semiopen

Yes, I noticed this was discussed in the link I posted (although in a different context than Egypt).

I had thought this (human sacrifice) was considered a reasonable position, but have been surprised at the quality and amount of scholarly sources. I haven't noticed any academic questioning of this.

Iskander

Yes, the Torah explicitly forbids human sacrifices.


Hashem forbids human sacrifice in no uncertain terms and it does so before any Israelite sets foot on Canaan.

Hashem says to the Israelites that the inhabitants of Canaan are not like them because they perform abhorrent acts that Hashem detests, namely the sacrifice of their daughters and sons to their gods.

Hashem warns Israel not to imitate the Canaanites and demands fidelity to law and tradition.



Det: 12

29--When the LORD your God has cut down before you the nations that you are about to enter and dispossess, and you have dispossessed them and settled in their land,

30-- beware of being lured into their ways after they have been wiped out before you! Do not inquire about their gods, saying, "How did those nations worship their gods?
I too will follow those practices."

31--You shall not act thus toward the LORD your God, for they perform for their gods every abhorrent act that the LORD detests; they even offer up their sons and daughters in fire to their gods.

13

1-- Be careful to observe only that which I enjoin upon you: neither add to it nor take away from it.

Comments:

12.29-31: Here the focus shifts to purification of worship.

30: The new covenant requires that Israelites not imitate the established sacrificial practices of the Canaanites, by whose antiquity the newcomers might be lured

31: “Offer up their sons and their' daughters in fire”. The Canaanites are accused of child sacrifice (see 2 Kings 3.27; 23.10; Jer. 19.5-6), elsewhere associated with the deity Molech (Lev. 18.2; 20.2-5).

The Jewish Study Bible
Jewish Publication Society 1999
OUP
ISBN 0195297547

semiopen

This is correct.

A key to understanding this passage is Deuteronomy 12:5

This is already discussing the centralization of worship in Jersulem. This is consistent to dating this passage to the 8th or 7th century BCE. The book of Deuteronomy is commonly thought to have been written during the reign of Josiah.

Josiah

footnotes
9 - 11 2 Chronicles 34:14
10 2 Kings 22:8

Deuteronomy was apparently unknown in Israel until this time, and the actual quote you supply is suggestive of a 7th century BCE timeframe.

Your first statement

is therefore quite questionable.

Thanks for mentioning this though, I wasn't aware of this passage.

Iskander

The important point is that the Torah clearly forbids human sacrifices and it does so before the Israelites had invaded Canaan.

Whether the events described in the Bible are history or fiction is an entirely different problem.

I thank you for your courteous reply.

IamJoseph

No sir. It is consistant with the text which says Abraham offered his son on Mount Moriah - the Temple site. Your 8th C is illogical, unsubstantiated, neo addition, having nothing to do with the text of history.

No sir and as above. The Josiah conclusion is based only on a single stray verse in a post-Mosaic book which says a book was found in the ruins of the Babylon destruction - nothing more exists to derive this faulty conclusion. If a historical book was found - it only means there was both a history and a history book already existing, and that a destruction of the temple occured.

No sir - only your questioning is questionable. The temple, which is the result of the five Mosaic books - was already erected, then destroyed, before the Josiah claim. It means the very oppositte of your conclusion. Duh!

IamJoseph

Here, there is an agenda to disregard the entire history of the Jews and their total rejection of divine human worship - because this suits European history and its inability to escape this syndrome. But there is no peoples in history who have better evidenced the rejection of divine humans, while the Father Creator has been reduced to a cursory afterthought - or worse - by the Roman Gospels.

Humanity should be grateful to Jews for upholding the virtue of pure monotheism, based on an invisable, indefinable and indescribable Creator source - this is as pure and pristine a belief can be. Ultimately, all humanity, science and math will agree with this majestic premise.

ph2ter

I was aware of Christian apologetics here, but a Jewish one is a total surprise to me.

Let's continue with the circumcision question.

Rabbi Matia ben Heresh connected the blood with the duty of paschal sacrifice and the duty of circumcision. In that he used Zachariah 9.11 and Ezekiel 16.6.
Zach 9.11: "As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit."

The waterless pit probably refers to Tophet and the sacrifice of children by passing through fire. By the blood of paschal lamb, the firstborns are saved from the flames. Also, it should be noted that Joseph was also thrown into the waterless pit (Gen. 37.24) before being sold to Egypt. Here we can see also the motive of redemption by money and redemption by a male goat.

Ezekiel 16.6:'When I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you while you were in your blood, 'Live!' Yes, I said to you while you were in your blood, 'Live!'
In Exodus 4.21-26 the blood of circumcision saves Moses from Yhwh's sudden attempt to kill him. This has some similarities with the struggles between the gods about the succession (Kronos and Zeus for example). In the Bible those struggles has been transferred from gods to men.
Later, the blood, but of the paschal lamb, ensures that the Israelite firstborn males survive the attack of the 'Destroyer'. (One inscription on Carthagian stelae has a phrase "Life for life, blood for blood, a lamb as a substitute")
Exodus 4.24-26 and Exodus 12-13 function similarly. Exodus 22.28-29 implies that the firstborn son is to be given to God on the eighth day of his life. It is also the eighth day that biblical law requires that circumcision be performed.
Circumcision is directly related to Moses and Abraham and independently to the sacrifice of the firstborn. Circumcision renders the Israelite male in Lev. 19. 'holy' or 'set apart' allowing his inclusion among Yhwh's people and land which recalls the language of the firstborn law in Exodus 13.2 where also the firstborn is to be 'set apart'.
Blessing within Gen. 17 circumcision narrative foreshadows the divine blessing prompted by Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son. The blessing have much with human fertility because it guarantees Abraham with multitude of descendants. Issue of legitimacy relates also to it.

The Phoenician myth connects sacrifice of the firstborn son of Kronos/Elus named Iedoud with the commemorative practice of circumcision. (Phoenician historian Sakkunyaton by Philo of Byblos in Eusebius Praeparatio evangelica).
"But on the occurrence of a pestilence and mortality Kronos offers his only begotten son as a whole burnt offering to his father Uranus and circumcises himself, compelling his allies to do the same".
The myths of father killing his son often have something to do with the male sexual organ (castration or circumcision), as well as struggles over succession.

It was mentioned that Phoenicians sacrificed their children to Baal Hammon and Tanit. It seems that the female goddess did not get deserved attention in our examination. The Sumerian myth speaks about Inana and her descent into the underworld. She became alive again when she in exchange for herself has given her own husband Dumuzid. Her priests were 'gala' eunuchs. They were castrated and that assured them to perform the funeral rituals without the fear of death. Analogue to her is a Phrygian goddess Cybele. She also demanded the castration of her lover Attis. Her anger is appeased only after she gets a timbrel made of a skin of a sacrificed bull. In the Sumerian texts Dumuzid is sometimes compared to the bull, and Inana to the cow. The skin of a timbrel we could identify with the skin left after the circumcision.
We should analyze the ritual of sacrifice in wider context. In ancient cultures the ritual of sacrifice usually includes three stages. The first is the virgin sacrifice, the second is the unspeakable sacrifice and the third is the restitution of the killed victim. The killed virgin (and her mother) demands satisfaction which is successively fulfilled in the unspeakable sacrifice. She demands the life of her male counterpart and kills him immediately after the wedding. His death gives birth. He must die to be reborn. After the sacrificed victim is in the myth broken into pieces by a wild boar or by a thunderbolt, which in a reality is represented by a blade (animal or human victim) or by a mortar/mill (herbal victim - the wheat). Some pieces of the killed body are eaten in the form of cooked or baked meat and bread. The bones, the skin and the head are again put together and form the restitution and revitalization of the victim which is actually a god.

In the Eleusinian Mysteries the virgin sacrifice is represented by a killing of a young pig. Persephne is actually a pig which is killed in the first stage of the ritual of sacrifice. Tammuz, Adonis and Osiris are all killed by a wild boar (pig). That wild boar is actually that goddess. The rite at Eleusis also included the act of sexual union of a hierophant with the goddess (Demeter/Persephone). This is analogue to the ritual of grinding the wheat with a mortar and pestle which have sexual connotations. A young boy was always present among the initiates. He probably represented the unspeakable sacrifice, the vegetation god (Triptolemos/Demophon, Ploutos, Iakhos/Dionysos) who was made immortal in a fire, which means that he was killed (probably replaced with a sheep) and through the fire made immortal which is the third stage of the ritual - restitution.

semiopen

Your post is quite complex, especially for someone who knows little about Judaism.

Just a general comment. In addition to blood (and whatever role the lamb plays here) there are three additional elements that perhaps should be considered together:

The serpent - Eden or Moses' staff, etc.
Water - juxtaposition of blood and water
The gazelle - or ayelet

http://www.kolel.org/zohar/mod7.1.html

This gets into some heavy shit, not sure if it is on topic exactly but it deals with related imagery.

The serpent bites the gazelle to allow her to give birth. The bite causes a flow of blood and water.

Moses has to strike the rock twice with his staff (serpent), for blood and water

I'm not a big medieval hebrew poetry fan but this guy is cool:

http://medievalhebrewpoetry.org/josephbentanchum.html

IamJoseph

There are no hebrew laws outside of the five books of Moses. There is no need to look elsewhere.

And this is specifically overturned in the Hebrew. That is the reasoning behind the redeeming of the first born and ammediately returning him alive - the sacrifice of a human is negated forever.

ph2ter

Moses' staff as also all the magic staffs probably represent the world tree. Actually, according to Geza Roheim, Hungarian-American psychoanalyst and ethnologist, the magic staff or wand represents a phallus.
The serpent usually wraps around magic staff or is somehow connected to it, because the serpent also can get a phallic interpretation. According to Roheim, when some of the Indonesian tribes (Batak) have to make a new magic wand which is when a part of the tribe breaks off from the rest and a new tribe is formed, the essential thing which gives the real strength to the magic wand is the spirit of a murdered child. The spirit is put into one of the carved openings of the wand in the form of an ointment. The wand is used in war and they believe that the spirit of the murdered child in the wand will attack the enemy. Besides this, it helps the chief of the tribe to make rain and lightning.
As we can see the circumcision and Moses' staff also have something in common. Probably the teraphim also.