Was killing one's children a custom?

Question

Was killing one's children a custom?
Somewhere in the past I read in Moses' time it was a cultural practice to kill children. Can anyone verify this? I have read it was a custom (probably religious) in some cultures to do this...vaguely recall it was certain American Indians....any historians listening

Answer 1

It was common among the worshippers of Baal (which is why God disliked them so) and also throughout the world at that time or earlier, the Minoans (who were in fact phoinecian therefore philistine therefore worshipped Baal) and Incas in south America. Go figure. In China they used to kill girl infants automatically as there was a food shortage and so many mouths to feed. Women were considered burdens.
As for the Jews, only animal sacrifices would please God (the whole story with Abraham was a foreshadowing of Jesus' sacrifice.) There is discontent here in R&S about the killing of the first born of Egypt by God. But you must understand that the Egyptians killed the first borns of the Jews when Moses was born and this was a severe way an eye for an eye way of punishing them. I don't think those innocent children suffered and that they will live again of course. To God they are only sleeping--his main objective was to show the Egyptians their folly.

Answer 2

The ancient babylonians did, this was to appease the Sun god, reffered to in the bible as Baal.
Many other cultures did as well the most famous being the Myans and the Incas, both with a form of the same system of beliefs.
The Sun was central to crops and the earth is the mother.They viewed it as a diety the father figure in the equation.
When the sun was at its lowest point(in mid december) is when they would sacrifice children and virgins.
Usaully around the 15-22nd it was known as the saturnalia.
This festival if you study it would look modern, Red suit giving gifts, yule log, Tree that was decorated.
If you look up the meanings of the balls on the trees, these were actual heads.
Now we are not so barbaric we just use small glass balls.
The sun would ebb to its lowest point(equinox) and they were worried that the sungod was going to die.
So they in turn would sacrifice babies and virgins in order to give it new life.
The sun would make its way higher into the sky and they would think they saved the sun god from death.
This was as far back as the Mesopotamian valle in what we know today as Iraq.
This religion was referred to as the Babylonian mystery religion in the bible.
The practice is kept in many cultures today just by different names.
The pagan sun worshippers, were being recruited into mainstream religion and they wanted to keep there beliefs.
So today we still see remnants of this religion, in worship of the sun.

Look up Saturnalia on the internet and it will educate you where the modern beliefs come from.
We call it something else but it is still Babylonian at its source.

Answer 3

Ditto the Baal talk above.
Ditto on Sarge's comment. Many thumbs up for that one.

Jack w:
FYI, Saturnalia was not a Mayan or Babylonian celebration or holiday. It was Roman. It was the feast at which the Romans commemorated the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn, which took place on 17 December. Over the years, it expanded to a whole week, up to 23 December.
The feast of Sol Invictus, which was on December 25 supplanted Saturnalia. The ancient Christians weren't dumb and saw an opportunity to use a date long set to mind and used it celebrate the birth of Christ.
As for the head ornaments, you are mistaken there also. The earliest ornaments were fruits, nuts and other such handmade items from the family. In the 1800's an area around Lauscha, Germany was known for its fine glass making skills. They discovered that they could diversify into making molded glass ornament, initially replicating fruits, nuts and other food items. And glass balls which reflected the lights of the tree.

Answer 4

The sacrifice of children is mentioned in the Old Testament several times. Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac. Lot, who was a righteous man, offered up his two virgin daughters to a crowd who wished to assault his heavenly visitors. There is also a story in Judges, if I remember the book correctly, of a man who vowed the first thing he met coming home to a sacrifice and his daughter ran out to meet him with her friends when they heard he was on his way. She asked a month to mourn her death and virginity, which he granted, then she was sacrificed so this righteous judge might keep his vow.

There are also passages telling of other deities -- Baal and Moloch among them -- who required human blood sacrifice, as well as the law that all firstborns of the land, both human and animal, belonged to God and his temple. That is why Joseph and Mary go to the temple and make a sacrifice to cleanse her and to pay the token ransom for Jesus, who would otherwise have been a temple slave under the Law.

The practice of human sacrifice is not unique to the Middle East, but that's a subject for another question.

Peace

Answer 5

not a historian, a 9th grade student. i remember we learned at school that before Moses was born, there was this king who had a dream that some kid (male) would steal his throne later on, so he ordered the guys in his palace to kill all the boys who were born that year, and started killing all the male kids who were born every other year, just so humans won't die off.. so it's not a cultural OR religious practise, it's just some guy scared of losing to a kid.

and in another time, people used to bury their newborn daughters alive, because they were afraid of shame, or that they'll be too expensive (100% reliable information)

Answer 6

the position on the earth did you examine that? No, killing ones children replaced into not in any respect a "custom." That flies contained in the face of The best Directive (furthering mankind via spreading the seed). in a large number of cultures, such as Mezzo American, a sacrifice must be chosen among the persons of a given tribe and frequently, fairly even as a virgin replaced into stated as for, that sacrifice can be a baby, the added alluring and deserving of an bump into with the gods the added effectual. even if it replaced into not in any respect a instantly ahead practice for persons to ruin their own offspring for non secular or the different causes.

Answer 7

Child sacrifice (see Deuteronomy 18:9-13) was a Canaanite practice. There is a page on child sacrifice in Wikipedia.

What jack w wrote on Christmas tree glass balls is rather scary. Anyway in today's times, child sacrifice exists perhaps in the form of infanticide, but the meaning behind it has changed.

And I remember reading about child sacrifice in Bessie Head's fictional short story "Looking for a Rain God." The sacrifice was believed to bring rain for the crops (land fertility). You can read it on this site: http://www.mediamob.co.kr/lifesuh/blog.aspx?id=138460

Answer 8

There have been a number of cultures and cases in which killing children was practiced. As for Biblical references, there are actually quite a few. Abraham was going to kill his son for God, there's also Psalm 137:9 which says "Blessed shall he be, he who dashes thy suckling infants against jagged rocks" and a number of other cases. Around the time of Caligula, human sacrifice was practiced in Rome and it was often children. Mayans sacrificed a girl annually for a period in their culture.

In more modern times, you see it in China where people have limited resources and the government will only provide education to one child. You also used to see it in the U.S. with children born with Down syndrome and other conditions, who would be drowned immediately after birth in many cases. In England, they have a number of African Christian churches that have been found to engage in child sacrifice. Last year, Scotland Yard estimated about 300 or so churches which engage in sacrifice, branding, and torture of children in the entirety of the UK. I imagine that you see similar things in some parts of Africa as well.

Answer 9

The pagan Quraish tribe in Mecca used to kill their new born if it was female. Islam put a stop to that.

Answer 10

The Bible encourages it.

Peace and love dear...

Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants. (Isaiah 14:21 NAB)

1) If one curses his father or mother, his lamp will go out at the coming of darkness. (Proverbs 20:20 NAB)
2) All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They are guilty of a capital offense. (Leviticus 20:9 NLT)

Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15 NAB)