 picture of the calf-headed brazen image of Molech within which
 children were burned alive is pure fable, and with it falls the
 favourite comparison between Molech and the Carthaginian idol from
 whose brazen arms children were rolled into an abyss of fire, and 
 whom Diodorus (xix.14) naturally identifies with the child-eater
 Kronos, thus leading many moderns to make Molech the planet Saturn.
 It is with these sacrifices that the name of "the Molech" 
 is always connected; sometimes "the Baal" (lord) appears as a 
 synonym.  At the same time, the horrid ritual was so closely 
 associated with Yahweh-worship (Ezek. xxiii.39) that Jeremiah more
 than once finds it necessary to protest that it is not of Yahweh's
 institution (vii.31, xix.5).  So too it is the idea of sacrificing 
 the firstborn to Yahweh that is discussed and rejected in Micah vi.
 It is indeed plain that such a sacrifice--for we have here to do, 
 not with human victims in general, but with the sacrifice of the 
 dearest earthly thing--culd only be paid to the supreme deity; and
 Manasseh and his people never ceased to acknowledge Yahweh as the 
 God of Israel.  Thus the way in which Jeremiah (Jer. xix.5) and the
 author of Kings, seem to mark out the Molech or Baal as a false god,
 distinct from Yahweh, is precisely parallel to the way in which
 Hosea speaks of the golden calves or Baalim.  In each case the
 people thought themselves to be worshipping Yahweh under the title
 of Molech or Baal; but the prophet refuses to admit that this is
 so, because the worship itself is an apostasy to heathenism.  Note,
 also, the attitude of Ezekiel in xx.25 seq., 31, references which
 cannot be explained away.

      Although the motive came from within, the _form_ taken by the
 cult has appeared to many to be of non-Israelite origin.  Babylonia
 and Assyria, however, seem to be out of the question:  _malik_, 
 "arbiter, decider" is there an epithet of various gods, and as an
 appellative means "prince" and not king; further, little evidence
 for the prevalence of human sacrifice has as yet been found in
 those lands (A. Jeremias, _Das Alte Test. im Lichte d. alten
 Orients_, 2nd ed., p. 454).  Among the Canaanite branch, the 
 king-god is more prominent, and apart from the Ammonite variant
 Milcom, numerous names compounded with Milk- are found on 
 Phoenician inscriptions and among western Semites mentioned in
 cuneiform literature (H. Zimmern, _Keilinschr. u. das Alte Test._,
 3rd ed., pp. 470 sqq.).  It is true that child-sacrifice in 
 connexion with fire prevailed among the Phoenicians, and,
 according to the Greeks, the deity honoured with these grisly rites
 was Kronos (identified with the Phoenician El, "God").  On the 
 other hand, the seat of the cult appears to have been at Jerusalem, 
 and the period during which it flourished does not favour any
 strong Phoenician influence.  Again, the form of the word Tophet 
 and Ahaz's association with Damascus might point to an Aramaean 
 origin for the cult; but it would not be safe to support this view
 by the statements and names in 2 Kings xvii.31.  On the whole, the 
 biblical tradition that the Molech-cult was Canaanite and 
 indigenous (Deut. xii.29 sqq., xviii.9 seq.) holds the ground.
 There was a tendency in time of misfortune to revert to earlier
 rites (illustrated in some ancient mourning customs), and it may
 have been some old disused practice revived under the pressure
 of national distress."

 Change the means of death, and there's an obvious echo
 in the Jesus mythos.

 Sonofagun--looks like Moloch was another name for Yahweh.