When it comes to the term Molech, also sometimes spelled Moloch and Molek, there is no shortage of theories about the religion, cult, and practices associated with this name. In fact, it is even debated as to whether or not this word represents the proper name of an ancient pagan god or merely a title or even simply the name of a ritual called mulk. The word Molech or Moloch is used ten times in Scripture (based on the Tree of Life Version) in the following passages: Leviticus 18:21, 20:2-5, 1 Kings 11:7, 2 Kings 23:10, Jeremiah 32:5, Zephaniah 1:5, and Acts 7:34. The common belief is that this is the name of a pagan god and that these passages describe an act of burning children alive as offerings to this god. This study will evaluate these claims against the available evidence as known today.
The term comes from the letters MLK, rendered in Hebrew as מֹלֶךְ, which is the same as the Hebrew word for king—generally transliterated as melek. As the Hebrew vowel system is a relatively modern invention of the Masoretes and the oldest Hebrew texts do not have vowel identifiers, it is reasonable to debate whether or not this reference was initially a name or a title. This would be much like how the god Ba’al is so named from the word for lord, which also may originally be a title—lord of the gods—while the title itself is a generic term, such as it’s use of Yahweh as The Lord or Adonai.
Many times those who know just enough to be dangerous will make false assumptions, such as saying that if you call The God of The Bible Lord you are really associating him with the Canaanite god Ba’al. This, of course, is nothing more than ignorance and attempts to demonize valid terms for our God. After all, there was a Canaanite god called El, and this term is also used by the Hebrew people for Yahweh—such as its use in such forms as El Elyon and Elohim. Ba’al is first and foremost the title lord, El in its various forms is first and foremost the title God or god, and MLK is first and foremost the title king. So it is possible, perhaps even probable, that the god ultimately “named” Molech was first referred to as something like king of the gods, or perhaps something like el melek.
We see a similar comparison to this in the character known as Melchizedek in The Bible. This is clearly the combination of the words melek (מֶלֶךְ) and tsaddiq (צַדִיק), which combined would make the phrase: king of righteousness or righteous king. There is a longstanding theory found in ancient rabbinic literature that this man who met with Abraham was Shem, the son of Noah, and what became a proper name over time, Melchizedek, was actually originally a title: the melek tsaddiq. The biblical timeline does allow for Shem to have been alive at the time Abraham encountered this king of the region of Salem, and one can only imagine the implications of what it would mean if Abraham were meeting with one of the actual righteous crewmen from Noah’s Ark. But such speculations are outside of the scope of this article, the point here is that we have examples of where what we know today as proper names of biblical figures may in reality have been titles, particularly when words like melek, ba’al, el, and other titles are involved.
If it’s possible that traditional views of religion are wrong regarding something so simple as whether a term represents a proper name or a formal title, what else could people be wrong about? Despite the possibility, or perhaps probability, that Molech was a title and not a name, for purposes of this study I will continue to use this as if a proper name of the deity—primarily for familiarity and to maintain the focus on the subject matter.
This study is going to examine the claims regarding child sacrifice in the cult of Molech, claims that burial jars found at archaeological sites associated with the worshipers of Molech reveal proof of such child sacrifice, and current associations between the cult of Molech with the modern-day practice of abortion. Some might argue why I would engage in such a study—after all, idol worship is sinful, child sacrifice is sinful, and abortion is sinful all on their own, there is no need to connect any of these to another evil to validate their wickedness. So why concern ourselves with whether or not such things are connected? After all, some might argue that since they are all individually evil it shouldn’t matter whether or not one sees them as directly connected with each other.
The answer is simple. We must always be sure that our testimony is based on truth. If such things are connected, then it certainly does strengthen the testimony against such evils. However, if they are not connected and the claims made by preachers today are false, then it weakens the entire testimony against all of these matters and calls to question the trustworthiness of everything they speak on. Once a person is established as a liar, even if they do so in ignorance, it impacts the credibility of their entire witness. If we are to be people of truth, we must always be on a pursuit to ensure that what we are presenting is truth and always be willing to change our mind about a matter based on evidence we had not seen prior.
I know people who will say to me: “You’re not going to change my mind about that.” I have heard this in regard to the abortion debate and where they stand. I have heard it about various types of Bible codes. And I have heard it on various other topics. Some would probably say: “I don’t care what you say in this message, I believe Molech worship involved burning babies alive and nothing you can say will change my mind.” Being so closed-minded, especially against the facts, is never a healthy position to take. So I would simply ask that you read this study with an open mind, regardless of what you have previously been told about the Molech worship mentioned in The Bible. After assessing the worship of Molech this article will transition to a discussion about modern-day abortion practices and the debate about whether or not this should be permitted or prohibited by a nation’s laws. This will hopefully serve to provide some balance to the topic of this study.
What Is Meant By ‘Child Sacrifice’?
When it comes to the cult of Molech, whether this word is the proper name of a deity, the title of a deity, or merely a type of ritual in the ancient world, most today hear the word sacrifice and, especially when it says child sacrifice, picture a graphic scene where a human infant is tied down with someone preparing to plunge a knife in his or her chest or is burned alive in a raging fire. But is that what is even meant when we speak of child sacrifice in the ancient world, particularly when dealing with the worship of a pagan god or participation in a pagan ritual?
The common view, as the majority of people in “Christian” religion tend to gravitate toward claims that are the most sensational and present the ancient pagan cults mentioned in The Bible as the most demonic, contends that living infant children were put into a fire that burned in the belly of a brazen image of a god named Molech. Sometimes this is referred to as placing children on the lap of Molech as some propose that the child was placed on the idol’s lap where it would from there fall into the fire to be burned alive. John Phillips describes this theory in his book Bible Explorer’s Guide: How To Understand And Interpret The Bible:
The valley if the sons of Hinnom was a real place in Jerusalem. In the dark days of Jewish apostasy, children were sacrificed there. There they “passed through the fire” to the horrible god Molech. The image of Molech was hollow, and in his metal belly fierce fires burned. Little children, placed living on his red-hot lap, rolled down through a cavity into those fires.
In addition to Phillips’ description, we can also look at how this is explained by Wm. G. Justice, D.Min., from his book Gifts For The Gods: Pagan And Christian Sacrifices:
When the Israelites migrated from Egypt into Canaan they found many of the natives worshiping the god Molech, a fire god that seems to have been conceived by the Phoenicians. The image of Molech was cast in brass with hands positioned so that items placed there would fall into the fires burning in its lap. Ancient sources mention the sacrificial burning of food and drink, birds and animals, and of course humans. Examination of the surviving bones indicates that most of the victims were young children, ranging in age from the youngest infants to children of approximately twelve years old. The first-born was the preferred sacrifice.
Adult sacrifices may have been limited to one each year. Immolation of an adult each year in the autumn was a normal practice for the fire god cults. Since ancient records tell that the relatives caressed the infants to prevent them from crying as they placed the child in Molech’s lap, we conclude that the victims were sent to the flames while still alive.
The problem with this view is two-fold. First, there exists to date no actual known physical evidence of such a Molech statue. This is probably why the controversial Molech statue on display in Rome is modeled after a prop from the 1914 silent film Cabiria—because there is nothing from the ancient world to model a replica after. If there were a cult with a god named Molech as so described and it was as large as some would have us believe, there should be some existing remains of such a massive brazen statue. While it’s possible that had such an idol as often described may have been destroyed and the brass melted down for repurposing, this could indicate such a cult was much smaller and perhaps less significant than some would have us believe. Also, this idea may be a result of well-meaning people getting various ancient mythologies mixed up. For example, the Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily—whose work dates to between 60 and 30 B.C.—said: “There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus, extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.” Some try to associate this with the biblical Molech, but Cronus was a Greek god (paralleled by Saturn in the Roman religion), not a Canaanite or Phoenician god.
The other problem is that the majority of claims describing Molech worship as Phillips and Justice have done primarily started in the nineteenth century, so these are relatively recent claims that based on more recent evidence may not be accurate at all. Additionally, ancient records would indicate that whatever may have been Molech worship was something very different than what is often presented today.
The early rabbis, as recorded in The Babylonian Talmud Tractate Sanhedrin 64a and 64b, believed that the term “passing through the fire” referred either to a ceremony that involved a child walking through a path between two walls of fire or something akin to a game where the child would leap over a fire prepared for the rite of passage. An alternate view, which we will also look at more closely, associated the Molech ritual with a sexual initiation. In commenting on the statements of the rabbis, John Day, who ultimately rejected anything less than the literal sacrificing to death of children in the Molech ceremonies, said these words in his book Molech: A God Of Human Sacrifice In the Old Testament, regarding this matter:
At this point it may be noted that Snaith and Weinfeld appeal to rabbinic evidence in support of their view that the Molech cult involved cultic dedication rather than human sacrifice. The rabbis, in fact, attest three major interpretations of the Molech cult. The first interpretation understood giving up one’s child to Molech as an allusion to consecrating one’s child to idolatrous worship. As well as in specific rabbinic sources and some Targums, this understanding is found in the Samaritan tradition (both Hebrew and Aramaic), the LXX and other Greek versions, and the Vulgate. In the second century, the Tannaitic Rabbi Judah ben Elai understood the ritual of passing through the fire as one of covenantal initiation (Sifre on Deut. 18.10). The early fourth-century Rab Abaye described the rite as involving walking along a pile of bricks with fire on either side of it, whilst his contemporary Rabah said that it was like children leaping about on Purim (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 64b), which presumably alludes to a game played on Purim in which children jumped over a fire in a pit. The medieval Jewish commentator Rashi tells us that the Molech cult involved a father’s giving up his son to pagan priests who caused the child to pass between two flaming pyres. As Vermes says, this rabbinic interpretation of the prohibition of human sacrifice to Molech in terms of idolatrous worship generally served to make the biblical law ‘meaningful in an age when the smoke of human sacrifice was no longer seen in the Hinnom valley’.
There was, however, a second rabbinic interpretation of the biblical prohibition about Molech. This understood it as forbidding sexual relations with a pagan woman, the idea being that the children would thereby be saved from idolatry. An early attestation of this interpretation is found in the Mishnah, Megillah 4.9, where we read: ‘He who renders ūmizzar(akā lō) tittēn lehabīr lammōlek as, “And you shall not give your seed to cause pregnancy in a gentile woman”, they shall silence him with a sharp rebuke.’ Though condemned in the Mishnah, this interpretation is found in the Neofiti and Pseudo-Jonathan Targums and also, it should be noted, in the Syriac Peshitta, even though the latter shows no direct verbal dependence on the Targums in this passage. It is clear from Tannaitic tradition transmitted in the name of Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha and his school of interpretation was concerned to stop the spread of idolatry through mixed marriages. As we have seen, this exegesis is condemned in the Mishnah: Vermes believes that the reason for its fall from favour is to be sought in the anti-Zealot attitudes of the last Tanaaitic generation, which attempted to improve relations with the authority by removing vestiges of Zealotism.
There was, finally, a third rabbinic interpretation of the Molech prohibition which needs to be noted. This is found in the Mishnah, Sanhedrin 7.4 and became halakah. Here we read: ‘He who gives any of his seed to Molech is guilty only if he gives (the child) to Molech, and causes it to pass through the fire. If he gave it to Molech but did not cause it to pass through the fire, or if he caused it to pass through the fire but did not give it to Molech, he is not guilty. He must both give it to Molech and cause it to pass through the fire.’ As Vermes says, this ruling made the law prohibiting the Molech cult completely redundant. It thereby had the effect of invalidating exegesis number two.
Day makes reference to the famous Jewish scholar Rashi. In his commentary on Leviticus 18:21 Rashi states, as translated by Charles B. Chavel: “And this was the manner in which the Molech was worshipped: he [the father] would hand over his son to the priests, and the priests lit two large pyres [one opposite the other], and they made the child pass on foot between the two fires. Thou shalt not give, this refers to [the father] handing over [the child] to the priests. ‘L’ha’avir lamolech’ is the passing through the open fire.” To further evaluate this idea that passing through the fire involved something more ceremonial or ritualistic and far from barbaric, Theodor Gaster and James Frazer describe passing through the fire in this way from the book Myth, Legend, And Custom In The Old Testament:
Usually explained as a form of human sacrifice and sometimes so described by the Biblical writers themselves, the heathen practice of passing children through fire is something quite different. Fire purifies as well as consumes, and what is here involved is the widespread custom of passing children (and adults) through fire in order to “sain” them—that is, to purge them of human imperfections and (in myth and story) render them immortal.
In ancient Greece, newborn males were carried around the hearth for this purpose, and a similar rite was performed in the cult of Artemis Perasia at Kastabala, in Asia Minor. Plutarch tells us that a certain Malkandros, king of Byblus (in Syria), was passed through fire to make him immortal, and the Roman custom of leaping through fire at the festival of Palilia—a rite paralleled in many European harvest celebrations—is similarly interpreted by several modern scholars. In reference to such usages, the neo-Platonic philosophers speak figuratively of “the ascent through fire” as a means by which devotees of theurgy sought to escape fate and ensure the immortality of the soul.
Another key point in better understanding what may be referred to as child sacrifice and passing through the fire involves the ancient practice of cult prostitution. Contrary to the simple act of “paying for sex”, this was an important aspect of pagan worship in many ancient cults. The first mention of the word or name, whichever it may be, Molech in Scripture is found in Leviticus 18 (vs. 21) within a list of prohibited sexual acts. This really does not make a lot of sense unless it too is referencing a prohibited sexual practice. To look at this I will first turn to Walther Zimmerli’s book Ezekiel: A Commentary On The Book Of The Prophet Ezekiel:
The fact that the prohibition of sacrifice is found in H (Lev. 18:21; again 20:2-5), in an appendix to a list of sexual regulations, supports Elliger’s conjecture “that the Molech worship was an immoral cult in the form of newly born children, who were the result of immoral cultic intercourse, were sacrificed again to the god.”
Here he is referring to Karl Elliger’s Das Gesetz Leviticus 18 (1955), which is written in German. To build on the statements of Zimmerli and Elliger, Calum M. Carmichael says in the book Law, Legend, And Incest In The Bible: Leviticus 18-20:
A consequence of Judah’s involvement with Tamar is that, as with Abraham’s son Isaac, it almost led to the burning of his own offspring because he had sentenced her to be burned when she was pregnant. To be sure, Judah is unaware that the twins in her womb are his, however, the near burning of the pregnant Tamar, plus other about-to-be-noted aspects, raised for the lawgiver the topic of Molech worship which involved the sacrifice of children by fire. These children were typically those born to cult prostitutes.
…
The Levitical lawgiver’s association of Molech worship with the events of the Judah story strengthens the arguments of Karl Elliger and Walther Zimmerli that Molech worship involved sacrificing to Molech the children who were born to cult prostitutes. Zimmerli emphasizes the text in Ezek 16:20, 21: Jerusalem’s children are sacrificed by fire to Canaanite gods as part of the practice of cultic prostitution. Ezekiel depicts Jerusalem—a city belonging to the tribe that is called after the ancestor Judah—as a harlot in this context and refers to how her garments—we might recall Tamar’s—are used to indulge her promiscuity (Ezek 16:16).
We can also turn to N.H. Snaith’s brief article The Cult Of Molech, as published in the journal Vestus Testamentum, where he states:
It is significant that in Lev xviii the writer throughout the whole chapter is concerned with the prohibition of illegal sexual intercourse, and especially so in the instances mentioned in verses 19-23. According to the Talmud (b San 64a) the parents handed the children over to the priests who lit two large fires and passed the children between the fires, a custom well known as the initiation ceremony into a covenant, Gen xviii, and often in pagan cults: see J.G. Frazer, Folklore in the Old Testament, vol. I pp. 391ff. The probability is that the Talmud is right, and that the children were given up by the parents to grow up and be trained as temple prostitutes, cf. Lev xx 4, 8. It is probable that in Is lvii 9 we should read with RSV: ‘You journeyed to Molech with oil and multiplied your perfumes’: which makes good sense if the reference is not to sacrifices but to temple prostitution.
A final point before moving into the next segment of this study will be taken from George C. Heider’s book The Cult Of Molek: A Reassessment. In referring to Johannis Selden’s De Dis Syrus, a Latin work from 1617, Heider makes the following statement regarding views by the medieval period rabbis and into the seventeenth century:
While Molek was discussed from time to time by certain of the church fathers, it was for the most part from the medieval rabbis that scholars of this period adopted the issues they considered crucial to the question. With the rabbis, they assumed that Molek was derived from the Semitic root meaning "king," that it referred to an idol god and that the various "mlk gods" of the Old Testament (e.g., Molek, Milkom, Adrammelek, Anammelek) were closely related, if not identical. The rabbis' crucial point of controversy was also directly taken over, viz., whether the act of dedication of children to Molek entailed actual child sacrifice by burning, or was rather in some way symbolic. Like their rabbinic counterparts, the early modern proponents of the former alternative assumed that the classical accounts of Carthaginian and Phoenician child sacrifice by fire were accurate historically and bespoke a cultic practice held in common with Israelite Molek worship. The major developments of this period were an increased interest in comparative religion (specifically, with what gentile gods Molek might be equated) and a strong focus on Amos 5:26 (likely because it is the sole reference to Molek in the NT, being quoted in Acts 7:43 according to the LXX). The views of the scholars under discussion were not monolithic, of course, nor were they without change over the two centuries involved.
The first major contribution was the essay of Johannis Selden in 1617, in which he defended the view of numerous rabbis that the Israelites’ h’byr b’s Imlk (“making to pass over by the fire to Molek”) entailed a “februation,” rather than an actual burning of children.
The word februation, as many may not be familiar with this term, means: “purification by a religious ceremony”. In other words, what is being described here, which agrees with the ancient rabbinic descriptions of the cult, is that passing through the fires and placing on the lap of Molech was simply a religious ceremony where the children were not burned or even harmed in any way. Though debated, it has been said that the rumors of burning children alive in offering to the god was propaganda fabricated by enemies of the Phoenicians. In like manner, from a more biblically related perspective, it’s possible that following the establishing of the Roman Catholic Church in the fourth century A.D. the story of Cronus as told by past writers like Diodorus was revised to be about the biblical Molech. Regardless of how it came to be that the Molech cult was associated with such a cruel act, a bulk of evidence indicates that this very likely was not what actually took place in Bible passages and other historical records describing the Molech cult and child sacrifice.
Additionally, the statements of Zimmerli and Carmichael would lead to a conclusion that if what took place through the Molech cults was the actual burning alive of children in sacrifice to the god, this would be limited to those born to the cult prostitutes. This certainly does not excuse such a horrific act, if indeed those who continue to hold to this view of what is meant by child sacrifice in the Molech cult are correct. However, it does still change the way we should view this practice and even if this most extreme act were what happened in these rituals it is still far different from the way many present it today.
Infant Jar Burials At Carthaginian Tophets
Another important factor in the study of the alleged Molech cult and child sacrifices comes through the evidence found through infant jar burials. Some have used these sites to claim them as evidence of brutal child sacrifice rituals connected with Molech. But upon closer examination this appears to not be the case. In opening her paper titled Analyzing Tophets: Did the Phoenicians Practice Child Sacrifice Katelyn DiBenedetto provides a great statement to transition from the previous overview of passing through the fire and a look at these jar burial sites:
According to ancient Hebrew and Greek sources, in the ceremony known as mulk, the oldest son was placed on the arms of a bronze statue and dropped into a brazier below. Though these ancient authors were unanimous in criticizing Phoenician religious practices as cruel and savage, the use of these biased sources to conclude that child sacrifice did occur remains controversial. Both the Hebrew and Greek sources were xenophobic and furthermore, there are no Phoenician texts preserved that describe this religious practice. Hence, it is difficult to judge these rituals from a Phoenician viewpoint.
There are two important points in this paragraph. First, which I will be examining more closely, is the idea that there was a mulk ceremony that may be completely exclusive of any biblical references to a Molech cult. To those who do not consider these being different traditions it could be easy to make the mistake of thinking mulk is synonymous with Molech. But we have to keep in mind that there are many examples of similarities between words used in different religions. As already noted in the introduction, it is well known that there was a Canaanite god called El, yet El is in common usage of the Israelite God as well. Also, there was a Mesopotamian god called Shamash, and in Hebrew the word shammash means servant and is most known today through the shammash candle used in celebrating Hanukkah with the traditional lighting of the candles to count the days of the festival. So it is very reasonable to say that there may have been an ancient god named Molech and a later religious ritual called mulk and that these two are unrelated.
The other point brought up here is that the claims that child sacrifice connected to the Phoenician worship of Molech are propaganda used by Greeks, Hebrews, and perhaps others to disparage their enemies. As we have been seeing, there is a good amount of evidence against the view that child sacrifice in this setting involved the burning alive of infants and young children. To this point, W.H. Wood, Ph.D., says in his article Jar-Burial Customs And The Question Of Infant Sacrifice In Palestine:
Without the knowledge of the latter the theory is unchecked at the very beginning, for what was found was not "infant sacrifice" but "bones of infants buried in jars."
The other thesis, then, which may be proposed is that these Gezer burials are but another case of jar-burials and nothing further is needed for their explanation than a knowledge of the latter. To maintain it a comprehensive study of jar-burial customs must be undertaken.
The idea that the remains found at the Carthaginian Tophets represent a cemetery composed primarily of children who died of natural or accidental causes, as opposed to deliberate slaughter through a practice of burning them alive in sacrifice, actually fits with similar practices elsewhere in the ancient world. Beth Alpert Nakhai states in her essay When Considering Infants And Jar Burials In The Middle Bronze Age Southern Levant:
The custom of burying infants in store jars has been identified in the archaeological record from as early as the Pottery Neolithic. It became increasingly common in the Chalcolithic and never fell completely out of favor. In the Levant, the infant jar burial (IJB) remained a revered funerary custom into the Iron Age and beyond. The era in which it was most popular, however, was the Middle Bronze Age, during which time IJBs could be found at sites ranging from Syria to the eastern Nile Delta; most, however, are found in the southern Levant. MBA jar burials typically contained a single infant of less than one year of age, but occasionally they also contained a second infant or a very young child. Frequently, one or more small vessels were placed in the pithos together with the infant, and sometimes small objects such as a scarab or a blade were included. The jars themselves were standard domestic pithoi. The burials were most commonly intramural, set under the floors of houses and courtyards, but on occasion IJBs were deposited in communal tombs.
The custom of infant jar burial appears to possibly have been a way to emulate the womb. The idea may have been a sort of preparation for these victims of premature death to enter into the afterlife. In speaking of this theory, Estelle Orrelle says in her paper Infant Jar Burials — A Ritual Associated With Early Agriculture?:
The jars used to bury infants can be envisaged as wombs as was suggested for the Middle Bronze Age burials (Ilan 1995). Jar shapes, especially the earlier globular shape could be analogous to full term pregnant bellies and by the same logic, jar openings could be regarded as the birth canal and cervix.
The pot as womb analogy is not uncommon in ethnography in Africa, some African peoples likening the openings of some vessels to vulvas (Evers & Huffman, 1988, 739).
If this symbolic system operated in the Neolithic, we can anticipate that like a human cervix, the mouth of the vessel might open widely for a full term birth and close again after delivery. The neck or birth canal would shorten for the birth and then return to normal.
An examination of the evidence that considers the similarity of the burials at the Carthaginian Tophets with other infant jar burials elsewhere in the ancient world, indications that the remains were likely not the result of child sacrifice, the lack of evidence of actual child sacrifices in the sense of burning infants alive at these sites, and theories like the womb simulation of the jars all indicate that these sites are likely not evidence of any form of child sacrifice but simply graveyards for children who died of natural or accidental causes. The article Skeletal Remains from Punic Carthage Do Not Support Systematic Sacrifice of Infants by Jeffrey H. Schwartz, Frank Houghton, Roberto Macchiarelli, and Luca Bondioli sums this up well in saying:
While the Carthaginians may occasionally have practiced human sacrifice, as did other circum-Mediterranean societies [1,63,64], our analyses do not support the contention that all humans interred in the Tophet had been sacrificed. Rather, it would appear that the Carthaginian Tophet, and by extension Tophets at Carthaginian settlements in general, were cemeteries for the remains of human prenates and infants who died from a variety of causes and then cremated and whose remains, sometimes on a catch-as-catch-can basis, interred in urns. Following widespread practice at this time in history, it is likely that at least some, if not all, of the cremated animal remains represent sacrificial offerings.
While it may be popular among religious laymen and ministers to associate the infant jar burial cemeteries with child sacrifice to Molech and perhaps other ancient pagan gods, it seems that these sites are simply graveyards and the evidence of burning the bodies of the children was a result of postmortem cremation, not of the horrific act of burning the children alive in a fire raging in the lap or belly of a brazen image of the deity. The importance of being bearers of truth must be stressed here. What we see at the Carthaginian Tophets appears to be one of many examples seen worldwide in antiquity of traditional burial of children who died in the womb and those who died of a variety of causes while still young, and nothing more.
Sacred Cult Prostitution
Though I have already touched on it, I want to take a moment and go a little deeper into what, according to scholars, would have been an important part of the Molech worship rituals and child sacrifice—whatever that term actually means. As already stated by Zimmerli, Carmichael, and Snaith there was a heavy element of sacred or cult prostitution involved in these rituals. To begin this segment of the study, Isaiah 57:5 says: “You who burn with lust among the oaks and under every green tree, who sacrifice your children in the wadis and under the clefts of the rocks?” In commenting on this verse, Gary V. Smith from The New American Commentary states:
The prophet now describes specific acts of rebellion where the people have accepted deceitful falsehoods. He appears to be describing Canaanite fertility cults and possibly worship with the pagan god Molech. The people who go to these places are “hot, burn,” a term that describes both the heat of a fire (44:15) and animals in sexual heat at conception (Gen 30:38). This terminology probably refers to sexual passion associated with the sacred prostitution carried on as part of fertility religions. This activity sometimes took place at open-air Baal temples “under every green tree” or by a large fertility oak tree (cf. 1:29; 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 16:4; Hos 4:13; Jer 3:6; Ezek 20:28). Those who practiced these fertility rituals believed that divine blessing and fertility would come not from keeping the covenant with Israel’s God but from imitating the sexual prowess of the Canaanite god Baal.
Though not a primary focus of this study and as already stated, numerous scholars suggest that there was not a god named Molech and that the MLK reference typically rendered as the proper name of a Canaanite deity is really the title “king”, referring to Baal as the “king god”. Here we see an interchangeable reference to the practice of cult prostitution with both Molech as a god and the god Baal.
The act of sacred prostitution or cult prostitution is said to have three different forms. In The Encyclopedia Of Prostitution And Sex Work, Vol. 2 it says, “Sacred prostitution is the temporary sale of a person’s body for sexual purposes in which either all or some portion of the money received for this transaction belongs to a deity,” and then presents these three types of cult prostitution as follows:
1. Once in life every woman must prostitute herself, often to a foreign man, and give the money to the relevant deity.
2. Women and men who are professional prostitutes and who are owned by a deity or a deity’s sanctuary.
3. A temporary type of sacred prostitution, in which the women and possibly men only prostitute themselves during certain rituals.
When we put all of this together, along with the previously presented statements of scholars like Zimmerli, Carmichael, Snaith, and others, it appears, in my opinion, that this was a gimmick to raise money for the religious elite no different than the various gimmicks we see in practice through religions today. As I assess the evidence I have reviewed and presented, and again this is solely my opinion of how I think these things all come together and should not be cited as fact but merely as one researcher’s opinion, I think that these practices went something like this:
A worshiper of a pagan god like Molech or Baal was believing for a particular thing, likely a child of their own or a bountiful harvest in their field. They went to the temple of the god (or in some cases goddess) and commissioned a cult prostitute. The money used to pay for the “services” of the prostitute went to the temple treasury. The child born to the prostitute was then offered to the deity—whether that offering was the literal slaughter of the infant being burned alive or the child being put through a ritual and then raised to become a sacred prostitute when he or she came to age is undetermined, but there does seem to be some consensus that if a literal practice of infanticide it was solely or at least predominantly those children born to the prostitutes who were killed in sacrifice to the god or goddess. Upon receiving that which was being petitioned of the deity, an offering was made. If it were a child petitioned, that child would have been offered ceremonially through an act of passing through the fire or placing on the lap of the god once the child was of age to perform this rite, typically believed to be around two years old, but the child was not harmed.
While there are certainly differing opinions of how these ceremonies played out, and certainly there were differences through various time periods and sub-sects of the cults, I feel this is a reasonable explanation of how these processes may have worked. The evidence seems to lead to indicate that Molech worship, as well as other similar cultic worship in the ancient world, would at least be something like this description. This leads us to a stronger conclusion that these cults did not slaughter or burn alive human children—at least not as the common practice, if at all—or if they did it was restricted to those children born to the temple prostitutes. It should also be noted that some scholars have proposed that it was only the most extreme fertility cults that actually practiced infanticide in offering children to their gods but most simply performed a ritual much like what has been described elsewhere in this study.
In actuality, these cults were engaged in what we today would call human trafficking. I would never intend to make light of the actual slaughter of innocent children—Proverbs 6:17 lists hands that shed innocent blood as one of the things God hates. But if there could be anything worse you can do to children than to murder them it would have to be placing them into a sex trafficking ring to be raped and abused throughout their life until they reached an age where they are “no longer desirable” and then discard them. When you read about places where cult prostitution still exists today, such as in places of Hindu worship, those who are no longer useful for these ritual activities are essentially discharged from the temple and left to fend for themselves with no skills, no education, and no family.
Recently I had watched a documentary series that was produced about the pornographic magazine Playboy. They interviewed a number of women who were heavily involved with founder Hugh Hefner’s sex empire revealing claims of what happened “behind the scenes” at the Playboy Mansion and within the industry in general. While there are some who contest the claims made by the women interviewed, these women clearly express traumatization that is simply heart-wrenching. It seems that at least some of the “models” for the Playboy magazine were damaged and suffer in their mental health. What happened to these woman, as difficult as it is to listen to their stories, pales in comparison to what is done to children through human trafficking and sacred cult prostitution. The women of Playboy Magazine certainly did not deserve to be drugged and raped, as they are claiming happened to them, but they were also old enough to have a chance at some level of recovery and some semblance of a “normal life”. Children who are sold into sex trafficking rings or designated for cult prostitution and that’s all they know through their childhood and into their adult life are likely to never recover from the damage done to them.
Abortion Is Murder
While the indications are that the Molech cults were not murdering children as is so often claimed by well-meaning people in religious circles who are trying to stand against the horrors of abortion, this certainly does not mean that there is no biblical stance against the slaughter of innocent children. Really, when we get right down to it, we have two stories in The Bible that are much more important and hold a great amount of prophetic significance and the issue of abortion is all over them. There really is no need to make up stuff about these Molech cults, of which The Bible provides little information to begin with, when we have much stronger narratives to illustrate how evil infanticide and modern abortion practices are.
In the opening chapter of the Book of Exodus we are told the story of Israelite oppression to the point where it led to infanticide. The population of Israel had grown to a point where the ruling Pharaoh felt that the slaves could unite and revolt, so he chose to pursue drastic measures in an attempt to control the population. His first act was to commission midwives to slay any male children of the Hebrews. In commenting on this, Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin offers these words in his book Righteous Gentiles In The Hebrew Bible: Ancient Role Models For Sacred Relationships:
It is at this point that two of the most extraordinary characters of the Hebrew Bible—a pair of midwives named Shifrah and Puah—enter the story: “The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shifrah and the other Puah, ‘When you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the birth stool: if it is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live’” (Exodus 1:15-16).
But these are midwives, and their profession is to enable birth, not to promote death. “The midwives, fearing God, did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live” (Exodus 1:17). Several medieval commentators, such as RASHI and Ibn Ezra, teach that Shifrah and Puah did more than simply refuse to kill the children; they made them live by providing them with food and water. They were active, even aggressive, redeemers.
From here the story says that the Pharaoh, seeing that using the midwives was not going to work, charges his people with the task of casting all newborn male children of the Hebrews into the river (Exodus 1:22). With this, if the child did not die from drowning it would certainly be eaten by crocodiles. And most of us know the rest of the story, how Moses was born, kept hidden, placed into an ark made of reeds, and found in the river by the Pharaoh’s daughter who raised him as her own.
The second example from Scripture jumps forward to the record of Matthew’s Gospel. It is here in the telling of Yeshua’s birth that the evil ruler Herod ordered all Hebrew boys age two years and under to be killed (Matthew 2:16) because of the stories circling that the promised Messiah had been born. Herod saw this as a threat to his power.
But Herod was too late. Joseph had been spoken to in a dream by an angel of God and told to flee to Egypt and seek safety.
Isn’t it interesting that arguably the two single greatest prophetic voices in the entire Bible—Moses who was used to give us The Torah and Yeshua who gave us The Gospel—were born in the midst of the two major acts of infanticide recorded in The Bible? The mother’s of Moses and Yeshua didn’t simply have to decide if they were going to be pro-life. They had to decide to take action against edicts that demanded the death of children; as opposed to today’s edicts demanding women should be allowed to choose if they want to kill their children out of convenience.
What of modern society where there is a constant battle over whether or not the so-called “right to abortion” should be the law of the land? Like those midwives and the Magi that worked to prevent the death of children and like the mothers of Moses and Yeshua we must stand against the heinous act of American infanticide. But as I sit here writing this and contemplating on how Moses and Yeshua both entered this world in the midst of such slaughter of the innocent, I have to wonder if there is another powerful prophetic voice being prepared to rise up from the blood of the unborn that cries out in the world today—a voice that will call people to embrace the totality of Scripture, living out both The Torah and The Gospel messages. If, perhaps, The Bible is here telling us that the greatest prophets may enter this world in the midst of the worst acts of mass-murdering babies then I sit here in great anticipation for such a one to rise up and once again turn the world upside down.
Shocking Realities
Now I want to put all of this together and offer what aspects of modern culture, including today’s church culture, actually do parallel Molech worship. These things are going to be uncomfortable for most, perhaps especially for those who may appear to be the most sold out and radical in their practice of “Christian” faith. But having established that Molech worship really seems to have no parallel to the horrific slaughter of infants through the practice called abortion, it is now important to this study to see what it does seem to correlate with.
Contrary to what is often presented, Molech worship is actually the exact opposite of abortion. Cults like that of Molech were primarily focused on fertility and reproduction. Regardless of what the actual practices of cult prostitution, child sacrifice or dedication, passing through the fire, or anything else actually involved, and whether or not children were actually killed in these rituals, the end goal was life, reproduction, abundant harvests, and overall fruitfulness. In contrast, abortion is about murder for convenience. For the most part, with certain exceptions, those who want to have sexual relationships without having children practice abortion—essentially it’s people who want all of the pleasures without the resulting responsibilities using it as a form of birth control. Choices are made when you do what creates life, not after the life has been created. I’ll touch more on that in a moment.
In addition to this, at least a certain weight of evidence and the testimony of at least some leading scholars on the subject indicate that these rituals were more of a dedication than a “sacrifice” in the sense of children being slaughtered or burned alive in offering to the god. Many will not like it, but when “Christian” churches host what they call “baby dedication services” what they are doing is probably a whole lot more like these idolatrous pagan cults of antiquity than anything biblical.
These special church services typically claim to be built primarily around the story of Hannah’s dedication of her son Samuel into the service of The Jerusalem Temple as recorded in 1 Samuel 1 and 2. These churches would do good to go back and read this story a few times before making up rituals. The woman Hannah first made a vow before God because her womb was barren and committed that upon receiving a child she would give him over to service in The Temple for his entire lifetime. When this came to pass, she went to the priest with bulls, flour, and wine to offer, and handed over the son born through the vow. From there, the priest raised Samuel in The Temple. Clearly this is not what is done through “church baby dedications” today.
I have been to some of these baby dedication services and while well-meaning, the parents take their children and “pass them” before the congregation and “dedicate them” to their god—who I am not totally persuaded is the same God of The Bible, but that is a discussion for another time. In these “Christian” churches they do not believe in living according to The Torah, yet they want to create a ritual based on a story of a child given to become a priest in The Temple within Torah-keeping Israelite culture, and that ritual they have created aligns better with the pagan worship of cults like that of Molech.
Now, I am not saying you shouldn’t commit to raise your children in the ways of God and to live by His Torah. Clearly that is what The Bible says to do. But it never tells us to do this through a ritual that seems strikingly more similar to Molech worship than it does to the story of Hannah and Samuel. The Bible tells us to train up our children in the way they should go and to teach the Laws of God, His Torah, to them. You do not need to perform a ritual that mirrors sacred pagan rites in order to make the commitment to raise your children in the ways of God. Too much of the time “Christianity” relies on unbiblical rituals—baby dedications, infant baptism, altar calls, sinner’s prayer, etc.—as if these things will “save” them and things The Bible actually commands are “not a salvation issue”.
Another practice that may be strikingly similar to Molech worship today is the popular Santa Claus ritual. The character of Santa Claus is primarily the blending of legends surrounding a Roman Catholic bishop named Nicolas of Myra with the mythology of the Old Norse god Odin. The traditional practice today is to take your children to a place where someone is dressed up as this literal god of Christmas where they will sit on his lap and petition him with what gifts they are “believing for”. Not only is this an absolute pagan and idolatrous practice, at least some sources reviewed earlier in this message indicate that a part of the Molech rituals involved placing the child on the lap of the deity as part of petitioning that which one was “believing for” the god to provide to them. Regardless of whether or not children were injured or killed, it seems placing the child on Molech’s lap was a likely part of these ceremonies.
The Santa Claus tradition is not just found at local shopping malls today. While many churches in generations past shunned such practice as worldly or even pagan, many churches today have invited this literal pagan god into their lobbies to host the practice of having children sit on his lap and petition him—IN THEIR CHURCHES. But this really should not be surprising, as churches love to celebrate the totally pagan Roman Catholic holidays of Christmas, Easter, and Halloween instead of the Holy Feast Days and biblical festivals outlined in Scripture, which include The Passover, The Feast of Matzot, The Day of First Fruits, The Feast of Shavuot, The Day of Shofars, Yom Kippur – The Day of Atonement, The Feast of Sukkot, The Festival of Purim, and The Festival of Hanukkah.
“Christians” love to claim they are against abortion but I often wonder if that is even really true. Many, perhaps most, of them today seem to be in love with a popular brand of coffee: Starbucks©. You know, not only does this company bear the image of a literal pagan witchcraft goddess on all of their products, but also they are a major supporter of things like abortion that go completely against our faith. All the “Christians” talking about how against abortion they are don’t seem to care about that, they need their worldly status symbols. I have never seen a product people will complain so much about the taste of but still pay premium prices for it just to hold the cup bearing the image of a literal pagan goddess all so they can give the false appearance of being rich and popular. If they really just wanted a cup of coffee, they wouldn’t be spending outrageous prices to promote witchcraft and fund abortion.
I’m not singling out this company, merely using them to illustrate this as they are one of the most recognizable organizations associated with this issue, and one of the most called out by ministries who care enough to call us to live holy.
Sadly, what I have witnessed is that “Christians” typically like the idea of speaking against things like abortion when they are in their churches or around other “Christians”. But they do not like the idea of actually fully living against things like abortion. Because in order to do that they would have to boycott some of the things they love more than they love God and The Bible. But as the prophets of Scripture tells us: they draw near with their mouths, ‘honor’ God with their lips, profess to love God, but their heart is far from Him and go after their own covetous ways (Isaiah 29:13, Ezekiel 33:31, Matthew 15:8).
In 1 Timothy 1:10 Paul starts a series of statements about those in the community of Believers who were “rebellious, vain talkers and deceivers”. He sums it up in verse 16 by saying: “They claim to know God but their deeds deny Him. They are despicable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.” Those are strong words, but they are as true of the rebellious hypocrites of “Christianity” today as they were of the people Paul was speaking directly of when he penned those words. If “Christians” were truly serious about their faith and their commitment to their God they would live a life that reflects it in every detail. There would be no excuses, everything would be about pursuing holiness and doing what The Bible actually says regardless of what pastors and church people think it says.
I realize that it would be impossible to boycott every business that opposed biblical values, especially as there are many that do but you would never know it. But the apostle Paul gives good advice about this topic through his guidance on meat offered to idols and pagan gods being sold in the markets of his day (see Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8, 10). In these passages he says, knowing there is a commandment against eating meat offered to idols that was highlighted even at the Jerusalem Counsel in Acts 15, that Believers are free to buy any meat sold at the markets unless it was openly stated that it had been offered to idols. In the same way, we should feel free to patronize any secular business until they make an open and defiant stance against our faith, our God, and our Bible.
A company that places a demonic pagan witchcraft goddess on all of there products, a company that openly funds things like abortion and boasts about it, a company that makes children’s programming forcing outright unbiblical sexuality in their content, these are examples of companies that should not be supported with your money if you are sincere about your faith, your God, and your Bible. When they are open about these things and so bold to promote them and finance them, the moment you support them with your money is the moment you are covenanting with them to promote these things as well.
You cannot shout “ABORTION IS EVIL” in a church or around other “Christians” and then go buy products that you know fund abortion. You cannot talk about having no other gods before your God and then walk around with something—be it a coffee cup, a t-shirt, or anything else—bearing the image of another god or some other symbol of pagan religion and the occult. You cannot speak against lifestyles that The Bible calls an abomination and then go pay to watch a movie that is trying to push those very same lifestyles on your children. That’s hypocrisy and it makes you a partner with the very things you claim to be evil and an abomination.
Of course, “Christianity” tends to be a religion of hypocrisy anyway. I was having a conversation with someone recently who spoke about not making a big deal out of what they perceived “a small thing”. There are, after all, “more important things to worry about”. The problem with this line of thought is that Scripture often reminds us that it’s the little things that really get people. Song of Songs 2:15 tells us that it is the little foxes that ruin the vines. In Genesis 3 we see the story of how eating a single piece of fruit—regardless of whether it was literal or figurative—initiated all of the sin and evil in the world today. We wouldn’t even be having an abortion debate if it weren’t for “a little thing” like that. Despite that event where eating something God said not to eat started it all, “Christians” today love to eat things like pork, shellfish, and foods bearing the image of a pagan witchcraft goddess—all of which we are told plainly in The Bible not to do. It truly is one of the most bizarre things in their entire religion when you think about it.
You know, the very first of what is commonly called “The Ten Commandments” is to have no other gods before Yahweh. A primary part of that commandment is to not be or come into His presence while bearing the image of another god. So, is it really a small thing, majoring on minors, there are more important matters to focus on, when something like a coffee cup violates the very first of these “Ten Commandments”? Sometimes a different perspective can go a long way. Which is a “bigger deal”—those sins that a small portion of society are doing but are incomprehensible acts like rape or murder or those things that the overwhelming majority of the world, including the vast majority of “Christians”, are doing like eating unclean things or drinking coffee that has the image of a pagan goddess on it? If we see all sin equally as sin, it would seem the “little things” that the majority of people are violating are really the “biggest deal” and warrant the most attention.
The problem, all too often, is that people do not want to take responsibility for their actions so they look for excuses. There is always something that somebody else is doing that seems far worse, or something that they think is a more important matter to work on. Little do they realize that the things they have deemed “not that important” may be the key to their greatest breakthrough. Small steps in the right direction are often much more successful than trying to make a radical change. If you want to eat healthier start by swapping a snack item with a piece of fresh, organic fruit. Do that for a while and then make another small change. If you want to overcome what you feel are bigger strongholds in your life, perhaps something like use of foul language or eating unclean things like pork and shellfish, the key might be in starting with something easy but seemingly insignificant like where you buy your morning coffee or making better choices about what you watch on television. Those little things you feel are insignificant might be the very things that build your faith to overcome what you think are the true strongholds in your life, don’t ever write them off.
Much like its misinterpretation of Molech worship, the “Christian” religion today is often wrong in how it views biblical texts—to the point where The Bible says the exact opposite of what is taught in churches. If there is anything we can learn from a proper study of the Molech cults mentioned in The Bible it should be that. Certainly we have better and more clearly against abortion and infanticide passages in Scripture. We don’t need to add to the conversation things that probably have no real relationship to the topic simply because they are sensational and will pull on the emotions of people. Doing so is what The Bible calls bearing false witness, and that’s a sin, a violation of The Torah.
Some Words On The Modern Abortion Debate
Typically when “Christians” and others begin to talk about the abortion issue and start making associations between that and things like ancient Molech worship as recorded in The Bible it is when some major act of legislation has been ruled on either for or against the legalization of various forms of abortion. Such is the case at the time of this writing, as reports began circulating on June 24, 2022 that the United States Supreme Court had voted to overturn the famous Roe v. Wade ruling, probably the most recognized case in the entire discussion.
As a result of this there are a number of opinions that have circulated from both conservatives, especially those from “Christian” circles, and those commonly labeled liberals. Here I will address a few of the more common views I have observed.
First there is the matter of what is typically called pro-choice and pro-life. These are usually defined as pro-choice being those who endorse the “choice” to abort a baby while it is still in the mother’s womb, and pro-life as those who oppose this and believe the woman should carry the baby to birth and either raise the child or give it up for adoption. The problem with this primary part of the debate is in where people believe the choice is to be made.
Why are people so focused on what to do after they find out they are pregnant when they made a choice to be in a sexual relationship in the first place? They made the choice to have sex and they made the choice to not take measures to lessen the chances of pregnancy. And even if they took those measures, it is well-known that they do not work 100% of the time, but they still made the choice to have sex even knowing that many birth control measures have a chance of failing. While, to use a phrase that has become popular, using birth control measures would flatten the curve of pregnancy among sexually active couples, you should not engage in sexual intercourse unless you are willing to have a child. This is why historically it has been considered immoral to engage in sexual activities outside of marriage. Typically a married couple, even if they are using birth control for any reason, are willing to have a child at any time.
People say that nobody, especially a man, should have a right to tell a woman what to do with her body. The problem with this line of thinking is that once pregnancy has occurred we are no longer dealing with just the woman’s body. There is now another human body involved, and that human being has the same right to life as every other human. Despite what some people think today, science tells us that gender is determined at the moment of conception. The baby is fully recognizable as a human being in just twelve weeks. You can’t say, “Oops, I didn’t mean to make a baby,” and then commit murder. As the old saying goes, two wrongs don’t make a right.
The other problem is that if we are to declare that nobody can legally tell a woman what to do with her body, then we must give the same treatment to men. After all, the entire basis of all these feminist and liberal ideas is built on equality and women being made equal to men. Several years ago a friend of mine named Daniel Botkin, a great Messianic Bible teacher, addressed this in saying:
A woman says that she has a right to abort a baby because it's her body. That makes as much sense as a man saying that he has the right to rape a girl because it's his body. If a woman can do anything she wants with her body (including abortion), then a man can do anything he wants with his body (including rape).
This may not be a well-received idea, but Daniel makes a lot of sense here. If we are to legalize one barbaric act—that of murdering unborn children because we cannot tell a woman what to do with her body—than we must equally legalize the barbaric act of rape because we cannot tell men what to do with their body. I would ask all who may read this and hold “pro-choice” views: Which should we do, prohibit abortion or legalize rape? Which world do you want to live in—the one where men are allowed to rape and demand sex from any woman they want anytime they want but you can abort babies or the one where the laws consider every human body involved in a given action? If you are a woman who believes that nobody should tell you what to do with your body, allowing for abortion, are you OK with being subjected to rape, legally, anytime a man wants to do whatever he wants with his body? It really changes the dynamic when you look at it this way and the movement to allow women to abort their babies should also allow men to rape those same women anytime they want. Suddenly the legalized murder called abortion seems less appealing—or at least it should.
And really, if we take this to its most logical end, it’s not even merely forced rape that should be legal. If the idea that nobody can tell a woman what to do with her body, to the point of murdering another human being just because he or she is “inside of the woman”, is to be the law of the land than it should also be the law of the land that a man can approach a woman anytime they want and say “I want to have sex with you right now” and the woman has to consent. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot tell a woman that she has a right to do whatever she wants with her body whenever she wants and not afford a man those same rights. Do you want to legalize abortion so badly? Then you have to be willing to live in a world where women are subject to allow a man to have sex with her whenever he wants. There can be no saying “No!”
If we are going to legalize barbaric and evil acts than we have to legalize all of them equally. If we are going to allow one group of people, like women, to do whatever they want with their body at the expense of how it effects someone else’s body, like the babies killed through abortion, then we have to allow all people to do whatever they want with their body at the expense of other people’s bodies. Or, we can all just use our brains and realize that people aren’t allowed to do whatever they want “with their body” when it effects someone else’s life and make all murder, all rape, and anything else that harms another person’s life a criminal act, as it should be.
In like manner, many are saying that laws should not be made to force religious ideas on people. Essentially, they feel that they should not be subjected to laws that are based on religious beliefs they do not adhere to. There are two major problems with this line of thinking. The first is that, at least in the United States, laws are typically based on a majority vote. Some laws are put on a ballot and the people vote directly, others are made by those voted into government offices. In both cases the laws trace back to a majority vote. As such, those who feel another person’s beliefs should not be the law of the land should be focused on building their belief system so that they are the majority—but maybe they know that the majority will never embrace immorality. For the second problem with this ideology I will turn again to a friend, Eric Tokajer, a Messianic Rabbi, who recently stated:
The following is a list of Biblical Laws that are currently enshrined in legislation (the government already legislated these Biblical precepts into laws governing all citizens). If Biblical believers should not expect the government to legislate Biblical values which of these should no longer be against the law: Murder, Rape, Incest, Theft, Property Rights, Assault, Battery, Deceptive Scales for Commerce, Bribery?
Each of these are Biblical Values and each of these have been legislated and govern all citizens.
More and more it seems the only logical way to legalize abortion would be in a fully anarchist society, where there are no laws and everyone does whatever is right in their own eyes. Of course, people with good sense about them don’t want that because there is nothing stopping someone from doing anything in Eric’s list to you. You will have the sole responsibility to defend your life and your home on a daily basis and you could never truly live in peace that someone will come in any moment to steal your belongings, rape you or your family members, and murder your family. But this is not an issue for those who agree that abortion is murder and the human body involved is that of the unborn child, not that of the woman who already made the choice about what she wants to do with her body when she let a man have sex with her.
Probably the most absurd argument I have heard from the “pro-choice” people is that “men should take responsibility to not get women pregnant and get a vasectomy if they want to have sex”. This too is a line of thought with major flaws. First of all, this is a major action that would prevent a man from having children. Since much of this debate centers around young singles who are not married, they are basically telling young unmarried men to do something that would affect the rest of their life and prevent them from have a family when they are ready. The second and perhaps bigger problem is that this is women telling men what to do with their body. You can’t say that nobody is allowed to tell women what to do with their body and then turn around and say what a man should do with his body. This is just typical liberal feminist rhetoric that fails when common sense and true equality is applied.
Ultimately, the “pro-life” position serves to protect the life of the unborn child, who is fully a human being separate from the body in which he or she resides at the moment of conception, while the “pro-choice” position serves only to protect the promiscuous lifestyle of the mother. Sure, there are rare exceptions and this message is not about the impossible decision one must face when conditions cause risk to the life of mother or child during labor. But such decisions are not what the abortion debate is primarily about and should only be made by the family being affected by such a scenario. The majority, however, intent on legalized murder in the form of abortion simply want the so-called “right” to slay and discard of their children because pregnancy is inconvenient to their immoral way of life.
What kind of world would we live in if everyone were allowed to commit murder whenever another human being inconvenienced them? People would be murdering people on the freeways every time they didn’t like the way another person was driving. People would be murdering co-workers for getting the promotion they wanted and felt they were more qualified for. Men would murder their wives if dinner didn’t taste just right. You know women would murder their husbands if they even halfway thought the dude was checking out another woman. Your children don’t get good grades in school or hit a home run playing baseball? Just murder them. Most people have enough sense to know these things would be absurd. So, why should we allow the murder of the unborn because they cause an inconvenience? That child in the womb is a human being and those who abort them are murderers.
If there is any point in which the abortion debate connects to ancient Molech worship it would be through the act of prostitution. In the ancient cults there were prostitutes used for rituals to the gods. Today the whole issue of abortion centers on women essentially prostituting their bodies to men with no sense of morality. If these women truly cared about their bodies they would not give their bodies to deranged sex-crazed men for whatever it is they are getting in return. The plain fact of the matter is that sex outside of marriage is always a form of prostitution. The man almost always has to “do something” to essentially “pay for” the sex.
In contrast, a true biblically-based marriage is a mutual consent that “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health” the couple will have a sexual relationship and the resulting children to build a family. Really, monogamous marriage is the only answer to this whole issue. Anything apart from following biblical morals tends to always end in the highest forms of evil—whether that is idolatry as in the ancient Molech cults, the heinous act of murder through abortion, or any of the many other evils of godless society. When all discussions have concluded, the only way to not be a hypocrite and embrace a true path of morality in life is through following the whole counsel of Scripture.
Blessings and Shalom
©2022 Truth Ignited Ministry
