Moloch

From their [Jack Kerouac’s, Gary Snyder’s, Allen Ginsberg’s] days with Burroughs they knew that one of the quickest ways to disrupt the rational mind was with drugs. But not all drugs. Marijuana worked fairly well, but an even better disrupter was peyote, and its synthetic cousin, mescaline. LSD didn’t enter the Beat scene until the end of the Fifties, but when it did it quickly became the tool of choice for achieving “that ancient heavenly connection.”

Ginsberg took some peyote in the fall of 1955, […].Looking out his window, he [Ginsberg] had a vision of Moloch, the biblical idol whose worship was distinguished by the burning of children. Moloch was America, Ginsberg flashed, and he began writing a poem about this intuition.<a id="ednref116" href="http://www.gnosticmedia.com/Entheogens_WhatsinaName_PsychedelicSpirituality_SocialControl_CIA#edn116" name="_ednref116">[116]</a>

~ Jay Stevens

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See also Howl by Allen Ginsberg, pp. 17ff

Moloch has been used figuratively in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_literature" title="English literature">English literature</a> from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton" title="John Milton">John Milton</a>'s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost" title="Paradise Lost">Paradise Lost</a> (1667) to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Ginsberg" title="Allen Ginsberg">Allen Ginsberg</a>'s "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howl" title="Howl">Howl</a>" (1955), to refer to a person or thing demanding or requiring a very costly sacrifice.

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Hebrew" title="Biblical Hebrew">Biblical Hebrew</a> <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D6%BE%D7%9C%D6%BE%D7%9A" class="extiw" title="wikt:מ־ל־ך">מלך</a> (mlk)<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-2">[2]</a> usually stands for מֶלֶךְ <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%9A#Hebrew" class="extiw" title="wikt:מלך">melek</a> "king"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-3">[3]</a> (Akkadian <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%92%82%B7%F0%92%86%AA" class="extiw" title="wikt:��">malku</a>) but when vocalized as מֹלֶךְ mōlek<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-4">[4]</a> in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masoretic" title="Masoretic" class="mw-redirect">Masoretic</a> text, it has been traditionally understood as a proper name. While the received Masoretic text is medieval, the existence of the form Μολοχ (Molokh, whence <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgate" title="Vulgate">Vulgate</a> Moloch) in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint" title="Septuagint">Septuagint</a> establishes that the distinction dates to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple_period" title="Second Temple period">Second Temple period</a> (there is, however, no agreement between the interpretations found in the Septuagint on one hand and in the Masoretic text on the other).

Moloch has been traditionally interpreted as the name of a god, possibly a god surnamed "the king" (c.f. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adon" title="Adon">adon</a> "lord", <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal" title="Baal">baʿal</a> "master"), but pejoratively mispronounced as Molek instead of Melek using the vocalisation of Hebrew בּשֶׁת bosheth "shame",<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-5">[5]</a> distinguishing it from the title of melek "king", written identically in the consonantal text, which is also frequently given to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh" title="Yahweh">Yahweh</a>.

Thus, in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalm_5" title="Psalm 5">Psalm 5</a>:2, the מלךי mlk-y ("my mlk") of the Hebrew text is vocalized מַלְכִּי malĕk-ī and translated ὁ βασιλεύς μου ("my king") in the Septuagint; by contrast, in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_%28prophet%29" title="Amos (prophet)">Amos</a> 5:26, מלככם mlk-km ("your (plural) mlk") is vocalized מַלְכְּכֶם malĕk-chem ("your king") but translated Μολοχ ὑμῶν ("your Moloch") in the Septuagint.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-6">[6]</a>

The name of the god of the Ammonites is also given as מַלְכָּם malkam ("great king"),)<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-7">[7]</a> rendered as Milcom in KJV. In 1 Kings 11:7, לְמֹלֶךְ שִׁקֻּץ בְּנֵי עַמֹּֽון (KJV: "for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon"), the Septuagint has τῷ βασιλεῖ αὐτῶν εἰδώλῳ υἱῶν Αμμων ("for their king, idol of the sons of Ammon"), while in 1 Kings 11:33 לְמִלְכֹּם אֱלֹהֵי בְנֵֽי־עַמֹּון (KJV: "Milcom the god of the children of Ammon") is translated τῷ βασιλεῖ αὐτῶν προσοχθίσματι υἱῶν Αμμων ("for their king, the abomination of the sons of Ammon")

<ul>

<li>Leviticus 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."</li>

<li>Leviticus 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."</li>

<li>Leviticus 20:3: "And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name."</li>

<li>Leviticus 20:4: "And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not"</li>

<li>Leviticus 20:5: "Then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people."</li>

</ul>

Two further occurrences connect the practice with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tophet" title="Tophet">Tophet</a>, a place of sacrifice in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_Hinnom" title="Valley of Hinnom" class="mw-redirect">Valley of Hinnom</a> (Gehenna, which later acquired the connotation of "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell" title="Hell">Hell</a>"):

<ul>

<li>2 Kings 23:10: "And he defiled <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topheth" title="Topheth" class="mw-redirect">Topheth</a>, which is in the valley of the children of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinnom" title="Hinnom" class="mw-redirect">Hinnom</a>, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech."</li>

<li>Jeremiah 32:35: "And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin."</li>

</ul>

Later commentators have compared these accounts with similar ones from Greek and Latin sources speaking of the offering of children by fire as sacrifices in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punic" title="Punic" class="mw-redirect">Punic</a> city of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthage" title="Carthage">Carthage</a>, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia" title="Phoenicia">Phoenician</a> colony. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleitarchus" title="Cleitarchus">Cleitarchus</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diodorus_Siculus" title="Diodorus Siculus">Diodorus Siculus</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutarch" title="Plutarch">Plutarch</a> all mention burning of children as an offering to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronus" title="Cronus">Cronus</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_%28mythology%29" title="Saturn (mythology)">Saturn</a>, that is to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal_Hammon" title="Baal Hammon">Baal Hammon</a>, the chief god of Carthage. It has been suggested that the practice of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrifice" title="Child sacrifice">child sacrifice</a> may have been exaggerated in Roman post-war propaganda in order to make their arch-enemies seem cruel and less civilized.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-12">[12]</a>

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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleitarchus" title="Cleitarchus">Cleitarchus</a>' paraphrase of a scholium to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato" title="Plato">Plato</a>'s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republic_%28Plato%29" title="The Republic (Plato)" class="mw-redirect">Republic</a> has a description of the practice which predates the fall of Carthage in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Punic_War" title="Third Punic War">146 BC</a>:

There stands in their midst a bronze statue of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronus" title="Cronus">Kronos</a>, 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)

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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diodorus_Siculus" title="Diodorus Siculus">Diodorus Siculus</a> (20.14):

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.

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A rabbinical tradition attributed to the Yalkout of Rabbi Simeon,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-14">[14]</a> says that the idol was hollow and was divided into seven compartments, in one of which they put flour, in the second <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle-dove" title="Turtle-dove" class="mw-redirect">turtle-doves</a>, in the third a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_sheep" title="Domestic sheep" class="mw-redirect">ewe</a>, in the fourth a ram, in the fifth a calf, in the sixth an ox, and in the seventh a child, which were all burned together by heating the statue inside.

Greco-Roman authors describe the Carthaginian practice of child sacrifice as dedicated to Baal Hammon or, in interpretatio graeca, to Cronus. The explicit identification of this Punic deity with the Biblical Moloch is modern, suggesting a continuity of the practice of child sacrifice from Iron Age, or possibly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age" title="Late Bronze Age" class="mw-redirect">Late Bronze Age</a> Canaan to 2nd-century BC Carthage. Carthaginian child sacrifice in the context of biblical Moloch is studied, still based on the authority of ancient authors rather than archaeology, by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_M%C3%BCnter" title="Friedrich Münter">Friedrich Münter</a> in Die Religion der Karthager (1816) and by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Karl_Movers" title="Franz Karl Movers">Franz Karl Movers</a> in Die Phönizier (1841). Both Münter and Movers concluded that Molek was identical with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal" title="Baal">Baal</a> and to be categorized as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_god" title="Fire god" class="mw-redirect">fire god</a>.

In 1841, both <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Friedrich_Daumer" title="Georg Friedrich Daumer">Georg Friedrich Daumer</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Wilhelm_Ghillany" title="Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany">Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany</a> published influential works on the topic.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-18">[18]</a> These authors came to the conclusion that the Biblical text reflect an original identity of Molek and Yahweh, and that the cult of Yahweh grew out of that of Molek by the abolishing of human sacrifice. The authors find numerous instances of vestigial references to human sacrifice, most notably the law that all firstborns must be "consecrated" or "given" to Yahweh (Exodus 13:2, 22:28).

The hypothesis of Daumer and Ghillany of the original identity of Yahweh and Molek was controversially discussed by widely accepted in mid-19th century scholarship. It was influentially rejected by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Wilhelm_Friedrich_von_Baudissin" title="Wolf Wilhelm Friedrich von Baudissin">Wolf Wilhelm Friedrich von Baudissin</a> in his dissertation Jahve et Moloch: sive de ratione inter deum Israelitarum et Molochum intercedente (Leipzig, 1874).<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-19">[19]</a> Baudissin argued that the theonym Mlk was of genuinely Phoenician (and neither Hebrew nor Assyrian) origin, reflected in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melqart" title="Melqart">Melqart</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyre" title="Tyre" class="mw-disambig">Tyre</a> and the later reports of child sacrifice in the Tyrian colony of Carthage, and that it was only the import of the cult of the Tyrian Baal (i.e. Melqart) under king <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahab" title="Ahab">Ahab</a> (r. ca. 885–850 BC) that gave rise to his worship among the Israelites (and the corresponding condemnation of the practice by the Yahwist faction represented in the Hebrew Bible).

Consensus shifted towards the assumption of widespread child sacrifice in Canaan, although there were dissenting opinions.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-20">[20]</a> French-led excavations at Carthage began in 1921, and from 1923 reported finds of a large quantity of urns containing a mixture of animal and children's bones. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Dussaud" title="René Dussaud">René Dussaud</a> identified a 4th-century BC stela found in Carthage as depicting a child sacrifice.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-21">[21]</a> A temple at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amman" title="Amman">Amman</a> (1400–1250 BC) excavated and reported upon by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Hennessy" title="Basil Hennessy">J.B. Hennessy</a> in 1966, shows the possibility of bestial and human sacrifice by fire.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-22">[22]</a> While evidence of child sacrifice in Canaan was the object of academic disagreement, with some scholars arguing that merely children's cemeteries had been unearthed, in Carthage, the mixture of children's with animal bones as well as associated epigraphic evidence involving mention of mlk led to a consensus that, at least in Carthage, child sacrifice was indeed common practice.

The term mlk in Punic epigraphy was given a re-interpretation by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Eissfeldt" title="Otto Eissfeldt">Otto Eissfeldt</a> in 1935.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-23">[23]</a> Eissfeldt's suggestion was that molk was not to be taken as a theonym at all but as a term for a type of fire sacrifice. For the Hebrew Bible, he argued that seven out of the eight instances of Masoretic Molek (excising 1 Kings 11:7 as an error for Milkom) should also be regarded as the technical term for child sacrifice rather than as the name of a god, and that *lĕmōlek "as a molk-sacrifice" had been reinterpreted as the name of a Canaanite idol following the Deuteronomic reform under <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah" title="Josiah">Josiah</a> (r. 640–609 BC). According to Eissfeldt, this 7th-century reform abolished the child sacrifice that had hitherto been an acceptable part of the cult of Yahweh.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#cite_note-Heider_36f-9">[9]</a> Paul G. Mosca's Child Sacrifice in Canaanite and Israelite Religion: A Study in Mulk and Molech (1975) similarly argued in support of the theory that child sacrifice (molk) to Yahweh was practiced until the Deuteronomic reform of the 7th century BC.

The brazen arms were working more quickly. They paused no longer. Every time that a child was placed in them the priests of Moloch spread out their hands upon him to burden him with the crimes of the people, vociferating: "They are not men but oxen!" and the multitude round about repeated: "Oxen! oxen!" The devout exclaimed: "Lord! eat!" and the priests of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proserpina" title="Proserpina">Proserpine</a>, complying through terror with the needs of Carthage, muttered the formula: "Pour out rain! bring forth!"

In H.G. Wells' story "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine" title="The Time Machine">The Time Machine</a>" (1895) and subsequent movies, the antagonists were futuristic creatures called 'Morlocks' who routinely ate children, known as 'Eloi' (which suggests he was making a Biblical analogy).

Was looking up Chronos stuff... reading an article on how babies used to be sacrificed to Molech in huge numbers... Started to think that's why abortion is pushed so hard in Molech worshipping countries... has to be a parallel... anyways, this article says Molech, is also known as... CHRONOS!!!!  Names of Molech

"Anyone who reads history knows that various writers in various countries spell names differently. These names all refer to the same false god - Melech, Mo-lech, Milcom, Melkom, Moloch, Molek, Malec, Malik, Melek, Malkum, Melqart, Melkart, Milk, Melqarth, Kronos, Cronus. In Islam, Mo-lech is called Malec or Malik (meaning King), believed to be the principle angel in charge of Djahannam, the Islamic version of hell.

That Molech worship was already common among the Canaanites when Israel entered the land is evident from the fact that, before Israel entered the land, God warned them against Molech worship as an abomination the Israelites were forbidden to practice, Leviticus 18:21, 20:2, 3, 4, 5. Fire gods like Moloch and his fertility goddess consort, Ashtoreth, were not religious fantasies. They exercised a very real power over the primitive Canaanites. And their pagan worship snared some of the children of Israel."

Greek: Κρόνος (Kronos) ->Greek Romanized: Cronus -> Roman: Saturnus -> Roman Anglicized: Saturn -> Etruscan: Satre ->Egyptian: Osiris

Moloch

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