many blessings
the dark shrivels in its boots
as we continue here with illumination
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sacrificeChild sacrifice
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See also: Religious abuse and Infanticide
Llullaillaco mummies, Inca human sacrifice, Salta province (Argentina).
Child sacrifice is the ritualistic killing of children in order to please, propitiate or force a god or supernatural beings in order to achieve a desired result. As such, it is a form of human sacrifice. The practice has received considerable opposition throughout history, and it's been referred to multiple times in terms of criticism of religion.
Aztec culture[edit]
Archeologists have found remains of 42 children. It is alleged that these remains were sacrificed to Tlaloc (and a few to Ehécatl, Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli) in the offerings of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan by the Aztecs of pre-Columbian Mexico. Although, it must be stated that sacrificial rituals were not literally described in Aztec codex and are just as likely to be a Spanish/European misinterpretation of ruins and burial grounds found in that region.[1]
Further information: Tlaloc#Rites and rituals
Inca culture[edit]
The Inca culture sacrificed children in a ritual called capacocha. Their frozen corpses have been discovered in the South American mountaintops. The first of these corpses, a female child who had died from a blow to the skull, was discovered in 1995 by Johan Reinhard.[2] Other methods of sacrifice included strangulation and simply leaving the children, who had been given an intoxicating drink, to lose consciousness in the extreme cold and low-oxygen conditions of the mountaintop, and to die of exposure.
Moche culture[edit]
The Moche of northern Peru practiced mass sacrifices of men and boys.[3]
Tanakh (Hebrew Bible)[edit]
References in the Tanakh point to an awareness of human sacrifice in the history of ancient Near Eastern practice. The king of Moab gives his firstborn son and heir as a whole burnt offering (olah, as used of the Temple sacrifice). It is apparently effective, as his enemy is promptly repelled by a 'great wrath' (2 Kings 3:27). In the book of the prophet Micah, one asks, 'Shall I give my firstborn for my sin, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?' (Micah 6:7), and receives a response, 'He has shown all you people what is good. And what does Yahweh require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.' (Micah 6:8) The Tanakh also implies that the Ammonites offered child sacrifices to Moloch.
Ban in Leviticus[edit]
In Leviticus 18:21, 20:3 and Deuteronomy 12:30-31, 18:10, the Torah contains a number of imprecations against and laws forbidding child sacrifice. James Kugel argues that the Torah's specifically forbidding child sacrifice indicates that it happened in Israel as well.[4] Mark S. Smith 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.[5] Jon D. Levenson, Susan Nidditch and Susan Ackerman have stated that at least some Israelites believed child sacrifice was a legitimate part of ancient Israelite religion.[6]
Near sacrifice of Isaac[edit]
Main article: Binding of Isaac
Genesis 22 relates the binding of Isaac, in which God tests Abraham by asking him to present his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah. No reason is given within the text. Abraham agrees to this command without arguing. The story ends with an angel 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. Francesca Stavrakopoulou has speculated that it is possible that the story "contains traces of a tradition in which Abraham does sacrifice Isaac.[7] Richard Elliott Friedman has argued that the story may have originally had Abraham carrying out the sacrifice of Isaac, but that later repugnance at the idea of a human sacrifice led a redactor to add the lines in which a ram is substituted for Isaac.[8] 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.[9] Terence E Fretheim has written that 'The text bears no specific mark of being a polemic against child sacrifice'. [10]
Gehenna and Tophet[edit]
Main article: Tophet
The most extensive accounts of child sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible refer to those carried out in Gehenna by two kings of Judah, Ahaz and Manasseh.[11]
Judges[edit]
Main article: Book of Judges
In the Book of Judges, the figure of Jephthah 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 New International Version). Jephthah succeeds in winning an immense victory, devastating several enemy towns, but he returns to his home in Mizpah only to see his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels, outside. At first allowing her a two-month period of preparation, Jephthah nonetheless sacrifices his daughter when she returned to him.[12]
Phoenicia and Carthage[edit]
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