Pre Jewish Canaanite religion was followed by Ancient Semitic religions living in the ancient Levant (modern regions of Israel, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria) between early Bronze age (3000 BCE) till 1st century of Common Era.
Child sacrifices were done by Canaanites in those era, and the goddess’s picture above looks similar to a vedic [ancient India] god…In tantric tradition, Goddess Kaali is shown with four hands carrying weapons, wearing garland of skulls around her neck and suppressing a male head below her feet.
An under-world deity, worshipped by the Phoenicians and Canaanites, and had associations with a particular kind of propitiatory child sacrifice by parents…Canaanite goddess Astarte…
Her name is the second name in an energy chant sometimes used in Wicca: “Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Inanna.”
The Bible paints a picture of Canaanite society dominated by a religious system that was both licentious and cruel. Canaanite gods demanded human sacrifice and more specifically, the sacrifice of children.
In the Bible book of Jeremiah, God states, “They built the high places of Baal in order to burn their sons in the fire as whole burnt offerings to Baal, something that I had not commanded or spoken of and that had never even come into my heart.” (Jeremiah 19:5) The Bible is clear that child sacrifice was a regular feature of the religion of the Canaanites and the surrounding nations. “…they do for their gods every detestable thing that Jehovah hates, even burning their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.” (Deuteronomy 12:31)
According to the Bible, centers of worship for Canaanite gods such as Molech and the Baals were set up in Judah and Israel by apostate kings. Child sacrifice was even practiced in the Valley of Hinnom just outside of Jerusalem. Yet religious reformers such as King Josiah pulled down these places and rendered them unfit for use, “He also made unfit for worship Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom, so that no one could make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech.” (2 Kings 23:10) So it is no surprise that these sites which Josiah sought to erase have not been positively identified. Other Canaanite places of worship in Israel that have been identified have not yet yielded evidence of child sacrifice. Yet absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Did the Canaanites really ritually burn their children? The revisionists say no. Any mention of Canaanite child sacrifice in the Bible is just propaganda to justify the subjection of Canaan. Recent scientific studies may have resolved the question. There is good reason to believe the Bible did not exaggerate Canaanite barbarism.
Although Canaanite civilization was largely driven out of the land of Israel, it emigrated elsewhere, founding colonies along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, where it thrived for centuries. Most notable among these was the colony of Carthage in modern-day Tunisia. That city-state became so powerful it at one time rivaled the Roman republic. Carthaginians spoke the Canaanite language and importantly, practiced Canaanite religion. They also seemed to have brought with them their cruel predilection for child sacrifice.
Ancient Authorities Reported Child Sacrifice In Carthage
Writing in the 4th century B.C.E, the Greek historian Cleitarchus said of the Carthaginian practice, “There stands in their midst a bronze statue of Kronos, its hands extended over a bronze brazier, the flames of which engulf the child. When the flames fall upon the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seems almost to be laughing until the contracted body slips quietly into the brazier. Thus it is that the ‘grin’ is known as ‘sardonic laughter,’ since they die laughing.” (trans. Paul G. Mosca) “Kronos” was a regional name for Baal Hammon, the chief of Carthage’s gods.
Another Greek historian named Diodorus Siculus writing less than a hundred years after the fall Carthage affirms his countryman’s account. “There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.”
Around the same time the famous Greek historian Plutarch charged, “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 took the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people.”
Archeological Evidence Of Infant Sacrifice
In 1921, French archeologists excavated some of the ancient Carthage. One site appeared to be an ancient graveyard. The site had hundreds of grave markers. Underneath each one was a clay urn containing the cremated remains of human infants and animals (sometimes as many as seven urns were found one on top of another under a single marker). The soil was rich with olive wood charcoal indicating fires had been kept burning here for long periods of time.
The archeologists dubbed this place a “Tophet” which is the Hebrew word for the place of child sacrifice near Jerusalem at Jeremiah 7:31. In time, many more Tophet cemeteries were discovered. The largest contained the remains of approximately 20,000 infants in urns as well as some animals.
The fact that animals were buried here along with human infants seemed to suggest that this was not a normal cemetery for children. One urn containing the remains of an animal had an inscription indicating that animal was a “substitute”. This supports the archeologists conclusion that the “Tophet” contained the remains of sacrificial victims who had been burned to death as the Bible as well as the Greek and Roman historians had all claimed. Yet some skeptics remained. Perhaps the children had been burned after they had died of natural causes?
The inscriptions on the urns are helpful in this regard. Some of them record that vows to Tanit and Baal Hammon had been met (Tanit was the consort of Baal Hammon. She is known as Ashtoreth in the Bible – 1 Kings 11:23). Many other inscriptions record dedications from the children’s parents to Baal Hammon or Tanit, ending with the explanation that the god concerned had “heard my voice and blessed me”.
Dr Josephine Quinn of the University of Oxford conducted extensive research on the burial urns. Regarding the dedication inscriptions, she concluded, “People have tried to argue that these archaeological sites are cemeteries for children who were stillborn or died young, but quite apart from the fact that a weak, sick or dead child would be a pretty poor offering to a god, and that animal remains are found in the same sites treated in exactly the same way, it’s hard to imagine how the death of a child could count as the answer to a prayer.”
The final line of evidence came from analysis of bones and teeth found in the urns. In the last few years, experts from a number of Academic institutions examined the contents of over 340 burial urns. Determining the exact age of the infants from the burnt bones is difficult because the heat of the fire degrades, shrinks and warps them. However in most cases, the teeth of the infants survived in better condition. As teeth grow in length, the enamel and dentine grow in thickness at a universal rate. Thus it is possible to determine the age of a baby from the thickness of the enamel and dentine.
What the researchers found is that 67% of the infants were between 1 and 2 months old and that the percentage of infant remains from babies who lived longer is very low. This does not come close to the expected pattern of mortality rates in ancient times. Rather it is strongly suggestive that a particular age group was deliberately selected and that these did not die of natural causes.
Put together the Biblical evidence, the evidence of multiple highly regarded ancient historians, the archeological evidence and the conclusion becomes overwhelming and inescapable. The Canaanites really did practice child sacrifice. Human sacrifice was widespread amongst many cultures in ancient times but infant sacrifice was relatively unknown outside of Canaanite civilization. The deliberate murder of infant children was a pronounced feature of Canaanite religion. The Bible does not exaggerate the crimes of the Canaanites.
Additional information about the cruel practices of ancient pagans who were ruled by tyrants under the ubiquitous snake chief god and hybrid antropomorphic animal beasts can be induced from the Mesoamerican practices discovered by the conquering Spaniards in the middle of the first millennium AD.
The need for massive numbers of slaves for manual labor and crushing taxation on the citizens in order to build grand monuments, temples and palaces and provide luxurious lifestyles for the few at the top of the food chain should be blatantly obvious. Every one of the impressive remains discovered by archeologists were left behind by war-driven empires.
What is truly shocking is the justification for these practices given by self-styled judges of culture. “…to simply write off Aztecs as bloodthirsty and uncivilized mass murderers misses the central purpose of human sacrifice in Aztec society: as a deeply held belief system and part of the requirements for the renewal, sustaining and refreshing of life.”
Yep. The renewal, sustaining and refreshing of life of demon spirits.
According to some Spanish records, 80,400 people were slaughtered at the dedication of the Templo Mayor, a number likely exaggerated by either the Aztecs or the Spanish, both of whom had reason to inflate the numbers…Pennock argues persuasively for an annual number of victims in Tenochtitlan of between 1,000 and 20,000.
The religion of the Aztec civilization which flourished in ancient Mesoamerica (1345-1521 CE) has gained an infamous reputation for bloodthirsty human sacrifice with lurid tales of the beating heart being ripped from the still-conscious victim, decapitation, skinning and dismemberment. All of these things did happen but it is important to remember that for the Aztecs the act of sacrifice – of which human sacrifice was only a part – was a strictly ritualised process which gave the highest possible honour to the gods…
Oh, it’s OK, so as long as it is a strictly ritualised process honouring the gods.
Seriously?
What is often glossed over in anthropological accounts bemoaning the destruction of grand buildings, works of art and elaborate societies of pagan cultures of every era is the destruction at the hands of the victims of those cultures . It is a simple matter of Income Statement. The cost of those grand buildings and lifestyle of the elite at the top of the social pyramid were paid in pitiless taxes, sweat and blood of the masses of people.
While the Spaniard invaders in Mesoamerica were unquestionably cruel, the greatest death rate of American natives by butchery was by the local rulers in endless wars and blood sacrifices.
The Spaniards were not different from the locals in enslaving masses of people. The uniquely appalling death rates by Spaniards were caused by infection. If the Conquistadores are going to be blamed for unwittingly introducing epidemics to infection-naïve peoples, than so should homosexuals be blamed for causing the deaths of AIDS victims. Or you have to admit that in the beginning neither group was aware they were spreading deadly diseases by contact, and when they did find out the key stakeholders in each group allowed it to continue in pursuit of their agenda.
My point is not to relieve the Conquistadors of responsibility or demonize astoundingly promiscuous gays who individually may have upwards of 1,000 sexual partners, kindling AIDS into an epidemic. My point is to justly spread the responsibility to all involved parties – the rulers of the indigenous population as well as the newcomers. Cortes and his four hundred Spaniards could not have destroyed the magnificent Aztec empire with all its infrastructure if it wasn’t thoroughly rotten from within, based on the worship of deceitful, lying gods who abandoned their faithful subjects at the first sign of defeat. Keep that in mind as we face our own battles.
it stands to reason that the only thing worse than murder is murder on an industrial scale.The pathological compulsion that serial killers have to repeatedly extinguish life is what sets them apart from other murderers. A serial killer’s blood lust is what drives them to kill again and again and again.
Colombian Luis Garavito, aka ‘La Bestia’ (‘The Beast’) is currently serving 1,853 years…he continues to confess to more and more murders of vulnerable runaway boys. The total now is well over 300. Garavito would lure, tie-up, rape, torture, kill and dismember his child victims…in one devastating seven-year blitzkrieg of death (1992-1999).
Another Colombian to claim to have killed more than 300 children, Santa Isabel-born Pedro López preyed on young girls from 1969…Initially, police were sceptical of his confessions. Until that is, a flash flood uncovered some of his burial sites.
Javed Iqbal was proven to have slaughtered 100 innocent young people…on the streets of Lahore in the late 1990s. Iqbal would strangle his young victims, dismember their bodies and dissolve them in vats of hydrochloric acid…his sentencing judge [ordered] ‘You will be strangled to death in front of the parents whose children you killed,’ he said. ‘Your body will then be cut into 100 pieces and put in acid, the same way you killed the children.’
Let’s make an effort to apply the same standards to the biblical account of eliminating the Canaanites from the land of Israel as we do to contemporary justice systems. We do believe that does need to happen sometimes, right?
Kingdom Come 