Child Sacrifice in Ancient Israel?

I have occasionally come across the claim that ancient Israelites practiced child sacrifice. This is a popular idea on atheist websites - not surprisingly - but I have also encountered it in the scholarly literature. I've been skeptical about about it, but haven't taken the time to look into the evidence in detail. There is at least some evidence of it in the Bible: Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac can be interpreted as a story explaining why child sacrifice is no longer to be practiced.

Apparently the idea is still controversial among scholars and archaeologists. Here's a summary of a recent article that overviews the evidence (via Edward T. Babinski) and comes to a positive conclusion:

DANIEL VAINSTUB, "Human Sacrifices in Canaan and Israel," Beer-sheva 19 (2010), 117-204 (in Hebrew).
"The existence of infant sacrifices in biblical times both in the Canaanite culture and in Israel has been a matter of intense controversy in the scholarship of the last eight decades. Paradoxically, the more relevant data emerges, the wider the scholarly discensus grows. Some hold that the practice never existed among the Canaanites or the Israelites, while others aver that it was a deeply rooted practice both in the Canaanite homeland and the Punic cities of the West. Vainstub's comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of the issue includes an up-to-date survey of the divergent opinions concerning it and offers new insights based on an array of evidence, epigraphic, linguistic, artistic, and literary. The study highlights the significant degree of parallelism among the various sources, and comes to the conclusion that infant sacrifices to Baal by parents were indeed a strongly rooted custom in Bronze and Iron Age Canaan. The practice was taken over by the Israelites, and persisted until its abolition by Josiah. Later on, the practice was limited to the Phoenician coastal area until it was completely eradicated by the Persians there during the 5th century. B.C. Such sacrifices continued in the Phoenician colonies in the West for another 400 years."

And on the seventh day....

Check out Andrew Bernardin's Culinary Commanments:

And finally, the Lord said, For six days shalt thou toil at thy sink and at thy stove. But on the seventh day, thou may use thy cell phone to cry out for pizza. And though that prayer will be answered, thou shalt be charged for it.

Best laugh all week - thanks, Andrew!

Satan Is Born

I haven't had much time for blogging recently, so let me point you to this essay. The basic idea: early Judaism didn't have any concept of heaven or hell or Satan (as we understand him). All these concepts crept in through the influence of pagan religions, prominently Persian Zoroastrianism. Take a look, it's pretty cool stuff.

Jews and Scotsmen

Over the past few decades there has been something of a revolution in scholars' understanding of Judaism. Once thought of as a monolithic, monotheistic religion, it is now recognized that Judaism was much more diverse. This is true not just of ancient Israelite religion, as we saw in the last couple of posts, but also of the Judaism of Jesus's day.

"Monotheism," as we think of it today, was practically non-existent in the first century. As New Testament scholar Paula Fredriksen puts it, "All monotheists in the ancient world were polytheists." Existence of other gods was, for the most part, assumed as a matter of course. At issue for Jews was whether these gods should be worshiped. And did Jews worship only one God? The answer, it turns out, depends on what you mean by "worship." The basic meaning of the Greek term is to bow down before someone or something. But it can also refer to prayers, hymn singing, and offering of sacrifices.

Angels are an interesting test case for Judaism. Some Jewish and early Christian texts speak out against the worship of angels. As we saw last time, such prohibitions are proof that some were worshiping angels. Too, archaeologists have uncovered Jewish funeral inscriptions from Delos that invoke angels. The fact that two such inscriptions are identical suggests that this funerary prayer was standard, at least for this time and place.

A story in 2 Maccabees 12:39-40 tells of a Jewish defeat in battle. Afterward, those picking up the bodies of the slain Jews found that every one was wearing an amulet bearing the tokens of the gods of Jamnia. While this is obviously a bit of polemic intended to explain the defeat in terms of the apostasy of the soldiers, it still suggests that the wearing of such amulets was not unthinkable to the author of the story. Again, the prohibition proves the practice. And again the conclusion is supported by archaeology: a Jewish grave containing a talisman with the image of Medusa.

Another inscription tells of a Jew, Moschion son of Moschion, who freed his slave after having a dream in which two gods appeared to him and told him to do so. And inscriptions in a temple of Pan indicate several Jews who gave thanks to God there.

New Testament scholar James McGrath (from whose book The Only True God these examples are taken) says these examples show

the recognition by a Jewish individual of both the existence and the authority of figures other than God Most High in a way that is surely indicative of a characteristic of Jewish piety in this period. There was simply no way one could go through life without dealing with the "lower functionaries" responsible for the region one was living in. If, as [Deuteronomy 32:8] seemed to suggest, God had appointed the "sons of God" over the various nations, then to assume one could avoid all interaction with these figures while living in the Diaspora may have seemed not only unthinkable but also unbiblical.

Defenders of the faith, both Jewish and Christian, often suggest that examples like these show that some had turned away from Judaism, or syncretised it with pagan religion. Thus, they were not true Jews. But this is the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Given the extensive evidence, both textual and archaeological, for these practices, there can be little doubt that they represent Judaism as actually practiced - even if some of these practices were condemned by some segment of the Jewish populace.

What, then, was distinctive about Judaism? According to McGrath, the line in the sand was drawn at sacrificial worship: the offering of sacrifices to a god. One could bow down before, or pray to, or wear the tokens of, or obey the commands of, other figures and other gods without abandoning Judaism. But for Jews - a strong majority of them, at least - sacrifices were only to be offered to the one God above all others.

How Many Gods?

The religion of ancient Israel was rather different from the Jewish religion of today (or of Jesus's day). This is clear to anyone who actually tries to read the Old Testament without imposing their own theology on it.

For example, the famous First Commandment (Exodus 20:2-3) reads:

"I am Yahweh your God ... you shall have no other gods before me."

Note what this verse does not say: it doesn't say that no other gods exist, and it doesn't say that you can't believe in other gods (though it goes on to say you can't make any idols or bow down to or serve them). It just says that Yahweh is to be the primary god, and the only one worthy of worship.

Likewise the famous Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4:

"Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one."

This has often been taken as a fundamental declaration of monotheism. But recall what we learned last time: Israelite religion was the result of combining Yahweh worship and El worship. So the original meaning of this verse might have been quite different: it might have been a declaration of identity, Yahweh = El.

The Old Testament often makes mention of other gods. Some of the time, of course, these are foreign gods and are to be shunned. But in some places, the "gods" are mentioned in a positive way:

Exodus 15.11:

Who is like you among the gods, Yahweh?

Daniel 11:36

...God of gods...

 Psalm 29:1

Ascribe to Yahweh, sons of gods,
Ascribe to Yahweh, glory and strength...

This, as we have already seen, shows the influence of the Canaanite religion from which Israelite religion developed. But it also shows that other gods were not absolutely denied or forbidden. So ancient Israelite religion is sometimes called monolatry rather than monotheism: only one god is worshiped; more than one may be acknowledged.

One must realize, though, that the texts that survive as the Old Testament only represent one version of Israelite religion. This is, in some sense, the "official" Israelite religion: it was the version supported by the educated elite - or at least some subgroup of that elite. What actual Israelites were doing might have been quite different from what their leaders wanted them to be doing. And, in fact, it was.

There are two different routes to this conclusion: the texts themselves, and the archeological evidence.

Throughout the Old Testament we see the Israelites "turning away" from Yahweh to worship other gods. No sooner has Moses brought the Commandments down from Sinai than he discovers the people making an idol (Exodus 32). Again and again the people turn to other gods and are punished for it. Clearly, this is a theme that many of the Old Testament authors agreed on: worship other gods and you will be punished, worship Yahweh alone and you will be saved. But even though many (or most) of these incidents are not historical, they must reflect a historical reality at least for the time of the author, or the theme would not keep appearing.

(There is a maxim in historical studies to the effect that if you want to know what people were doing, look at what was being prohibited. This seems counter-intuitive at first. Surely if there is a command "Do not kill," then (good) Israelites didn't kill, and if one says, "Don't worship other gods," then they didn't worship other gods, right? But imagine this: you go into an unknown church on a Sunday and find in the bulletin, written in large print at the bottom, "Please turn off cell phones during the service." That wouldn't be there unless people were leaving cell phones on, would it? Now imagine finding instead, "Please do not run naked in the aisles during the service." Your reaction, no doubt, would be, "What kind of crazy church is this???" In other words, you assume that, if it is prohibited, it must be something that sometimes occurs. Most churches don't have a written prohibition on nakedness - not because it's allowed, but because it just doesn't ever happen.)

The case of Asherah is particularly interesting. As we saw in the previous post, Asherah was the consort of El in Canaanite religion. In Judges 6:25 we find some sort of Asherah symbol associated with Baal,

That same night the LORD said to Gideon, "Take the second bull from your father's herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it..."

Again we find the theme of Israelites turning away to other gods, and then returning to Yahweh. But archaeology tells a different story. Inscriptions found at Quntilat 'Ajrud and at Khirbet el-Kom read

"Blessed be [someone] by Yahweh and his Asherah."

Here, instead of being a foreign god, Asherah appears as part of the cult of Yahweh. Combine this with the fact that references to Asherah are found in Judges, Deuteronomy, and 1 and 2 Kings, and it is clear that the cult of Asherah was a long-running affair among the Israelites.

Possibly related are the large numbers of female figurines that have been found in excavations at Israelite sites, even in the royal palace at Ramath Rachel! Such idols, of course, were explicitly forbidden by the "official" religion. Their prevalence shows that, whatever common Israelites were doing, it was not limited to the officially sanctioned forms.

I can't do better than to end with a quote from archaeologist William Dever (from the Wiki article):

We do not know for sure what the belief in the god Yahweh meant for the average Israelite. Although the biblical text tells us that most Israelites worshipped Yahweh alone, we know that this is not true... The discoveries of the last fifteen years have given us a great deal of information about the worship of the ancient Israelites. It seems that we have to take the worship of the goddess Asherah more seriously than ever before.

Yahweh Is Not My Way

I was taught in Sunday School that Yahweh, the one true God and creator of the universe, revealed himself to the patriarchs of Israel, as described in (what Christians call) the Old Testament.

What I was not taught: ancient Israel was actually polytheistic, and this Yahweh has close connections with the gods of Canaan.

God is called by many names in the Old Testament. God's name, Yahweh, is the modern transcription of the tetragrammaton, YHWH. In ancient Hebrew, there was no notation for vowels, and in later times it became forbidden to say the name out loud, so "Yahweh" is simply a guess: "...who can say if they called him Yahweh, Yehowah, or even Yahu-Wahu?" (The Cartoon History of the Universe, I.152)

El in the Old Testament is basically equivalent to the English word "god." It is used of Yahweh, but also of other gods (Baal, Moloch).

Elohim is also commonly used to refer to God in the Old Testament. It is a strange form, though: it is a plural. Depending on the context, it is sometimes translated as "God" and sometimes as "(the) gods." From the Wikipedia article:

The form of the word Elohim, with the ending -im, is plural and masculine, but the construction is usually singular, i.e. it governs a singular verb or adjective when referring to the Hebrew god, but reverts to its normal plural when used of heathen divinities (Psalms 96:5; 97:7)

"The LORD your God," a frequent phrase in the Old Testament, translates "Yahweh your Elohim." How this plural word came to refer to a singular God seems a bit of a mystery. At least, I have not read any explanation that is satisfactory. If you know of a good source for this term, please let me know in the comments.

In Canaanite religion, El is the is the creator and the father of all the gods. They are referred to as the "sons of El," as in this Phoenician inscription:

The Eternal One (‘Olam) has made a covenant oath with us,
Asherah has made (a pact) with us.
And all the sons of El,
And the great council of all the Holy Ones.
With oaths of Heaven and Ancient Earth.

Here we also encounter Asherah, El's consort. She is mentioned in the Old Testament, too, as we will see.

Of course, in the Old Testament as well as the New, God is creator and father. The "sons of El (God)" appear, too, as well as the council of the Holy Ones:

Who in the skies can compare with Yahweh?

Who among the sons of god can rival him?

God, awesome in the assembly of the holy ones, great and dreaded among all who surround him…
(Psalm 89:6-7. See also Job 1:6, where Satan is among the sons of God)

 It seems that Yahweh was originally one of the sons of El. In Deuteronomy 32:8-9, Elyon (the "Most High") assigns the various gods their appropriate peoples:

When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; [Yahweh's] own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share.

Exodus 6:2-3 reveals that the name "Yahweh" was an innovation:

"I am Yahweh. To Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob I appeared as El Shaddai, but I did not make my name Yahweh known to them."

Historians interpret these verses as an attempt to merge the Yahweh cult with the El cult. (in addition to the Wikipedia articles linked above, see The Early History of God, by Mark S. Smith, and Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, by Frank Moore Cross.)

Next time I'll look at further indications of polytheism in the Old Testament.

Thou Shalt Kill Everybody And The Horse They Rode In On

Michael Fridman is blogging the Bible. Today he presents 1 Samuel 15, in which God demands that Saul kill all the Amalekites, down to the last woman, child, and farm animal. Saul fails in this: he manages to massacre all the babies, but can't bring himself to kill the livestock. So God gets mad at him.

You can't make this stuff up.