Bebu..thanks for the Maccoby article. I think tho you may have misunderstood it. It is posing an alternate reading of the Ez. passage that does not question the practice of human sacrifice but rather the odd phrasology that calls the laws of God "bad". The article pointed out that scholars must accept the reality of Jewish human sacrifices.
Jews practiced human sacrifice
by peacefulpete 28 Replies latest watchtower bible
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bebu
Hi peacefulpete,
I realize that the article was addressing another subject completely,but his comments at the end were interesting:
It is unfortunate, however, that modern Jewish commentators, led by Moshe Greenberg, have generally adopted the view that Ezekiel is here accusing God of having given bad laws, including even a law of human sacrifice of the first-born. [1] While the modern scholar must accept that pre-biblical Israelite practice included human sacrifice, the Bible itself denounces it, and no biblical writer would ever attribute its institution to the God of Israel.
Anyway, would you help me find more info on what has led modern scholars to believe that human sacrifice was practiced in pre-biblical times?
Thanks,
bebu
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peacefulpete
Bebu...Maybe just so I do not misunderstand your last post, I'll reiterate that the topic there was the particular wording inthe Ez. verse. The translation that suggests that God was himself declaring his laws bad is deemed unlikely and without precedent because the unseemlyness of the omnipotent god declaring himself evil and murderous. The alternate translation has the people declaring that Ezekiel was changing the laws of yhwh and suggesting that the former methods of worship were bad laws. There are other sites that explore the possibilty that Jeremiah, Nehemiah and Ezekiel were historical figures that transformed the primitive jewish cult into a more sophisticated religion based largely upon the Zoroastrian faith. It is an attrative theory for many reasons. The pattern of redaction done at this time is consistant with this adjusting theology requirements. It is also noted that Zoroastrian parallels are far tomany to be coincidence. The creation story, the detailed sacrifice code, the legends of Patriarcs, the introduction of the festival of booths all have uncanny Persian precedents. An interesting note is that Neemah was a high ranking spiritualist in Artexerxes court and was sent by him " to see if the faith in God existed in Judah" the NWT has added the word "your" before god in the sentence to conceal that he wwas actually speaking about Ahura Mazda or Marduke. The glowing speeches about the pagan king having been anointed by God to lead the people of judah to righteousness make much more sense when understood that the king was speaking about HIS god not YHWH. The Bible at this time was vaccumed of direct references to human sacrifice by Jews. It therefore must be drawn from difficult to ignore indirect references to such a practise. Examples have here been offered. The clear directive from YHWH to offer up his son as a sacrifice with Abraham's casual compliance is direct evience that at the time of this early legend the practise was familiar. The ending was left unchaned, yet the middle part edited to allow Issac to survive in the story to become a patriarc himself. The archeological evidence about anything early (patriarcal period) "Israelite" is scant. But what we do have suggests a much different cult than the OT presently reveals. Actually I should not say this as the OT does reveal that the Jews worshipped just as their neighbors with terriphim, statuary bulls and phallic images and human sacrifice, it is however rewritten as practices engaged in but condenmed by YHWH rather than proscribed by him(ie priests). The evidence from other neighboring tribes from this region is sufficient to show that human sacrifice was comonplace and no culture is an island dispite claims of uniqueness. About the same time as the other peoples left off the practice the Jews also did. It is likely that the priesthood of the other cults likewise altered their histories to conceal the change. (I have read this to be suspected about Baal worship, that underwent this same adjustment) I know it is a big pill. I recommend a simple word search at a search engine. Something like"human sacrifice jews" or the like. It will bear results. Mind you that there will also be religious objections to this conclusion. I know there was just released a new book that dealt with this specifically. I will attempt to find more on it.
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peacefulpete
I meant Ezra not Nehemiah sorry. The book I was thinking of actually deals more with later Judaiusm, sorry again. The book entitled " The Bible Unearthed" is great and represents mainstream scholarship about Bible history in light of modern archaeology. I think I remember it touches on this topic.
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peacefulpete
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peacefulpete
Maccoby has a book out called "Divine Executioner" or something like that. It is reported to deal a lot with human sacrifice.
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peacefulpete
thats "Sacred Executioner"
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bebu-rinko
Have just got back from vacation and haven't read a thing here yet. Will try to do so this week!!
bebu
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*lost*
bumped