Divinity original sin 2 seed of power8/17/2023 ![]() ![]() īefore 1935, all scholars held that Moloch was a pagan deity, to whom child sacrifice was offered at the Jerusalem tophet. The illustration shows a typical depiction of Moloch in 19th century illustrations. Offering to Molech (illustration from the 1897 Bible Pictures and What They Teach Us by Charles Foster). Leviticus repeatedly forbids the practice of offering children to Moloch:Īnd thou shalt not give any of thy seed to set them apart to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the L ORD. The activity of causing children "to pass over the fire" is mentioned, without reference to Moloch, in numerous other verses of the bible, such as in Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 12:31, 18:10), 2 Kings (2 Kings 16:3 17:17 17:31 21:6), 2 Chronicles (2 Chronicles 28:3 33:6), the Book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5) and the Book of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 16:21 20:26, 31 23:37). All of these texts condemn Israelites who engage in practices associated with Moloch, and most associate Moloch with the use of children as offerings. Seven instances include the Hebrew definite article ha- or has a preposition indicating the presence of the definite article. Five of these are in Leviticus, with one in 1 Kings, one in 2 Kings and another in The Book of Jeremiah. The word Moloch (מולך) occurs eight times in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible. See also: Textual variants in the Book of Leviticus § Leviticus 18 The spelling "Moloch" follows the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate the spelling "Molech" or "Molek" follows the Tiberian vocalization of Hebrew, with "Molech" used in the English King James Bible. Kerr instead derives both the Punic and Hebrew word from the verb mlk, which he proposes meant "to own", "to possess" in Proto-Semitic, only later coming to mean "to rule" the meaning of Moloch would thus originally have been "present", "gift", and later come to mean "sacrifice". von Soden argue that the term is a nominalized causative form of the verb ylk/wlk, meaning "to offer", "present", and thus means "the act of presenting" or "thing presented". Eissfeldt himself, following Jean-Baptiste Chabot, connected Punic mlk and Moloch to a Syriac verb mlk meaning "to promise", a theory also supported as "the least problematic solution" by Heath Dewrell (2017). Scholars who do not believe that Moloch represents a deity instead compare the name to inscriptions in the closely-related Punic language where the word mlk ( molk or mulk) refers to a type of sacrifice, a connection first proposed by Otto Eissfeldt (1935). Paul Mosca similarly argued that "The theory that a form molek would immediately suggest to the reader or hearer the word boset (rather than qodes or ohel) is the product of nineteenth century ingenuity, not of Massoretic or pre-Massoretic tendentiousness". ![]() Kerr criticizes both theories by noting that the name of no other god appears to have been formed from a qal participle, and that Geiger's proposal is "an out-of-date theory which has never received any factual support". Other scholars have argued that the name is a qal participle from the same verb. Since it was first proposed by Abraham Geiger in 1857, some scholars have argued that the word "Moloch" has been altered by using the vowels of bōšet "shame". The etymology of Moloch is uncertain: a derivation from the root mlk "to rule" is "widely recognized". A god Moloch appears in various works of literature and film, such as John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô (1862), Fritz Lang's Metropolis, and Allen Ginsberg's " Howl" (1955). īeginning in the modern era, "Moloch" has been figuratively used in reference to a power which demands a dire sacrifice. Since the medieval period, Moloch has often been portrayed as a bull-headed idol with outstretched hands over a fire this depiction takes the brief mentions of Moloch in the Bible and combines them with various sources, including ancient accounts of Carthaginian child sacrifice and the legend of the Minotaur. Among proponents of this second position, controversy continues as to whether the sacrifices were offered to Yahweh or another deity, and whether they were a native Israelite religious custom or a Phoenician import. This second position has grown increasingly popular, but it remains contested. However, since 1935, scholars have debated whether or not the term refers to a type of sacrifice on the basis of a similar term, also spelled mlk, which means "sacrifice" in the Punic language. Traditionally, the name Moloch has been understood as referring to a Canaanite god. The Bible strongly condemns practices which are associated with Moloch, practices which appear to have included child sacrifice. Moloch, Molech, or Molek is a name or a term which appears in the Hebrew Bible several times, primarily in the book of Leviticus. Tombs in the Valley of Hinnom, the location of the tophet where Moloch rituals were performed according to 2 Kings 23:10. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |