Child Sacrifice
<p><b>Child sacrifice</b> is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual" title="Ritual">ritualistic</a> killing of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child" title="Child">children</a> in order to please, propitiate or force a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God" title="God">god</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural" title="Supernatural">supernatural</a> beings in order to achieve a desired result. As such, it is a form of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice" title="Human sacrifice">human sacrifice</a>. The practice has received considerable opposition throughout history, and it has often become a target for those engaged in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_religion" title="Criticism of religion">criticism of religion</a>. 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 giving it up is.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-1">[1]</a></sup>
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<h4>Ban in Leviticus</h4>
<p>In Leviticus 18:21, 20:3 and Deuteronomy 12:30-31, 18:10, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah" title="Torah">Torah</a> contains a number of imprecations against and laws forbidding child sacrifice and human sacrifice in general. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh" title="Tanakh">Tanakh</a> denounces human sacrifice as barbaric customs of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal" title="Baal">Baal</a> worshippers (e.g. Psalms 106:37). <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kugel" title="James Kugel">James Kugel</a> argues that the Torah's specifically forbidding child sacrifice indicates that it happened in Israel as well.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-6">[6]</a></sup> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_S._Smith" title="Mark S. Smith">Mark S. Smith</a> argues that the mention of "Topeth" in Isaiah 30:27–33 indicates an acceptance of child sacrifice in the early Jerusalem practices, to which the law in Leviticus 20:2–5 forbidding child sacrifice is a response.<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-7">[7]</a></sup> Some scholars have stated that at least some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israelites" title="Israelites">Israelites</a> and Judahites believed child sacrifice was a legitimate religious practice.<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-8">[8]</a></sup></p>
<h4>Near sacrifice of Isaac</h4>
<div role="note" class="hatnote relarticle mainarticle">Main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_of_Isaac" title="Binding of Isaac">Binding of Isaac</a></div>
<p><a class="external text" href="http://tools.wmflabs.org/bibleversefinder/?book=Genesis&verse=22&src=HE">Genesis 22</a> relates the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_of_Isaac" title="Binding of Isaac">binding of Isaac</a>, in which <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God" title="God">God</a> tests <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham" title="Abraham">Abraham</a> by asking him to present his son, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac" title="Isaac">Isaac</a>, as a sacrifice on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moriah" title="Moriah">Mount Moriah</a>. No reason is given within the text. Abraham agrees to this command without arguing. The story ends with an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel" title="Angel">angel</a> stopping Abraham at the last minute and making Isaac's sacrifice unnecessary by providing a ram, caught in some nearby bushes, to be sacrificed instead. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Stavrakopoulou" title="Francesca Stavrakopoulou">Francesca Stavrakopoulou</a> has speculated that it is possible that the story "contains traces of a tradition in which Abraham does sacrifice Isaac". 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 the ritual of child sacrifice, which contradicts the morality of a perfect and giving (not taking) monotheistic God.<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-9">[9]</a></sup> According to Irving Greenberg the story of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_of_Isaac" title="Binding of Isaac">binding of Isaac</a>, symbolizes the prohibition to worship God by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifices" title="Human sacrifices" class="mw-redirect">human sacrifices</a>, at a time when <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifices" title="Human sacrifices" class="mw-redirect">human sacrifices</a> were the norm worldwide.<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-10">[10]</a></sup></p>
<h4>Gehenna and Tophet</h4>
<div role="note" class="hatnote relarticle mainarticle">Main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tophet" title="Tophet">Tophet</a></div>
<p>The most extensive accounts of child sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible refer to those carried out in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehenna" title="Gehenna">Gehenna</a> by two kings of Judah, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahaz" title="Ahaz">Ahaz</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manasseh" title="Manasseh">Manasseh</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-11" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-11">[11]</a></sup>
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<h4>Judges</h4>
<div role="note" class="hatnote relarticle mainarticle">Main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Judges" title="Book of Judges">Book of Judges</a></div>
<p>In the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Judges" title="Book of Judges">Book of Judges</a>, the figure of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jephthah" title="Jephthah">Jephthah</a> makes a vow to God, saying, "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering" (as worded in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_International_Version" title="New International Version">New International Version</a>). Jephthah succeeds in winning an immense victory, devastating several enemy towns, but he returns to his home in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizpah_in_Gilead_%28Judges%29" title="Mizpah in Gilead (Judges)">Mizpah</a> only to see his daughter, dancing to the sound of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbrel" title="Timbrel">timbrels</a>, outside. After allowing her two months preparation, Judges 11:39 states that Jephthah kept his vow. According to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meforshim" title="Meforshim" class="mw-redirect">commentators of the rabbinic Jewish tradition</a>, Jepthah's daughter was not sacrificed, but was forbidden to marry and remained a spinster her entire life, fulfilling the vow that she would be devoted to the Lord.<sup id="cite_ref-Radak-MD_12-0" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-Radak-MD-12">[12]</a></sup> The 1st-century CE Jewish historian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavius_Josephus" title="Flavius Josephus" class="mw-redirect">Flavius Josephus</a>, however, understood this to mean that Jephthah burned his daughter on Yahweh's altar,<sup id="cite_ref-13" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-13">[13]</a></sup> whilst <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Philo" title="Pseudo-Philo">pseudo-Philo</a>, late first century CE, wrote that Jephthah offered his daughter as a burnt offering because he could find no sage in Israel who would cancel his vow. In other words, this story of human sacrifice is not an order or requirement by God, but the punishment for those who vowed to sacrifice humans.<sup id="cite_ref-14" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-14">[14]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-15" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-15">[15]</a></sup></p>
<h4>Other</h4>
<p>In the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Ezekiel" title="Book of Ezekiel">Book of Ezekiel</a> 20:25-26 God says that he gave the Israelites laws by which they could not live and that God defiled them through the sacrifice of their firstborns in order to fill them with horror thereby revealing himself as the Lord.<sup id="cite_ref-usbible1_16-0" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-usbible1-16">[16]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-patheos1_17-0" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-patheos1-17">[17]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-firstborn_sacrifice.2C_Ezekiel_18-0" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-firstborn_sacrifice.2C_Ezekiel-18">[18]</a></sup> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezekiel" title="Ezekiel">Ezekiel</a> states that from the time the people of Israel were in the wilderness, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe_of_Judah" title="Tribe of Judah">people of Judah</a> had sacrificed their sons by fire, up until his day.<sup id="cite_ref-usbible1_16-1" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-usbible1-16">[16]</a></sup> Child sacrifice is reaffirmed in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Exodus" title="Book of Exodus">Book of Exodus</a> <a class="external text" href="http://tools.wmflabs.org/bibleversefinder/?book=Exodus&verse=22:29&src=KJV">22:29</a> where God demands the firstborn of their sons, cattle and sheep.<sup id="cite_ref-patheos1_17-1" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-patheos1-17">[17]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-firstborn_sacrifice.2C_exodus_19-0" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice#cite_note-firstborn_sacrifice.2C_exodus-19">[19]</a></sup></p>