bubby

Short version of my question: Were people sacrificed to Jahve in ancient Israel, if so, how common was it?

Human sacrifice is mentioned quite frequently in the OT, some passages seem to condone this while other passages say it is something vile that people of other religions do.

One famous example of this is Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac. I understand this is Jahve testing the faith of Abraham, but he was about to kill his son for this. (Genesis 22)

Another nice story is that of Jeptaph and his daughter. Jeptaph swears that he will sacrifice whatever comes out of his door to meet him when he gets home, if Jahve lets him win a battle. Unfortunately this turns out to be he's beloved
daughter, who meets him dancing to tambourines. Jeptaph carries out his sacrifice after giving his daughter two months to mourn that she has to die a virgin. I realize this story is an example of what could happen if you "take the Lords name in vain". (Judges 11:30-39)

A particularly sickening story is that of the Gibeonites demanding revenge on Saul's house (Saul had tried to exterminate the Gibeonites even though he had promised not to). The Gibeonites put a curse on Israel (using Jahve?), and when David asks how to remove this curse, they require seven persons from Sauls family. "OK", says David, and gives them the victims. The Gibeonites chops them to pieces "on a hill before the LORD". The story doesn't end there - Rizpah, mother to two of the victims, stands guard over the pieces and doesn't let the
scavangers get them. Eventually David has the pieces removed (and buried?), and all is well and Jahve listens to the people's prayers again. (2 Samuel 21)

There are more examples, but none as offensive as the ones above. I think that stories like these are more questionable than any biblical contradiction. Stuff like this is swept really far under the carpet in modern Christianity.

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: bubby ]</p>

RyanS2

Speaking of offensive, how can you forget the edifying story of YHVH, where in Numbers: 31:1-54, everyone gets killed but the women who had not "known a man", who Moses gives to his army to rape. After that, a tribute is given to the Lord of the virgins, which the holy Bible tells us:

31:40
And the persons were sixteen thousand; of which the LORD's tribute was thirty and two persons.

31:41
And Moses gave the tribute, which was the LORD's heave offering, unto Eleazar the priest, as the LORD commanded Moses."

A burnt offering before the Lord and a holy raping in his name. Praise be!

How common was human sacrifice? Depends on who you ask. The Canaanites had a lot of babies that looked as if they'd been sacrificed, however, it is unknown if they were actually sacrificed, if they had been born-dead, etc. We think that the first sons of nobility were sacrificed by the Canaanites because inscriptions show that these kids were usually the first sons of nobility. Speculation exists if the Hebrews did it or not because the Bible says:

Exodus 22:29

"Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me."

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/2000/4/004yes.html" target="_blank">Farrell Till on human sacrifice</a>. Unfortunately, that's part two of a discussion, but it gives the general idea.

Exodus 13:11 - 16 gives an indication of early "substitute" sacrifices, by talking about redeeming: "every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck: and all the firstborn of man among thy children shalt thou redeem."

There are three verses which go against human sacrifice, but they aren't clear. (Hopefully Apikorus or someone with much better acquintance with Hebrew language can help this one out.)

Lev.20:2

"Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones."

This depends on what "giving seed unto Molech" means. Most probable, it means "giving children to Molech" for sacrifice, however, the Bible has a strange theme with marrying people from other countries, (cf. Numbers 25:6-9), and "seed" according to Genesis in the story of Onan is basically "sperm". The word used here is "zera`", in both Onan, (Genesis 38: 9,10) and Leviticus. It could possibly be to having sex with a foreign woman, and for that you get stoned.

Lev.18:21

"And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD."

While forbidding offerings to Molech, it says nothing about YHVH.

The only clear reference against human sacrifices is Dt.18:10

"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire...."

Pantera

There are reasons to suspect that in the original version of the story, Abraham really did sacrifice Isaac. This line of argumentation comes from a footnote in Friedman's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060630353/internetinfidelsA" target="_blank">Who Wrote the Bible?</a> I'd be interested to hear what our resident experts on the Hebrew Bible (Apikorus?) think of it.

<a href="http://www.bible.org/cgi-bin/netbible.pl?book=gen&chapter=22" target="_blank">Genesis 22</a>

The Isaac story is recognised as coming from the E source of the Pentateuch. The deity is referred to as Elohim (translated as God in most modern versions) in verses 1, 2, 3, 8 and 9. However, in verses 11, 14, 15 and 16a the deity is referred to as Yahweh (The Lord in translation). This seems to be a hint that verses 11-16a may represent an interpolation into the original story. Coincidently (or not), these are the verses where at he last minute God stops Abraham from carrying out the sacrifice.

Also note that while the angel's message "that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son... Because you have obeyed me..." could of course be interpreted to mean that Abraham was willing to obey and not withhold his son, taking the message on its own without the interpolation, it is at least as reasonable, if not more so, to interpret it as meaning that Abraham actually did obey the order to sacrifice his son.

Then in verse 19, it is only Abraham, and not Abraham and Isaac, who comes down from the mountain and rejoins his servents. More tellingly still, Isaac never again appears as a character in the E part of the Pentateuch.

Admittedly a couple of these are arguments from silence, but taken together they seem to make a reasonably strong case that in the original version of the story Abraham actually did sacrifice his son to God, in return being made the father of a vast nation, and that once human sacrifice became unacceptable the story was edited to make it more palatable to "modern" ears, while retaining the central message of God rewarding obedience.

{Fixed link so it goes to the right chapter}

[ February 02, 2002: Message edited by: Pantera ]</p>

DMB

This has some parallels in the Trojan War story of Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks, sacrificing his virgin daughter Iphigeneia in order to have a wind to sail his fleet to Troy. In some (presumably later) versions of the myth, I is not really killed, but spirited away to a happy existence elsewhere by a goddess (I forget which one)

bubby

Sorry to bump this message, but I just wanted to thank Ryan, Pantera and DMB for their replies.
It cleared this issue up somewhat...

[ February 02, 2002: Message edited by: bubby ]</p>

davidH

What a load of rubish!! lol, no joke that is pretty sad.

note; when it says;

Exodus 22:29

"Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me."

Ok, so where does it say you shall sacrifice your firstborn onto me?!!
Man, I seriously can't believe that that is what you take this verse to mean!
I will explain.

Please read 1 Samuel 1 v 11.

"And she made a vow saying,"O Lord Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head."

So you see when God says to give your firstborn onto me it means dedicate him to me. When Hannah is saying this she isn't saying that she wouls sacrifice her son to God, neither is that what the verse you mentioned above means.

Bubby you gave the example of Abraham and as you said it was a testing of Abraham's faith - God was never going to let issac be sacrificed. So there was no human sacrifice there.

You then mentioned Jeptaph and his daughter.
A very very sad thing.
True Jeptaph did say that he would sacrifice whatever he saw coming out of his house when he arrived back.
His daughter came out to meet him whenever he came back from the battle that he thought he could never win...
But note this God never told him to sacrifice his daughter to him, nor did he tell him to make the foolish vow he made.
God took no pleasure in that sacrifice, I'm sure he cried.

You again mention the time when those from Saul's family were killed as revenge for the gibeonites that Saul himself had slaughtered.
The Bible clearly says an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and a life for a life.

There was a famine in the land of Isreal and the lord told David that it was on account of the Gibeonites that Saul had murdered - the Isrealites had sworen an oath to God that they would spare their lives, however Saul had tried to exterminate all of them.
The Lord reminded David that justice had to be done against what Saul had done.
The Gibeonites name their price - seven male descendants of Saul (since saul was already dead).

However this is the point were you have strayed.
You assume that because "He handed them over to the Gibeonites, who killed and exposed them on a hill before the Lord." that that means they sacrificed them to the Lord. It clearly doesn't.
If they had sacrificed them to the Lord then the Bible would have said that.
But it says that they exposed them ..before the Lord. They did this to show the Lord that justice had been carried out so that the Lord would remove the famine from the land.
Read what happens in verse 10 of chapter 21.

Where did you get the idea of a rape and a burnt offering?

Actually maybe you missed out a couple of verses;

v18 "But save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."

Why do you take this to assume that they were to be raped? What about all the other women who were to be killed - why wouldn't they have not been raped too?
No, they were to be given in marriage. Raping was considered a sin to be stoned for.

For those that were given to the Lord (32) they were dedicated to him, to serve the priests (possibly by cooking).

So nowhere does it imply that they were to be raped - how can you read something into a verse that goes against every command that the Lord gave.

So nowhere in the Bible is there any human sacrifice to the Lord that the Lord orders and takes pleasure in.
The fact that God hated the practises of the people who sacrificed their children to Molech shows how much he hates human sacrifice. If he hated it so much , how could he then order the Isrealites to do it?

HRG

By Artemis - and to Tauris (the modern Krim), where she is later found and returned to Greece by her brother Orestes and his friend Pylades. See Goethe's play "Iphigenie in Tauris".

Regards,
HRG.

isaac42

Typical apologetic dung. Did you even read the arguments made?

Isaac

VeraciousMaven

Way to refute his points with a thoughtful response.

VM.

IMBryan

"You then mentioned Jeptaph and his daughter.
A very very sad thing.
True Jeptaph did say that he would sacrifice whatever he saw coming out of his house when he arrived back.
His daughter came out to meet him whenever he came back from the battle that he thought he could never win...
But note this God never told him to sacrifice his daughter to him, nor did he tell him to make the foolish vow he made.
God took no pleasure in that sacrifice, I'm sure he cried."

If I recall, God used to be quite vocal in the O.T. speaking to people all the time. Why didn't God just say "Ah, excuse me Jeptaph. I know your my man, but don't kill your daughter to prove it".

If God didn't feel like talking, then he could have sent an angel like in the case of Abraham.

As for the topic of human sacrifice, I think that God(father?) pretty well proved to the world by the "great flood" that he puts a pretty cheap price on human life.

Bry