When God demanded child sacrifice

 

 

“When God demanded child sacrifice” is a shocking documentary c/o the YouTube channel MythVision (presumably an atheist outlet). It argues, rather persuasively, that the God of the Old Testament demanded child sacrifice, just as the hideous pagan gods Moloch and Dagon, and that it took a long time before this practice was finally done away with.

In the story of Abraham and Isaac, God stops the human sacrifice at the last moment, but Abraham´s obedience to Yahweh is never questioned or problematized. In the story of Jephtha´s daughter, God allows a child sacrifice to proceed. Even when sacrifice of the first-born child was abolished, the parents had to “redeem” their offspring in money or goods. I assume God demanded sacrifices of all “first fruits” as a way of showing that he was the real owner of the land. The same logic was applied to the people living on the land! It´s a well-known fact that the Canaanites and Phoenicians practiced child-sacrifice, but the people of Israel had the same basic worldview – indeed, they were just another Canaanite tribe (the stories of the Sojourn, Exodus and Conquest are purely mythological). The documentary also argues that there never was a god named Moloch. Rather, the molek was a specific kind of sacrifice. Thus, the Bible never says that the Israelites shouldn´t sacrifice to Moloch (a foreign god), but that they should dispense with molek-sacrifices (to their own god). MythVision believes that it was king Josiah (him again!) who reformed the Israelite religion and made it more strictly monotheist, among other things dispensing with human sacrifice. However, if the Bible is read carefully, traces of the earlier practice *and its official status* remain.

The above has obvious consequences for Christianity. There, God himself sacrifices Jesus, his only begotten son, to redeem or ransom his people. Note also that Jesus was Mary´s first-born! (I don´t think the documentary points this out.) Note also the parallel to the Catholic mass sacrifice, in which Jesus is sacrificed again, for the benefit of the congregation. I don´t think anyone denies the connection between Jewish temple sacrifices and the atoning death of Jesus, but this is usually portrayed as the difference between supposedly inefficacious animal sacrifices and the highly effective one of the Son of God offering up himself. 

This documentary shows that the connection runs even deeper. Just like “Moloch”, Yahweh demanded child sacrifices, and they were seen as efficacious in their day…until some kind of cultural shift, when non-human sacrifices or monetary contributions were seen as acceptable substitutes. But at some point, one Jewish sect reverted to the old notion that only human sacrifice could redeem the people of Israel – but they were “reformed” enough to allow for that sacrificial victim to be the Messiah himself!

Of course, Jesus crucified also ties in with a lot of other almost archetypal motifs: mystery gods who die and are reborn (often symbolizing the vegetation – which is why they are “eaten”), initiands suffering to receive arcane knowledge, righteous men suffering for their righteousness, and so on. Note also that the cross is an ancient symbol with some kind of esoteric significance, that a primordial giant is sacrificed for the world to be created, and so on.

So there is a lot to explore here…