Child sacrifice
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Child sacrifice is the ritualistic killing of children in order to please or appease a deity, supernatural beings, or sacred social order, tribal, group or national loyalties in order to achieve a desired result. As such, it is a form of human sacrifice. Child sacrifice is thought to be an extreme extension of the idea that the more important the object of sacrifice, the more devout the person rendering it.[1]
The practice of child sacrifice in Europe and the Near East appears to have ended as a part of the religious transformations of late antiquity.[2]
Pre-Columbian cultures
Archaeologists have found the remains of more than 140 children who were sacrificed in Peru's northern coastal region.[3]
Aztec culture
The
It is hypothesized that this specific child sacrifice cite took place during the great drought and famine of 1454–1457, furthering the theory that Aztecs utilized human sacrifice to placate the gods.[5] Osteological and dental pathological evidence shows that many of the child sacrificial victims had varying health issues, and it is suggested that the Tlaloques selected these children who had medical ailments.[5] Because sacrificial victims typically embodied the gods they were being sacrificed to, male child sacrifices were more present at this site due to the masculine nature of the Aztec rain gods.[5]
Inca culture
The
Maya culture
In Maya culture, people believed that supernatural beings had power over their lives and this is one reason that child sacrifice occurred.[7] The sacrifices were essentially to satisfy the supernatural beings. This was done through k'ex, which is an exchange or substitution of something.[7] Through k'ex infants would substitute more powerful humans.[7] It was thought that supernatural beings would consume the souls of more powerful humans and infants were substituted in order to prevent that.[7] Infants are believed to be good offerings because they have a close connection to the spirit world through liminality.[8] It is also believed that parents in Maya culture would offer their children for sacrifice and depictions of this show that this was a very emotional time for the parents, but they would carry through because they thought the child would continue existing.[8] It is also known that infant sacrifices occurred at certain times. Child sacrifice was preferred when there was a time of crisis and transitional times such as famine and drought.[7]
There is archaeological evidence of infant sacrifice in tombs where the infant has been buried in urns or ceramic vessels. There have also been depictions of child sacrifice in art. Some art includes pottery and steles as well as references to infant sacrifice in mythology and art depictions of the mythology.
Moche culture
The
Timoto-Cuica culture
The
Ancient Near East
Tanakh
The Tanakh mentions human sacrifice in the history of
According to scholars such as
Exodus 22:28b–29 states "The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me" potentially a demand by Yahweh that the firstborn children of the Israelites must be sacrificed to him.[22][23] However, Yahweh forbids human sacrifice and, as in the Day of Atonement, Yahweh instituted substitutionary animal sacrifices for human sin and the redemption of the firstborn in Israelite families (Exodus 13:11-16). Yahweh also states to the prophet Jeremiah, “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,” (Jeremiah 7:31) indicating that it was once viewed as an central to the law and desire of Yahweh.[24]
Binding of Isaac
Genesis 22 relates the
Rabbi A.I. Kook, first Chief Rabbi of Israel, stressed that the climax of the story, commanding Abraham not to sacrifice Isaac, is the whole point: to put an end to, and God's total aversion to the ritual of child sacrifice.[28] According to Irving Greenberg the story of the binding of Isaac, symbolizes the prohibition to worship God by human sacrifices, at a time when human sacrifices were the norm worldwide.[29]
Ban in Leviticus
In Leviticus 18:21, 20:3 and Deuteronomy 12:30–31, 18:10, the
Numbers 31
In the aftermath of the War against the Midianites narrated in Numbers 31, the Israelites appear to be dedicating 32 captive Midianite virgin girls to be sacrificed to Yahweh as his share in the spoils of war.
It is not clear what happened to Yahweh's 0.1% share of the spoils of war, including 808 animals (verses 36–39) and 32 human virgin women/girls (verse 40), who are entrusted to the Levites, who are responsible for maintaining Yahweh's tabernacle (verses 30 and 47).[note 1] Two Hebrew terms are used to indicate they are a 'tribute' or 'levy' that is 'offered' or 'contributed' to Yahweh:
- me·ḵes or ham·me·ḵes (verses 28, 37 and 41), generally translated as 'tribute', 'tax' or 'levy'.[34][35] Outside these three occurrences in Numbers 31, it appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. It is also attested in Ugaritic as mekes and in Akkadian as miksu.[36] An inflection of mekes is וּמִכְסָ֥ם ū·miḵ·sām, occurring only in verses 38, 39 and 40.[37]
- tə-rū-maṯ (verses 29 and 41); the term terumah (plural: terumat) is generally translated as '(heave) offering' or 'contribution' and is associated with heave offerings.[38]
Some scholars have concluded that these 32 human virgins were to be sacrificed to Yahweh as a burnt offering along with the animals. For example, Carl Falck-Lebahn (1854) compared the incident with the near-sacrifice of Iphigenia in Greek mythology, claiming: "According to Levit. xxvii, 29, sacrifices of human victims were clearly established among the Jews." After recounting the story of Jephthah's daughter in Judges 11, he reasoned: "the Jews (according to Numbers, chap 31) took 61,000 asses, 72,000 oxen, 675,000 sheep, and 32,000 virgins (whose fathers, mothers, brothers &c., were butchered). There were 16,000 girls for the soldiers, 16,000 for the priests; and on the soldiers' share there was levied a tribute of 32 virgins for the Lord. What became of them? The Jews had no nuns. What was the Lord's share in all the wars of the Hebrews, if it was not blood?"[39]
Pluger (1995) cited Exodus 17, Numbers 31, Deuteronomy 13 and 20 as examples of human sacrifice demanded by Yahweh, adding that according to
Other scholars have concluded that the virgins and animals were kept alive and used by the Levites as their share of the spoils. Some even posited that human sacrifice (especially child sacrifice) was foreign to the Israelites, thus making the possibility of sacrificing the Midianite virgins unfeasible.[41]: 404 Keil and Delitzsch (1870) argued the 32 were enslaved:
Of the one half the priests received 675 head of small cattle, 72 oxen, 61 asses, and 32 maidens for Jehovah; and these Moses handed over to Eleazar, in all probability for the maintenance of the priests, in the same manner as the tithes (Numbers 18:26–28, and Leviticus 27:30–33), so that they might put the cattle into their own flocks (Numbers 35:3), and slay oxen or sheep as they required them, whilst they sold the asses, and made slaves of the gifts; and not in the character of a vow, in which case the clean animals would have had to be sacrificed, and the unclean animals, as well as the human beings, to be redeemed (Leviticus 27:2–13).[42]
Gehenna and Tophet
The most extensive accounts of child sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible refer to those carried out in Gehenna by two kings of Judah, Ahaz and Manasseh of Judah.[43]
Jephthah's daughter
In the
Phoenicia and Carthage
The practice of child sacrifice among Canaanite groups is attested by numerous sources spanning over a millennium. One example is in the writings of Diodorus Siculus:
"They also alleged that Kronos had turned against them inasmuch as in former times they had been accustomed to sacrifice to this god the noblest of their sons, but more recently, secretly buying and nurturing children, they had sent these to the sacrifice; and when an investigation was made, some of those who had been sacrificed were discovered to have been substituted by stealth... In their zeal to make amends for the omission, they selected two hundred of the noblest children and sacrificed them publicly; and others who were under suspicion sacrificed themselves voluntarily, in number not less than three hundred. There was in the city a bronze image of Kronos, extending its hands, palms up and sloping towards the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire. It is probable that it was from this that Euripides has drawn the mythical story found in his works about the sacrifice in Tauris, in which he presents Iphigeneia being asked by Orestes: "But what tomb shall receive me when I die? A sacred fire within, and earth's broad rift." Also the story passed down among the Greeks from ancient myth that Cronus did away with his own children appears to have been kept in mind among the Carthaginians through this observance." Library 20.14
"Again, would it not have been far better for the Carthaginians to have taken Critias or Diagoras to draw up their law-code at the very beginning, and so not to believe in any divine power or god, rather than to offer such sacrifices as they used to offer to Cronos? These were not in the manner that Empedocles describes in his attack on those who sacrifice living creatures: "Changed in form is the son beloved of his father so pious,Who on the altar lays him and slays him. What folly!" No, but with full knowledge and understanding they themselves offered up their own children, and those who had no children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many lambs or young birds; meanwhile the mother stood by without a tear or moan; but should she utter a single moan or let fall a single tear, she had to forfeit the money, and her child was sacrificed nevertheless; and the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums so that the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people." Moralia 2, De Superstitione 3
"With us, for instance, human sacrifice is not legal, but unholy, whereas the Carthaginians perform it as a thing they account holy and legal, and that too when some of them sacrifice even their own sons to Cronos, as I daresay you yourself have heard." (Minos 315)
"And from then on to the present day they perform human sacrifices with the participation of all, not only in Arcadia during the Lykaia and in Carthage to Kronos, but also periodically, in remembrance of the customary usage, they spill the blood of their own kin on the altars, even though the divine law among them bars from the rites, by means of perirrhanteria and the herald's proclamation, anyone responsible for the shedding of blood in peacetime."[47]
". . . was chosen as a . . . sacrifice for the city. For from ancient times the barbarians have had a custom of sacrificing human beings to Kronos."
"Some even proposed renewing a sacrifice which had been discontinued for many years, and which I for my part should believe to be by no means pleasing to the gods, of offering a freeborn boy to Saturn —this sacrilege rather than sacrifice, handed down from their founders, the Carthaginians are said to have performed until the destruction of their city—and unless the elders, in accordance with whose counsel everything was done, had opposed it, the awful superstition would have prevailed over mercy. But necessity, more inventive than any art, introduced not only the usual means of defence, but also some novel ones." History of Alexander IV.III.23
"In Africa infants used to be sacrificed to Saturn, and quite openly, down to the proconsulate of Tiberius, who took the priests themselves and on the very trees of their temple, under whose shadow their crimes had been committed, hung them alive like votive offerings on crosses; and the soldiers of my own country are witnesses to it, who served that proconsul in that very task. Yes, and to this day that holy crime persists in secret." Apology 9.2-3
"Among ancient peoples in critically dangerous situations it was customary for the rulers of a city or nation, rather than lose everyone, to provide the dearest of their children as a propitiatory sacrifice to the avenging deities. The children thus given up were slaughtered according to a secret ritual. Now Kronos, whom the Phoenicians call El, who was in their land and who was later divinized after his death as the star of Kronos, had an only son by a local bride named Anobret, and therefore they called him Ieoud. Even now among the Phoenicians the only son is given this name. When war’s gravest dangers gripped the land, Kronos dressed his son in royal attire, prepared an altar and sacrificed him."[48]
"There is another form of sacrifice here. After putting a garland on the sacrificial animals they hurl them down alive from the gateway and the animals die from the fall. Some even throw their children off the place, but not in the same manner as the animals. Instead, having laid them in a pallet, they drop them down by hand. At the same time they mock them and say that they are oxen, not children."[49]
"And Kleitarchos says the Phoenicians, and above all the Carthaginians, venerating Kronos, whenever they were eager for a great thing to succeed, made a vow by one of their children. If they would receive the desired things, they would sacrifice it to the god. A bronze Kronos, having been erected by them, stretched out upturned hands over a bronze oven to burn the child. The flame of the burning child reached its body until, the limbs having shriveled up and the smiling mouth appearing to be almost laughing, it would slip into the oven. Therefore the grin is called “sardonic laughter,” since they die laughing."[50]
"The Phoenicians too, in great disasters whether of wars or droughts, or plagues, used to sacrifice one of their dearest, dedicating him to Kronos. And the ‘Phoenician History,’ which Sanchuniathon wrote in Phoenician and which Philo of Byblos translated into Greek in eight books, is full of such sacrifices."[51]
At Carthage, a large cemetery exists that combines the bodies of both very young children and small animals, and those who assert child sacrifice have argued that if the animals were sacrificed, then so too were the children.
Greek, Roman and Israelite writers refer to Phoenician child sacrifice. Skeptics suggest that the bodies of children found in Carthaginian and Phoenician cemeteries were merely the cremated remains of children that died naturally.[54] Sergio Ribichini has argued that the Tophet was "a child necropolis designed to receive the remains of infants who had died prematurely of sickness or other natural causes, and who for this reason were "offered" to specific deities and buried in a place different from the one reserved for the ordinary dead".[55]
According to Stager and Wolff, in 1984, there was a consensus among scholars that Carthaginian children were sacrificed by their parents, who would make a vow to kill the next child if the gods would grant them a favor: for instance that their shipment of goods was to arrive safely in a foreign port.[56]
Pre-Islamic Arabia
The Quran describes pagan Arabians sacrificing their children to idols.[Quran 6:137][non-primary source needed]
Europe
Archaeologist
Startling as it may seem, the available evidence so far points to an argument that the children were slaughtered and their flesh cooked and possibly eaten in a sacrifice ritual made in the service of a nature deity to assure an annual renewal of fertility.[60][61]
Rodney Castleden uncovered a sanctuary near Knossos where the remains of a 17-year-old were found.
His ankles had evidently been tied and his legs folded up to make him fit on the table... He had been ritually murdered with the long bronze dagger engraved with a boar's head that lay beside him.[62]
The
The human children who had been devoted were required to leave the community in early adulthood, at 20 or 21 years of age. They were entrusted to a god for protection, and led to the border with a veiled face. Often they were led by an animal under the auspices of the god. As a group, the youth were called sacrani and were supposed to enjoy the protection of Mars until they had reached their destination, expelled the inhabitants or forced them into submission, and founded their own settlement. The Waldensians, a medieval sect deemed heretical, were accused of participating in child sacrifice.[63]
Africa
South Africa
The continued murder within Black communities of children of all ages, for body parts with which to make
Uganda
In the early 21st century Uganda has experienced a revival of child sacrifice. In spite of government attempts to downplay the issue, an investigation by the BBC into human sacrifice in Uganda found that ritual killings of children are more common than Ugandan authorities admit.[65] There are many indicators that politicians and politically connected wealthy businessmen are involved in sacrificing children in practice of traditional religion, which has become a commercial enterprise.[66]
See also
- Child cannibalism
- Early infanticidal childrearing
- Human sacrifice
- Infanticide
- Religious abuse
- Religious violence
Notes
References
- ^ "LacusCurtius • Greek and Roman Sacrifices (Smith's Dictionary, 1875)". Retrieved 5 August 2015.
- ^ Guy Strousma, "The End of Sacrifice" in The Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity (Oxford 2015). Academia link.
- ^ "Peru child sacrifice discovery may be largest in history". BBC News. 28 April 2018.
- S2CID 234822862.
- ^ S2CID 162519111.
- ^ http://gallery.sjsu.edu/sacrifice/precolumbian.html Archived 19 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine - "Pre-Columbian Andean Sacrifices"
- ^ a b c d e Scherer, Andrew (2012). Mortuary Landscapes of the Classic Maya. University of Texas Press.
- ^ S2CID 240099439.
- ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20080506113520/http://www.exn.ca/mummies/story.asp?id=1999041452 – Discovery Channel - Archive.org article
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 11 May 2022.
- PMID 30840642.
- ^ "Hundreds of children and llamas sacrificed in a ritual event in 15th century Peru: The largest sacrifice of its kind known from the Americas was associated with heavy rainfall and flooding". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 11 May 2022.
- PMID 30840642.
- ^ http://www.saber.ula.ve/bitstream/123456789/18495/1/articulo3.pdf De los timoto-cuicas a la invisibilidad del indigena andino y a su diversidad cultural
- ^ http://issuu.com/bnahem/docs/revista_digital_timoto_cuicas Timoto-Cuicas
- ^ Micah 6:7
- ^ Micah 6:8
- ^ "First Person: Human Sacrifice to an Ammonite God?". Biblical Archaeology Society. 23 September 2014. Retrieved 11 October 2019.
- OCLC 1285169603.
- ^ Dewrell 2017, p. 4-7.
- ^ a b Dewrell 2017, p. 18-19.
- ^ Dewrell 2017, p. 72-74.
- OCLC 1091457866.
- ISBN 978-0-300-05532-0.
- ^ OCLC 1024062728.
- ^ OCLC 1075712859.
- ^ OCLC 1159564269.
- ^ "Olat Reiya", p. 93.
- ^ Irving Greenberg. 1988. The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays. New York : Summit Books. p.195.
- ^ " It was not just among Israel's neighbours that child sacrifice was countenanced, but apparently within Israel itself. Why else would biblical law specifically forbid such things – and with such vehemence?" However, Chananya Goldberg argues that such a point is illogical - for if it were to be accepted, one would be forced to assume that, within Israel, people killed, stole and injured with impunity. James Kugel (2008). How to Read the Bible, p. 131.
- ^ " Smith also cites Ezekiel 20:25–26 as an example of where Yahweh refers to "the sacrifice of every firstborn". These passages indicate that in the seventh-century child sacrifice was a Judean practice performed in the name of YHWH...In Isaiah 30:27–33 there is no offense taken at the Tophet, the precinct of child sacrifice. It would appear that the Jerusalemite cult included child sacrifice under Yahwistic patronage; it is this that Leviticus 20:2–5 deplores." Mark S. Smith (2002). The early history of God: Yahweh and the other deities in ancient Israel, pp. 172–178.
- ^
- Susan Nidditch (1993). War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence, Oxford University Press, p. 47. "While there is considerable controversy about the matter, the consensus over the last decade concludes that child sacrifice was a part of ancient Israelite religion to large segments of Israelite communities of various periods." However, no mainstream Jewish sources allow child-sacrifice, even in theory. All mainstream Jewish sources state, or imply, that such an act is abhorrent.
- Susan Ackerman (1992). Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah, Scholars Press, p. 137. "the cult of child sacrifice was felt in some circles to be a legitimate expression of Yawistic faith."
- Francesca Stavrakopoulou (2004). "King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice: Biblical Distortions of Historical Realities', p283. "Though the Hebrew Bible portrays child sacrifice as a foreign practice, several texts indicates that it was a native element of Judahite deity-worship."
- ISBN 9781532657184. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
- ^ "me·ḵes – Englishman's Concordance". Biblehub.com. 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
- ^ "ham·me·ḵes – Englishman's Concordance". Biblehub.com. 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
- ISBN 9780310003618. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
- ^ "ū·miḵ·sām – Englishman's Concordance". Biblehub.com. 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
- ^ "tə·rū·maṯ – Englishman's Concordance". Biblehub.com. 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
- ^ Carl, Falck-Lebahn (1854). Selections from the German poets, with interlinear tr., notes and complete vocabularies, and a dissertation on mythology, by Falck Lebahn. London: Clarke, Beeton, & Co. p. 291. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
- JSTOR 3852059. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
- ^ Word & World. 15 (4). Luther Seminary: 406. Archived from the original(PDF) on 1 January 2022. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
- ^ "Numbers 31:40 Commentaries". Biblehub.com. 2011. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
- ^ Christopher B. Hays Death in the Iron Age II & in First Isaiah 2011 p181 "Efforts to show that the Bible does not portray actual child sacrifice in the Molek cult, but rather dedication to the god by fire, have been convincingly disproved. Child sacrifice is well attested in the ancient world, especially in times of crisis."
- ^ Radak, Book of Judges 11:39; Metzudas Dovid ibid
- ISBN 978-1-84127-024-1.
- ^ Newsom, Carol Ann; Ringe, Sharon H.; Lapsley, Jacqueline E. Women's Bible Commentary. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 133.
- ^ Dennis Hughes, Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece, Taylor & Francis 2013, p116
- ^ fragment in Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 1.10.44=4.16.11
- ^ Dewrell 2017, p. 43.
- ^ Dewrell 2017, p. 137.
- ^ Albert Baumgartner, The Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos: A Commentary, Brill, 1981, p244
- ^ a b Skeletal Remains from Punic Carthage Do Not Support Systematic Sacrifice of Infants http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0009177
- S2CID 161040311.
- ISBN 9780761403098. Retrieved 5 August 2015.
child sacrifice.
- ^ Sergio Ribichini, "Beliefs and Religious Life" in Moscati, Sabatino (ed), The Phoenicians, 1988, p.141
- ^ Stager, Lawrence; Samuel. R. Wolff (1984). "Child sacrifice in Carthage: religious rite or population control?". Journal of Biblical Archeological Review. January: 31–46.
- OCLC 1052134057.
- ^ Rodney Castleden, Minoans. Life in Bronze Age Crete (illustrated by the author), London-New York, Routledge,pp. 170–173.
- ISBN 9781134880645.
- ^ Peter Warren, "Knossos: New Excavations and Discoveries," Archaeology (July / August 1984), pp. 48–55.
- ^ Minoan Crete and Ecstatic Religion: Preliminary Observations on the 1979 Excavations at Knossos. Front Cover. Peter Warren. 1981
- ^ Rodney Castleden, The Knossos Labyrinth: A New View of the "Palace of Minos" at Knossos, 2012, pp. 121–22.
- ISBN 978-1-58509-099-0. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
- ^ Vincent, Louise (2008). "New magic for new times: muti murder in democratic South Africa" (PDF). Studies of Tribes and Tribals. Special Volume No. 2: 43–53. Retrieved 31 October 2015.
- ^ Tim Whewell, "Witch-doctors reveal extent of child sacrifice in Uganda", BBC News, 7 January 2010
- ^ Rogers, Chris 2011. Where child sacrifice is a business, BBC News Africa (11 October): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15255357#story_continues_1
External links
- Media related to Child sacrifice at Wikimedia Commons
- 11/04/2008 Child survives sacrifice in Uganda UGPulse.com
- Minoan Child Sacrifice