Pastor AIO:

Thank you so much for explaining the meaning of booties and showing me how to read the text. In fact it illustrates my point that any text can be read in any way depending on the creative intelligence of the reader. I will take your point and read the passage only from verse 16, ignoring verse 15. This is still what I get:

16“Then you shall gather all its booty into the middle of its open square and burn the city and all its booty with fire as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God;

I still see a city being burnt (with all it's booty, not just the booty alone). Since we have separated the booty from the rest of the city what does the city that is being burnt consist of?

Pastor AIO:

I don't know why you quoted the above. Is it that it is what you believe, or is it a red herring? Or could it really be that you quoted it 'to serve to enlighten me'? The article does not actually state what happens. It seems to me that it is just wriggling about trying to squirm its way out of the difficult position. After speculating whether or not Jephthah could have done such a thing, it then says that whether he did it or not it doesn't matter cos it doesn't say that God approved of it, and in fact God in Deuteronomy expressly disapproved.
It is all rather long-winded, and I have a preference for just following what the bible said in simplicity.

Pastor AIO:


39At the end of two months she returned to her father, who did to her according to the vow which he had made;

What was the vow? To offer her as a burnt offering! simples.

Pastor AIO:

Now to come to this very interesting bible verse. This is what you and also the writer of the not-very-interesting article you quoted use to show that God would not condone human sacrifice.
Alas for you, human sacrifice is not mentioned in the text. What you seem to understand as human sacrifice (and many other translators have made this error too so you are in good company) is the line 'to pass through the fire'. However to accept this translation is to betray an ignorance of Canaanite religion, and also other pagan religions the world over.
To Pass over the fire was means, quite literally, to pass over fire. This was a rite that was done to purify the celebrants. In some parts they jump through a ring of fire or they jump over a bonfire. These practices were usually tied to the solstice celebrations and they are still practiced in Europe and other parts of the middle east till this day. A lot of solstice rites are still practiced within christendom as Christmas celebrations and Midsummer's Eve Celebrations (themed around the birth of St. John the Baptist).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsummer

GODSON2009:

its not about the creative intelligence of the reader,its about getting the essence the exegesis like i have stated before and the purpose,if you have noticed the bible is like layes upon laters of interwoven incidents,you simply cannot pick out an incident and then talk about it independently of the supporting verses.

GODSON2009:

i never said that GOD did not accept burn offerings,in fact examples abound in the old testament where burn offering was offered unto him either to appease him or to ask for favours.
the city being burnt contains properties of the inhabitants,if you check the bible other exampes abound where the israelites are told to burn everything without taking any "booty" king saul actually lost his kingdom because he disobeyed GOD not to take anything i.e booty from a vanquished enemyyes,that is what i believe actually its not a red herring and even though the bible did not categorically state what that jephtah did at the end of that chapter,we could look at another incident of similar situation in the bible and rationally deduce.
example where similar happened samuels's mother made a vow to GOD that any child she gets will be dedicated to GOD fore ever he was not killed or slaughtered.

30Jephthah made a vow to the LORD and said, “If You will indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand, 31then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the LORD’S, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.”

34When Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, behold, his daughter was coming out to meet him with tambourines and with dancing.

39At the end of two months she returned to her father, who did to her according to the vow which he had made;

there is no where that GOD will demand for a human sacrifice,and i added the link and short recital to show an enlightened explanation from someone who was more knowledgeable than i am concerning that incident

and i will state for the umpteenth time that the vow was to give the daughter unto a lifetime of service to GOD sort of like a nun,if you traverse the length and breath of different religious persuations like seventh day adventists,jehovah's witness others this is what they all believe and subscribe to.since you are not a christian you cannot know about my religion more than i do by applying literal meanings,its like when jesus said he will demolish the temple and build it back in 3 days, fair enough?

since you are not a christian you cannot know about my religion more than i do by applying literal meanings,its like when jesus said he will demolish the temple and build it back in 3 days, fair enough?

lets address this one after the other,as you have bolded it,the instruction of GOD to the israelites was that once they have taken control they were forbidden from practicing any of these sort of sacrifices,now irrespective of its origins and the people that practice it the bible which you have quoted copiously from to back your assertions have equally shown that its totally against human sacrifice that is the buttom line now i would like you to justify the article i posted n the other comment about the violated 5 yrs old girl and then generally justify and rationalise the human sacrifice indulged in as a form of idol worship which you have failed to do.
both you and tudor in trying to ease out of a difficult situation find it easier to attack christianity rather than explain,rationalise and justify the sacrifice of human beings that is the crux of this whole argument and i dont see anyone rising to it.

Human Sacrifice in Ancient Canaan
There is little doubt that many ancient Canaanite religions called for child sacrifice. The rites of both Chemosh of the Moabites and Molech of the Ammonites appear to have called for sacrifices by “passing through the fire.” This is generally understood to mean sacrifice by burning the victim to death.

Pretty gruesome and often offered by Apologists as a justification for the genocide the early Israelites were instructed by God to carry out on the Canaanite tribes. The more secular idea of refugees from civilized Egypt entering Canaan and being horrified by the practice works as an explanation too.

There’s only one problem. If the kingdoms of Israel and Judah actually emerged from the indigenous nomads of the highlands as Finkelstein and others propose, then there was no exodus from Egypt and there is no reason to assume the early Hebrew religious practices would be all that distinct from the surrounding cultures. One would expect to find that the early Israelites practiced child sacrifice as well as their neighbors. The question is whether, as we are led to believe by most interpretations, this was the result of the Israelites becoming enamored of foreign gods and adopting their rites or it was the result of internal priestly disagreements related to the proper worship of the Hebrew God himself. In other words, did early Israelites perform child sacrifices to YHWH as their neighbors did to Chemosh and Molech?

Exodus hints at the practice by talking about “redeeming” each first born male. In Kings, the Kings of Israel are repeatedly condemned for performing child sacrifice.

Exodus 13:2 Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether man or animal.

Rather a suggestive paragraph wouldn’t you say?

Exodus 13:13 Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons.

I guess one could “redeem” a child the same way a donkey is redeemed, with a substitute lamb, but it’s interesting that it doesn’t specifically say that isn’t it? Then again, according to Numbers, it simply costs 5 shekels to redeem each firstborn son.

Exodus 13:14 In days to come, when your son asks you, 'What does this mean?' say to him, 'With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15 When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man and animal. This is why I sacrifice to the LORD the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.'

Most Apologists would point out that either these paragraphs simply refer to dedicating the first born male to the service of God or that they refer to redeeming the first born with lamb’s blood as was done on the first Passover.

I don’t find the first explanation terribly compelling. Dedicated to God’s service in order to do what? The Levites were the priestly class weren’t they? If this was simply a call to dedicate the first born male to the service of God, then how come the practice isn’t referred to and expanded upon elsewhere?

The second explanation sounds much more likely and first born children would be redeemed with a substitute animal sacrifice. I wonder what happened if the family didn’t have an animal to substitute?

2 Kings 16:3 He (Ahaz) walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.

2 Kings 17:17 They (the Israelites) sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire.

The kings of Judah come in for similar criticism in this regard including Solomon.

1 Kings 11: 7 On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. 8 He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods.

King Hezekiah and then Josiah, the guy with the white hat according to the Deuteronomistic History, take serious steps to put a stop to this practice. Unfortunately, their actions appear to get undone by the kings that follow them.

2 Kings 23:10 He (King Josiah) desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech.

Josiah was not a man to trifle with. Undoubtedly cheered on by Jeremiah, he ripped down all the altars dedicated by past kings to foreign gods.

2 Kings 23:12 He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of the LORD. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley. 13 The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the people of Ammon.

It sounds like the priests came off even worse than the altars.

2 Kings 23:20 Josiah slaughtered all the priests of those high places.

Josiah re-organizes how the Passover is celebrated.

2 Kings 23:21 The king gave this order to all the people: "Celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant."

And what is this “Book of the Covenant?” Why it’s the book of laws fortuitously located by the High Priest Hilkiah in the Temple at Jerusalem. I say fortuitously because the book:

- Explained what the Israelites had been doing wrong and that got God all ticked off at them.
- Explained how to improve the situation.
- Established Judah’s ancient claim to the lands of the defunct northern kingdom of Israel

The book is of course Deuteronomy and the following historical books or at least the initial version of the histories. I find it a little strange that Josiah and company felt compelled to specify the Passover celebration.

Deuteronomy 16:2 Sacrifice as the Passover to the LORD your God an animal from your flock or herd at the place the LORD will choose as a dwelling for his Name.

The place is Jerusalem which pretty much puts the Kingdom of Judah, and Josiah himself, in the driver’s seat. It also guarantees that the Levite priests of Jerusalem would be the beneficiaries of the sacrifices.

Deuteronomy 6:20 In the future, when your son asks you, "What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?" 21 tell him: "We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.”

Note the absence of any references to sacrificing the first male offspring, redeeming the first male or any references to the death of the first born of Egypt here as opposed to Exodus 13.

Josiah, Deuteronomy and the supporting histories make it pretty darn clear that human sacrifice will not be tolerated nor will any other rites associated with foreign gods. If Josiah was the driving force behind Deuteronomy, or even if he simply acquiesced to something being touted by Hilkiah and his son Jeremiah, the legal and religious reform that he brought about deserves to be considered one of the greatest influences on the western world and King Josiah deserves to be considered one of history’s greatest law givers up there with Hammurabi, Moses, and Solon.

Unfortunately, Josiah makes the mistake of stepping in front of an Egyptian arrow and it’s unlikely that he managed to fully root out the practice since both Jeremiah and Ezekiel have a few words to say about the topic as well.

Jeremiah 7:31 They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.

I find it interesting that God has to specifically state that child sacrifice was “something I did not command” as late as the time of Jeremiah in the 7th century BCE.

Ezekiel 20:25 I also gave them (the Israelites) over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by; 26 I let them become defiled through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn —that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the LORD.'

This is another one of those “suggestive passages.” One can spin it a number of ways but one has to wonder about paragraph 26 and exactly what is implied by God letting them become defiled through the sacrifice of every firstborn and why this would fill them with horror?

Ezekiel 20:31 When you offer your gifts—the sacrifice of your sons in the fire—you continue to defile yourselves with all your idols to this day.

This sort of implies that the practice was still going on around the time of the exile.

What I have never been able to understand is why so many of the kings of ancient Israel and Judah, at least according to the prevailing Biblical interpretation, fell into the habit of worshipping foreign gods. It seems like a pretty dumb thing to do. The cycle is obvious. The people fall into idolatry, God beats them over the head because of it, the people repent, God forgives them and restores their blessings and then the idiots immediately fall back into idolatry.

One has to suspect that this is the result of the cycle of success and failure that all nations and cultures experience. However, it usually takes something pretty major to turn a people away from their god. The first reaction is usually that the god is angry for some reason and needs to be appeased. This leads either directly to increased sacrifices or, if there is an ongoing debate between factions of the priesthood, a swing in which faction has the upper hand.

There certainly appears to have historically been some friction between the northern priesthood centered at Shiloh and the southern priesthood centered at Jerusalem. Allow me to speculate that the northern faction, in a more hospitable and more densely populated environment with more aggressive local neighbors, held to what they believed were the “old ways” which included the same child sacrifice as the other tribal religions, while the southern faction, in a much more sparsely populated environment, held the opinion that such rites were a perversion of the true worship of YHWH.

Since the north was the more powerful of the two kingdoms, its influence would tend to prevail and its theology would tend to dominate. After the fall of the northern kingdom, that influence would begin to wane but it would take a good while for it to disappear completely. If for no other reason than the strength of tradition, it might still hold sway unless strong liberal kings, like Hezekiah and Josiah, were on the throne of Judah.

I find it suggestive that the first great reform, that of Hezekiah, occurs right about the time of the fall of the northern kingdom. I also find it interesting that both reforms occurred during the period of influence of a great prophet. Isaiah was a contemporary of Hezekiah and Jeremiah was a contemporary of Josiah.

Upon the death of Hezekiah, Manasseh ascends to the throne of Judah. It’s a dangerous time. The northern kingdom has fallen and the king of Assyria is applying considerable pressure on Judah having even besieged Jerusalem during Hezekiah’s reign. Perhaps looking for a reversal of fortune, Manasseh undoes the reforms of Hezekiah.

2 Chronicle 33:2 He (Manasseh) did evil in the eyes of the LORD, following the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites. 3 He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had demolished.

2 Chronicles 33:6 He (Manasseh) sacrificed his sons in the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, practiced sorcery, divination and witchcraft, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger.

As noted above, rather than appease God, Manasseh ticked him off to no end. To teach Manasseh a lesson, God let the Assyrians clean his clock.

2 Chronicles 33:11 So the LORD brought against them the army commanders of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon. 12 In his distress he sought the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

Not exactly what the Prophet Isaiah had in mind when he prophesized:

Isaiah 30:31 The voice of the LORD will shatter Assyria; with his scepter he will strike them down. 32 Every stroke the LORD lays on them with his punishing rod will be to the music of tambourines and harps, as he fights them in battle with the blows of his arm. 33 Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze.

So Isaiah envisions that the King of Assyria will be burned in the pit of Topheth just as all the child sacrifices to false gods? Then why is the fire in the pit started by “the breath of the LORD?”

At least according to Chronicles, Manasseh sees the light and turns back to God. Strangely, Kings is silent about this change of heart.

2 Chronicles 33:15 He got rid of the foreign gods and removed the image from the temple of the LORD, as well as all the altars he had built on the temple hill and in Jerusalem; and he threw them out of the city. 16 Then he restored the altar of the LORD and sacrificed fellowship offerings and thank offerings on it, and told Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel. 17 The people, however, continued to sacrifice at the high places, but only to the LORD their God.

Let’s consider paragraph 17. “The people, however, continued to sacrifice at the high places, but only to the LORD their God.”

What the hell does this mean? The “high places” were the places where child sacrifice to the foreign gods took place. This passage can easily be interpreted to mean that while the sacrifices remained the same, they were now only directed toward the god of Israel while in the past they had been directed toward multiple deities including the god of Israel (note that I use a small “g” because I can’t possibly be talking about God here).

I might even argue that is the simplest interpretation. Any other interpretation requires reading into the passage a change in the manner of sacrifice as well.

As for Isaiah, Jewish tradition has it that he was executed by Manasseh by being cut in half with a wooden saw. I guess Manasseh was unamused that he got a hook through his nose rather than the Assyrian monarch getting fried in a fiery pit. Manasseh reigned for fifty-five years! His successor, Amon, was assassinated after only two years.

2 Chronicles 33:22 He (Amon) did what was evil in the LORD's sight, just as his father Manasseh had done. He worshiped and sacrificed to all the idols his father had made. 23 But unlike his father, he did not humble himself before the LORD. Instead, Amon sinned even more.

Very strange isn’t it? Manasseh sees the light after getting a hook shoved into his nose but Amon doesn’t learn anything from that. I might also point out that the passage sort of implies that sacrificing to idols is ok as long as you humble yourself before the LORD.

2 Chronicle 33:24 At last Amon's own officials plotted against him and assassinated him in his palace. 25 But the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah the next king.

This sure sounds like another event in an ongoing internecine struggle. This time it’s a failed palace coup.

Josiah ascends the throne next at the tender age of eight and doesn’t begin his reforms until twelve years later. Coincidentally, Jeremiah gets his first person to person call from God in the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign.

The untimely death of Josiah and Judah getting caught between the millstones of Egypt and Babylon sort of pushes the theological struggle into the background but it’s the Babylonian exile which finally appears to settle the question.

Historically child sacrifice in Canaan seems to have continued in some places until the Romans took measures to stamp it out once and for all in the 1st century CE! It took the empire to succeed despite the fact that both the Greeks and the Jews, after the Babylonian exile, abhorred the practice.

The traditional understanding is that the people were constantly being seduced into worshipping false gods and performing their abominable acts. I suspect that it was a little more complicated than that. I suspect that early on there was some disagreement over whether the God of Israel required such sacrifices as well.

I suspect that the priestly faction of the northern kingdom insisted that such sacrifices were right and proper and based this argument upon a distorted interpretation of the book of Exodus. If you learn nothing else young Padawan learn this, NEVER entrust a priest, or anyone else that calls himself a “man of God,” with the authority to make decisions related to law or justice. Feel free to use them as moral advisors if you must, but leave the authority, in the hands of secular leaders.

Not until the fall of the northern kingdom does a minority southern viewpoint, which holds child sacrifice an abomination of false gods, begin to replace the distorted northern view. Not until Josiah produces the Book of Deuteronomy, which clearly refutes child sacrifice by providing an alternate set of rules, is there a book of Moses that supports the southern viewpoint, but, as indicated by Ezekiel, it still takes a hundred years or so for the conflict to finally be resolved. Perhaps the practice was finally abandoned at the insistence of the Babylonians who, despite the sexual myths recorded by Herodotus, seem to have practiced a reasonably high morality as free of human sacrifice as the Egyptians.

Yes, yes, it’s all speculation and undoubtedly being driven by my ignorance and lack of understanding. Actually it’s being driven by my philosophy of “accept nothing without questioning everything.”

Clearly my suspicions and ramblings are totally meaningless since there is no way to verify them one way or the other. This is merely an exercise in cherry picking passages and twisting the interpretation to fit some pre-defined conclusion. But isn’t this basically what all biblical interpretation consists of?

I find amusing the position that the Bible is simple to understand except when it appears to say something uncomfortable. Then one needs years of training in biblical interpretation and exegesis in order to understand what it REALLY means.

I’m certainly not saying that I believe child sacrifice was a part of the early worship of the Israelite God. I’m well enough trained to be able to consider an idea that I don’t accept. There are a few that do accept it however starting with the anthropologist Patrick Tierney.

I find it interesting that I only encountered Tierney AFTER I wrote the first drafts of the above speculation. While I thought Isaiah would have been supporting Hezekiah’s initial attempt at reform, Tierney believes the passages from Isaiah 30:31-33 are an acceptance of the sacrificial practices. I’m not so sure. I think Isaiah was speaking metaphorically and cheered on Hezekiah all the way. Perhaps that was another reason Manasseh decided to shorten his existence.

I’ve found some Apologetics on this topic but not much. No one tries to refute the idea since the overwhelmingly majority interpretation of the scriptures is that they are referring to the repeated descent into idolatry and the worship of false gods. Doesn’t God, when he stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, make it clear that he abhors human sacrifice?

Well, not really. You could interpret it that way, and lots of folks do, but God never actually says that. Well then surely when God stopped Jephthah from sacrificing his daughter he makes it clear then. Oh wait, God didn’t stop Jephthah did he? Nope, not one word of protest. As a matter of fact, if you think about it, Jephthah’s oath in Judges 11:31 “whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering” sort of has built into it the possibility that it could be a person. Jephthah couldn’t have been so stupid that he didn’t realize that could he?

Christianity has the problem that Jesus is fundamentally being pushed as a human sacrifice for the atonement of man’s sins. Most folks don’t raise this point since it tends to be viewed as a terribly offensive suggestion. I did find one Apologetic refutation of the idea though, which went through great pains, primarily by playing fast and loose with some Hebrew bible translations, to establish that it’s only child sacrifice that the bible condemns! And he was quite content that he had addressed the issue. What an idiot.

Josiah’s Deuteronomy clearly declares human sacrifice an absolute no-no along with a number of other abhorrent practices.

Deuteronomy 18:9 When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. 10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you.

This means that all the phony mediums and psychics fleecing people by claiming to speak to the dead are performing actions that are “detestable to the LORD.”

As for Jesus as human sacrifice, these laws are given to men. It’s God’s sandbox so I guess he’s not necessarily bound by them. Besides, dying is only a temporary, although awfully painful, inconvenience for a god-man isn’t it?
Posted by Alencon at 4:42 PM

Tony Malone said,

Dear Alencon:
Very interesting and entertaining essay. Please consider these points, if you will (your words are in quotes):

"This is generally understood to mean sacrifice by burning the victim to death."

A more correct statement would be "generally BELIEVED". There's no archaeological support for child sacrifices in the Middle East. And as you point out yourself, the real wording is "pass through the fire". This refers to initiations into secret religious societies, which all wealthy and powerful people's sons go through - societies that were first set up in Egypt, long before Israelite culture existed.
I don't believe human sacrifice ever went on there. It's a misreading of the Old Testament, coupled with mass hysteria, that has created a myth that the Canaanites actually burned up their kids. You know what proof historians offer? The Bible, and their mis-reading of those words! When they look for archaeological proof, the best they can offer is the "topeth" at Carthage (which today would be Morocco), a cemetery with jars that hold infants' bones. But this grave is from 300 BCE, during Roman rule. The Biblical period of concern would be 1200 - 500 BCE. So how do they even relate?
And no one's really sure why the grave or those bones are there. There's no consensus that those children were sacrificed (what if there was a disease that swept the area briefly?). Therefore, there is no archaeological proof that the Canaanites, or anyone in that area at any time, sacrificed their kids.

"I guess one could “redeem” a child the same way a donkey is redeemed, with a substitute lamb, but it’s interesting that it doesn’t specifically say that isn’t it? Then again, according to Numbers, it simply costs 5 shekels to redeem each firstborn son."

The donkey had to be redeemed because it was an unclean animal. Clean animals were the ones that the priests liked to eat. They didn't eat donkeys or camels, but they still expected a sacrifice when your donkey had a baby. So you bring a lamb instead. If you won't bring them a lamb, you have to kill the newborn donkey. God requires a sacrifice of some sort, and the owner doesn't want to kill a useful donkey so it's better to just bring a lamb to the priests.
Then comes the order "Redeem every firstborn male among your sons." The human son HAS to be redeemed. Bring a lamb, no options. You can't kill your kid (it appears that it was the ISRAELITES who thought they should sacrifice their children - they were constantly being told not to).

"I don’t find the first explanation terribly compelling. Dedicated to God’s service in order to do what? The Levites were the priestly class weren’t they? If this was simply a call to dedicate the first born male to the service of God, then how come the practice isn’t referred to and expanded upon elsewhere?"

If we want to believe the Bible for a minute, it was custom in Shiloh to receive children as gifts (Samuel for instance), who could then be trained to do service. They may have been like altar boys and janitors in a modern church, doing various duties that were beneath the priests. Samuel was groomed for the priesthood, so a dedicated human gift could rise up the ranks, too. The Levites seem to have copied this style in Jerusalem, but eventually abolished it and decided that if someone wanted to donate a slave, the slave would be evaluated and then the cash would be taken instead (Leviticus 27:1-8 and see that whole chapter).

"the legal and religious reform that he brought about deserves to be considered one of the greatest influences on the western world and King Josiah deserves to be considered one of history’s greatest law givers up there with Hammurabi, Moses, and Solon."

I tend to think of Josuah as a shill for the blood-thirsty power-obsessed Levites. Destroying everyone else's churches and killing all their priests and forcing your religion and its laws on them is not something I'd congratulate anyone for.
Hinkiah and his "found" book (which he and his friends probably wrote) were a power grab, and a move for religious centralization in Jerusalem.

"exactly what is implied by God letting them become defiled through the sacrifice of every firstborn and why this would fill them with horror?"

In Monotheism proper, all things come from the one god, good or bad. If the Israelites went to other religions and put their sons through the fire, it was because their god let them, and he had a reason. He wanted them to become horrified by what came of their practices. It's a pathetic plea, like saying, "Just wait! You'll see what'll happen!", when it's possible that nothing bad will come at all.

"This sort of implies that the practice was still going on around the time of the exile."

The practice of "passing through the fire" still goes on today in the intitiations for every Egyptian-related secret society.
You know of course that many current world leaders (including at least four generations of the Bush family) are menmbers of Bohemian Grove, where rituals are regularly played out for the god Molech. Mock human sacrifices take place at their festivals.

It is more than likely that Satanic influences have always been present in the world: death cults and other creepy stuff. But I don't suspect that there's ever been a whole people that subscribed to any one religion like this. I believe it has always been as it is today, where there are shadowy cabals of abominable humans roaming around, killing and stealing on scales that the average criminal never even thinks about.

"while the southern faction, in a much more sparsely populated environment, held the opinion that such rites were a perversion of the true worship of YHWH."

Don't forget, when the Israelites went nuts with their own child "sacrifices", they occurred in Ha Gehinnom, the valley south of Jerusalem. The southern territory.
Jeremiah and Ezekiel cursed Jerusalem, and considered the Levite priests evil bastards. There was nothing about the southerners that made them more virtuous than their northern cousins.

"So Isaiah envisions that the King of Assyria will be burned in the pit of Topheth just as all the child sacrifices to false gods? Then why is the fire in the pit started by “the breath of the LORD?”"

Topeth was obviously a place of shrines to various gods, all hated by the Levites. Destruction was in store for them - they would all be smashed and burned when Israel's glory days finally arrived. Isaiah envisions the Assyrian king burning up on one of the altars to his own gods. And it would be YHWH's work, the fiery breath of the Lord having sweet revenge.

"Let’s consider paragraph 17. “The people, however, continued to sacrifice at the high places, but only to the LORD their God.”
What the hell does this mean? The “high places” were the places where child sacrifice to the foreign gods took place. This passage can easily be interpreted to mean that while the sacrifices remained the same, they were now only directed toward the god of Israel while in the past they had been directed toward multiple deities including the god of Israel."

A "high place" was simply an altar where regular public animal sacrifices and rituals went on. There were two high places at the entry gates of Jerusalem (2Kings 23:7).
You could be a king loyal to YHWH,in that he is the one god you worship, while still allowing your subjects to sacrifice to whatever gods they chose. This would be half-acceptable to the Levites. If the king is pro-Levite, they have lots of power over his decisions. But only when they have religious exclusivity can they control the whole population. So all other religions were bad, and it was bad to let the Israelites worship other gods.

"despite the fact that both the Greeks and the Jews, after the Babylonian exile, were abhorred by the practice."

abhorred means: hated. You can say that someone abhorred (hated) a certain practice, but you would not say that the practice abhorred them.

“accept nothing without questioning everything.”

This is a very respectable position. My own philosophy is: Consider everything - believe nothing.

Jephthah's oath and Abraham's preparation to sacrifice Isaac add weight to my thought that it was the Israelites who were into human sacrifice, and who had to be weaned off it.

"This means that all the phony mediums and psychics fleecing people by claiming to speak to the dead are performing actions that are “detestable to the LORD.”"

Actually it means that going to an astrologer, or anyone who might give you advice on which move to make next in your life, is forbidden. Why? Because those things can be self-empowering and make you independent. Certainly they can descend easily into quackery, but the practices have existed throughout all civilization, so they must have some substance to them, and the biggest danger they could pose would be to a ruling priesthood who do all divining and speaking to god, and who want to tell you how to live and tell the army who to kill and tell the king how to think. If you're thinking for yourself and seeking your own answers and making your own decisions, you don't need a priesthood to guide your life.

Thanks Alencon for a great essay - lots of good labour and thought in there. And thanks for making me think about a few things I hadn't noticed. You provided a good challenge.

Pastor AIO:

What is an exegesis, is it not an interpretation? If I recall it is you that advised me to read verse 16 independently of verse 15.

Pastor AIO:

I never said that you said that God did not accept burnt offerings. I hope you are not hallucinating. Please it would help if you just stuck to what I said and leave your imagination out of this.

Pastor AIO:

The City being burnt contained properites of the inhabitants, ba? What about the inhabitants? Are you going to tell me that they were carefully removed from the city and given a decent burial before the rest of the city was offered up as burnt offering?

Pastor AIO:

The story of King Saul and his failure to totally destroy the 'amalekites' (I think it was the amalekites, I can't remember off hand) has no bearing on what we are talking about now. At least in that case he wasn't told to burn them up as a burnt offering to the Lord.

Pastor AIO:

But what I find most shocking and demonstrates that you hallucinate is when you say that the bible did not categorically state what Jepthah did at the end of that chapter.

Pastor AIO:

The bible explicitly states that Jephthah did to her according to the vow. The bible also explicitly states that the vow is to offer her as a burnt offering to the Lord.

Pastor AIO:

Samuel's mother[b] did not[/b] offer Samuel up to God as a burnt offering. She offered to dedicate his life to God and that is what she did with Samuel, she brought him to the temple to serve God. This is a totally different case from Jephthah and his daughter and you are just struggling to connect the two out of desperation.

Pastor AIO:

You forget the tale of Abraham and Isaac, where he bound Isaac to be sacrificed. Did God not demand it?

Pastor AIO:

And I will state for the umpteenth time that you are deluded if you read the passage and came to that conclusion. Even if you add the Moonies, and the Hare Krishnas to your seventh day adventists and Jehovah's witnesses to support the nonsense claim that a promise to make a burnt offering was fulfilled by sending her to a nunnery, that doesn't change the facts of what the passage says.

Pastor AIO:

Hey stop there!! you should say that I am not the kind of christian that you are. But you cannot claim total monopoly of christianity. Of course I cannot know your christianity more than you do. Afterall you make it up as you go along, there is no way that I can catch up with your innovations. However if it is literal meanings of the Bible that you don't like then you will have to explain to me what the criteria are for when to take the bible literally and when not to.
I don't see what Jesus had to say about building the temple in 3 days after it is destroyed has got to do with what we are talking about.

Pastor AIO:

I find it difficult to follow your grammar above.

Pastor AIO:

All I demonstrated to you was that the rite of passing through fire has nothing to do with human sacrifice, though you (and many others) have tried to force it to mean that.

Pastor AIO:

There is nobody on this thread (as far as I am aware) who is condoning human sacrifice. If your beef is against people who perform human sacrifice then we are on the same side.

Pastor AIO:

I thought that you were making claims that there was no human sacrifice in the bible, or the Jehovah did not permit the wholesale slaughter, genocide actually, of vast hosts of people, some of them sacrificially.

Pastor AIO:

I found an interesting essay on the subject. It doesn't tally with my position but it is interesting all the same. I am also going to post a response to the essay that I thought was quite interesting too.

http://alencon13..com/2006/06/human-sacrifice-in-ancient-canaan.html

Rossikk:

GODSON 2009, I've read all the colonial mentality driven horse manure you've typed so far. Here's what I need to know. Are you able to justify these mass killings in the bible ordered by your imported ''God''?

And please throw away that colonial officer's book of ignorant smears given to you by your dad.

Onwukwekalu:

08137893931 Okpuwa Onwukwe Kalu pls contact me' i need to get rich. Hinduismh

Ptolomeus:

I share his opinion and that of dear friend Pastor AIO.
The problem is that there are people whose fanaticism prevents them from reasoning.
Godson has written extensively , quoted the Bible in several passages, but the same Bible says that "whoever has ears to hear, and who have eyes, see"
As we say in my city, "there are none so deaf as those who did not want to hear.
The general fanaticism deafness and blindness.
My best wishes to you.

Pastor AIO:

Ptolomeus, sir, I find you very fascinating. Please tell me, are you a Nigerian living in south american or are you a south american that practices yoruba religions?

Pastor AIO:

Ptolomeus, sir, I find you very fascinating. Please tell me, are you a Nigerian living in south american or are you a south american that practices yoruba religions?

wiccawicca:

long argument have no wisdom.
some people are looking for good occult here for wealth and prosperity which do you refer them to?

wiccawicca:



All your life difficulties are a minor issue as long as you are a registered member in our great religion which was founded by Gerald Gardner in 1970's to provide access to Wicca teachings, comfortableness to our people and religious services to sincere spiritual seekers in and around the world. This religion won't restrict you from attending to your own religion, nor hold church services like other religion do. All we do is to give spiritual understandings, advice, solutions to problems to any of our own who seek for it on our own desirable time and date.

We also initiate into our bloodless Family Society called "FMR" which is pure and free from witchcraft or killings.

As a full registered FMR member,You stand to gain lots of benefits from your adventure into our world. One week after initiation or acceptance, you will be given a gift of $30,000 for a start up.

After six months of scrutinizing you will be enroll in what we called (FMR) FAMILY MONEY ROTATION, Every one year N500,000,000 will be loan to you. Invest it, use it wisely and make vast profit out of it, but bear in mind that other members are waiting for the same money back. After one year, you are required to provide the money back to the sanctuary account and keep the profit you make with the money for yourself. This is how we rotate the money within us. When it reaches your turn again, the same money will be loan to you again. been dead by now….
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momohammed:

My master belongs to a occult down town of Southern Africa, he has been tripping every tree month and he is very rich beyond human imagination I really must be frank I would like to join this court but i really afraid because if my master knows I belong in his occult he might kill me, I was able to discover the email address of his occult society days back but i really don't know how to contact them or what to say or where to tell them i got his there email address this is thee email address: [occult.priest.spiritual@priest.com] can some tell if they know this occult group please if yes can you recommend me to if i just want to be rich like my boss by all means please can some once help.

Curiousmind:
FREEMASONRY

Curiousmind:
ORDO TEMPLI ORIENTIS

Curiousmind:
HERMETIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN

Kinsa: Please don't be deceived. Occults are demonic. The BIBLE is the only true book. The word of God is not secretive, its open. Be warned.

Curiousmind: Hello

For all those interested in any of these fraternities should google their names on the net

Thank You

Curiousmind: Hello

For all those interested in any of these fraternities should google their names on the net

Thank You

Tudór6:

Just look at this, Jesus' death is symbolic and not human sacrifice?? Hahahahahah Are you in actual fact denying that No blood was shed on the cross of calvary? This is like me putting 6 lead bullets into the head of the next man and claim its not murder but symbolism of my wickedness and psychopathic nature. Yea right!


what is the difference between your "God" requiring the shedding of HUMAN Blood, BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD for forgiveness, mercy and favours and the same principle being required by the traditional religions of old?

As far as the christian God Is concerned, the payment for everything is. BLOOD, HUMAN BLOOD which was shed 2,000 years ago and you have the audacity to question the rationale of old traditional religions who practised human sacrifice? On what Moral Grounds?

If your God has the right to accept Blood payment for everything, why shouldn't others?