Jews and Human Sacrifice in the (Written) Torah
One of the stock arguments against Christianity has long been that the Old Testament is rather contradictory in relation to the practice of human sacrifice. Now as the Old Testament is derived from the Tanakh (the so-called 'jewish bible'): this argument has long filtered into anti-jewish discourses particularly in and around the subject of jewish ritual murder. The position taken by anti-Semitic critics of the jews has long been that because the Tanakh endorses the concept of human sacrifice far more than it rejects it then it is not impossible - and is even likely - that jews have from time to time seen the clear Biblical injunctions to commit human sacrifice as being binding present religious commitments on themselves.
You will have probably noticed that I have been quite specific above in that I have said jews from time to time have likely taken these injunctions to mean that they need to recreate these sacrifices in their own times as part of a way to possibly appease the wrath of Yahweh, which religious jews have continually felt to be plaguing them. (1)
This is meant to indicate to the astute reader that in my opinion the spread of jewish ritual murder trials (which notably nearly always focused on highly religious jews who were currently entertaining a number of jews from outside of their community) is linked to radical variants of jewish belief systems which tacitly endorsed the notion of human sacrifice - deriving their justification from the Tanakh - possibly combined with the belief in the need for real vengeance on the Christians in and around Purim.
This is highly probable precisely because of the spread of the trials from West to East follows the geographic progress of the jews (with the trials tending to happen on the jewish frontiers and in isolated communities) and tends to focus on small-medium sized communities with relatively little contract with other communities and the major rabbinical thinkers of their time.
Combining this with the relative inability of philo-Semitic historians to explain why the medieval/early modern trials were wrong (hence their use of analytical categorizations to try and ignore the evidence by confusing it with other different charges and events [Darren O'Brien], denying jews could ever have done it because they were jews [Cecil Roth and Hermann Strack], simply making things up [Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia], emphasizing the role of legal judicial torture while not using necessary comparisons with other cases [Hannah Johnson] etc) leads one to the tentative conclusion - even before one consults the individual cases - that there is an elephant in the room.
To wit: that if the Tanakh at times can be said to seem to validate human sacrifice then as a consequence of the necessary variation and the group dynamics of religious cults and sects. It would be an extreme aberration in human history indeed if at least cult or sect of Diaspora jews had never believed in the importance and necessity of human sacrifice in their religious rituals.
In essence we need to put the boot on the other foot with jewish ritual murder (vis-à-vis Elliot Horowitz's questioning of self-serving jewish views on related claims) (2) and ask the simple question: why not?
There is no compelling fact or intellectual reasoning that philo-Semites can use to negate that little problem precisely because it doesn't suggest it is part of Judaism itself, but rather part of a small religious cults or series of religious groups. At a stroke it nullifies nearly every argument they have to offer and it is part of the reason that they have very rarely even noticed this particularly obvious possibility.
I also do not think it should go unnoticed that the jewish ritual murder cases in Europe really begin just as the religious conflict within Judaism between the Talmudists (those who emphasized the Oral Torah) and the Karaites (those who emphasized the Written Torah) was winding down after the first crusade had ethnically cleansed the Karaite stronghold of Palestine with fire and sword. This conflict had torn deep in the soul of Judaism and had - due to the amount of religious debate and polemic that went back and forth - caused a great deal of focus to be given to the study of the Written Torah in order to rebut the Karaites, which we may reasonably suggest caused many rabbis and Torah scholars to re-discover passages to which they had paid little attention to before.
This in turn seems likely to have caused a renewed interested in the actual words of the Written Torah and as such it is not unlikely that isolated rabbis and jewish religious communities took the injunctions in the Torah for human sacrifice to be binding in the present and a way to help sate the anger of Yahweh during a time when Christian Europe was awash with crusaders and peasants assaulting and killing jews. (3)
Clearly then if the Tanakh can be potentially interpreted as justifying or requiring human sacrifice from jews then it is not unreasonable to argue; as I have above, that jewish ritual murder was quite plausible and that it would be rather odd indeed if such an interpretation had not been arrived at by individual rabbis and religiously isolated jewish communities at different times in their history especially when the jews perceived themselves to be in fear of their lives when radical solutions to make the 'angel of death pass over them' would be more socially acceptable (due to group risky-shift).
Before we look at what the Tanakh as a whole says however we should note what the most important part of the Tanakh for Judaism (the Torah [i.e., the literal word of God]) has to say on the matter as its implications are key in understanding why individual rabbis and religiously isolated jewish community in perceived times of crisis could have turned to human sacrifice to appease Yahweh.
This is because if the Tanakh can be said to rule in favour of human sacrifice to appease Yahweh then it not at all unlikely that highly religious jews in high stress situations could have hearkened back to these practices in attempt to remedy their present situations within the cosmogony presented by their Judaism.
Now in the famous passage from Genesis 22 Abraham is instructed by Yahweh to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering. We are told as follows:
'After these things God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only-begotten son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Mori'ah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; and he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.” And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.
When they came to the place of which God had told them, Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only begotten son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place The Lord will provide; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.'” (4)
Now in the above we should notice that there is no explicit or implicit judgement on the immorality of the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. Indeed we should note that Abraham does not even protest that he has been asked by Yahweh to sacrifice his only son to him, but rather goes along with the whole idea as it were the most normal thing in the world.
This in itself is suggestive of the fact that human sacrifice was something with which Abraham was at least familiar and may well have performed before if we note the fact that he knew precisely what to do to perform such a sacrifice. In so far as Abraham had Isaac help him carry the wood and fire to the mountain on which he was to sacrifice him - which is hardly the sort of trap that someone concocts on an impulse after being told to go and murder your only son - and also takes two servants with him for no explicable reason (as we are told that they aren't necessary to carry the wood) other than as extra muscle should Abraham not be successful in subduing Isaac.
Even this aside the lack of explicit or implicit condemnation of the practice of human sacrifice is problematic for those who wish to see this as purely an extreme test of faith and obedience: as clearly Yahweh has asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son as a burnt offering as if he were like the ram whose horns were caught in a thicket. This necessarily tells us that human sacrifice - especially of first-born sons - cannot have been alien to Abraham and Yahweh as well as the fact that the directive from Yahweh itself, the lack of resistance to it by Abraham and the subsequent lauding of Abraham's faith and obedience gives obvious positive connotations to the idea of human sacrifice - particularly in relation to first-born sons or children - which can be easily interpreted to suggest that the practice is an acceptable one in situations where a jew or jews wishes to prove their absolute fidelity to Yahweh in order to avert perceived disaster.
Before I move on however I will note in passing the similarity in method in relation to jewish ritual murder cases and the story of Abraham and Isaac whereby Abraham seeks to sacrifice Isaac with a knife (presumably by cutting his throat) in much the same way as jewish ritual murder cases usually include jews using knives to sacrifice children, teenagers or young adults in order that their blood might flow (as Isaac's would have done) and that blood may be an acceptable offering to Yahweh.
Getting back to the subject in hand: in Exodus we see a similar series of proclamations in relation to human sacrifice.
To wit:
'The Lord said to Moses, “Consecrate to me all the first-born; whatever is the first to open the womb among the son of Israel; both of man and of beast, is mine.”' (5)
As well as:
'And when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, you shall set apart to the Lord all that first opens the womb. All the firstlings of your cattle that are males shall be Lord's. Everything firstling of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every first-born of man among your sons you shall redeem. And when in time to come your son asks you, 'What does it mean?' you shall say to him, 'By strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of bondage. For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of cattle. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb; but all the first-born of my sons I redeem.' (6)
In addition to:
'The first-born of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do likewise with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall be with its dam; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.' (7)
Now in the above we can see that Yahweh tells Moses that human sacrifice - notably of male children - is quite acceptable along with the animal sacrifices common to most ancient and classical religions as well as some aspects of Hinduism today.
We should also note that in Biblical terminology 'to consecrate' means quite literally 'to sacrifice' in the form of a substance such as blood being spilled in the hope that it will please Yahweh.
Now in the second better-known passage in the Torah: we find Yahweh again explicitly endorsing human sacrifice in that he clearly tells the Israelites that they are to 'give' the first-born of their cattle to Yahweh, then states that the sacrifice of first-born donkeys is not acceptable (note the rather obvious practical consideration here as the donkey was a valuable beast of burden while a cow was a food animal) but that a lamb (another food animal) should be killed in its place (or for lack of a lamb break the donkey's neck if you really had to) and then that the first-born sons of Israel should be redeemed.
'Redeemed' in this instance - as shown by the previous uses of 'redeem' to mean 'sacrifice' in this same passage - clearly suggests that the first-born of Israel should be sacrificed to Yahweh, because unlike donkeys no animal to be redeemed in their stead is mentioned and the explanation of Yahweh's requirement that is given explicitly talks about how the Israelites owe a debt of blood to Yahweh for his slaughter of the first-born sons of the Egyptians and those of their cattle.
We should note as another aside that jewish ritual murder cases frequently mention the slaughter of the (in nearly all cases) male victim 'as if they were a lamb' or 'like a lamb'. This is usually taken to be reference to Jesus' being slaughtered by the jews as if he were a lamb, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that it potentially also a veiled reference to this particular passage in Exodus which endorses slaughtering the male first-born of Israel, but who could be argued to have been redeemed and yet the only animal that is mentioned as being used as a means of redemption is a lamb.
When we further remember the passage with Abraham and Isaac in Genesis in relation to Abraham's assertion that the Lord would provide a lamb for the sacrifice and that lamb was Isaac. Then we can quickly see how easy it would be for a rabbi and/or a religiously isolated jewish community that believed it was under threat and needed to expiate Yahweh's wrath to come to believe that a human sacrifice was necessary and further that 'a lamb' (a term commonly used to refer to the innocence of [usually male] children in Christian discourse then) was required to redeem the first-born sons of Israel from having to be sacrificed to Yahweh.
In the last quotation from Exodus: this is made explicit when the Israelites are told in no uncertain terms that they are to sacrifice their first-born sons and cattle to Yahweh in gratitude for his leading them safely out of the land of Egypt.
Now we have dealt with the mentions of human sacrifice in the book of Exodus. We come to the cornerstone of the argument against jewish ritual murder in the context of Judaism: the book of Leviticus.
Now what does Levitcus actually say on the subject?
To begin with:
'You shall not give any of your children to devote them by fire to Mo'lech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.' (8)
As well as:
'The Lord said to Moses, “Say to the sons of Israel, Any man of the sons of strangers that sojourn in Israel, who gives any of his children to Mo'lech shall be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Mo'lech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name. And if the people of the land do at all hide their eyes from that man, when he gives one of his children to Mo'lech, and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man and against his family, and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in playing the harlot after Mo'lech.' (9)
In addition to:
'But no devoted thing that a man devotes to the Lord, of anything that he has, whether of man or beast, or of his inherited field, shall be sold or redeemed ; every devoted thing is most holy to the Lord. No one devoted, who is to be utterly destroyed among men, shall be ransomed; he shall be put to death.' (10)
Now in the above there is one very specific point that tends to be unmentioned or downplayed in dealing with human sacrifice in the Torah as well as the probable ritual murder beliefs that resulted from a high-stress reading of the document. This is that the first two passages - usually held to be the cornerstone of the argument that human sacrifice isn't sanctioned by the Torah - are actually not general prohibitions of human sacrifice (in relation to children), but rather are specific prohibitions against human sacrifice to a particular deity other than Yahweh.
The importance of this is easily understood by comprehending that the worship of Yahweh did not arise in a cultural or religious vacuum, but rather as one of hundreds - if not thousands - of similar localised cults and sects. In the text of Leviticus we find a particularly prominent Canaanite/Phoenician deity Moloch named as the one to whom human sacrifices involving burning ones children alive on his altar are prohibited with fairly extreme punitive language.
This simply means that Leviticus is not actually talking about Yahweh forbidding human sacrifices to himself at all, but rather is forbidding both the Israelites and non-Israelites resident in Israelite controlled territory from performing child sacrifices to Moloch.
If we think about the sub-text of this position it is clear that Yahweh is specifically forbidding child sacrifices to a rival deity, because he wishes the child sacrifices to be made to him instead. There are precious few other reasons why the book of Leviticus would be so specific about both the deity to whom the child sacrifices were being offered and also the method they were being offered, but yet signally only condemns the practice specifically not generally.
This is so because we need to understand that throughout the Torah - with the most famous incident being that of the golden calf - the Israelites habitually relapsed into polytheism and the worship of other gods in defiance of the injunction in the decalogue that they should worship no God, but Yahweh.
In other words: Yahweh wanted the Israelites to offer him their children in sacrifice and not offer his rival Moloch their children in sacrifice.
This is confirmed by the third quoted passage from the book of Leviticus, which clearly states that it was the custom of the Israelites to offer up human sacrifices - hence the wording 'of man or beast' - to Yahweh presumably in a similar form to those they offered up to Moloch.
Indeed in this particular passage we can see that Yahweh is quite resentful of the Israelites, because they have been redeeming men and animals that they have ostensibly given to be burnt offerings to him. Redeeming in this instance we should understand as the giving of a substitute offering - presumably of lesser value - after the dedication of the initial offering and suggests that the practice of human sacrifice was a contentious one among the Israelites. So much so that men and women were willing to follow the customs of their ancestors and burn their children alive as offerings to Yahweh in theory, but in practice they simply redeemed their children or animals sending a substitute to be burnt in their place. Be that the child of slave - of which there was a similar market in ancient Carthage which had very similar religious rituals - or some animal of lesser value.
We can see this in the annoyance and adamant injunctions expressed by the book of Leviticus when we are told that no one shall redeem their child or animal once it has been dedicated, because to do so angers Yahweh and essentially cheats him out of his desired sacrifices.
That Yahweh specifically demanded such sacrifices is also suggested by the sole reference in the book of Numbers to human sacrifice in relation to the victory of the Israelites over the forces of Midian.
To wit:
'Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live? Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, by the counsel of Balaam, to act treacherously against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.' (11)
In this passage we can see that Moses is quite specific about who the Israelites are to kill and who they are to spare. Aside from being an obvious act of genocide on Moses' part: he is obviously after the male children of Midian even those who are unborn (hence the murder of all women who may have unborn - and potentially male - children). Male children coincidentally we already know from the books of Exodus and Leviticus are the principle offering that the Israelites offered as human sacrifices to Yahweh.
When we factor in the mention in Leviticus 27 of substitute human sacrifices being used by the Israelites in place of their own sons then it becomes eerily apparent that the children of Midian were quite probably used as substitute human sacrifices by the Israelites.
The next and last mention in the Torah of human sacrifice is the other cornerstone of the argument against the concept of human sacrifice in Judaism. This mention in the book of Deuteronomy is as follows:
'When you come into the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord; and because of these abominable practices the Lord your God is driving them out before for you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you so to do.' (12)
I have above quoted the full passage from the book of Deuteronomy as opposed to the more usually cited part, which is:
'There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer.' (13)
When we compare the selected passage with the whole passage then we can see that the selected passage is highly misleading when quoted alone, because it makes it seems like a strong general prohibition on these practices. When in fact the full passage makes it clear that these practices are those followed by the nations around Israel, which Israel is to dispossess not those followed by the Israelites themselves in the worship of Yahweh.
Once again - and similar to Leviticus 18 and 20 - it is a specific prohibition not a general one. This is indicated when we realise that the most important passage in the text for our present purposes 'any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering' is a rationalization of the Hebrew phrase 'makes his son or daughter pass through fire'. (14)
The importance of the phrasing is easily to understand once we remember that in Leviticus 18:21 we see Yahweh once again admonishing the Israelites not to devote their children to Moloch through the fire, but not specifically outlawing it in relation to his own worship. This we can see in the passage from the book of Deuteronomy in so far as Yahweh is forbidding the use of foreign religious customs in his worship among the Israelites, but no-where does he actually say that it is forbidden for the Israelites to sacrifice their sons and daughters to himself.
Indeed in the Tanakh we find numerous examples of pious Israelites doing just this with the most famous being the human sacrifice of the daughter of Jephthah by her own father. (15) This informs us that once again this is a very specific provision against the invasion of foreign elements to the cult of Yahweh - i.e. they would stand against the admonition in the decalogue to worship only Yahweh - as opposed to a general prohibition against the practice of human sacrifice to Yahweh.
Thus we can see from the foregoing passages that not only is human sacrifice not actually generally denounced in the Torah, but it is actually positively endorsed with the only point of specificity being that the human sacrifice has to be made to - and in the ritual manner required by - Yahweh. Therefore we can reasonably posit that rabbis and isolated jewish communities in high-stress situations where they had consulted the Torah directly might well draw the not unreasonable conclusion that in order to sate Yahweh's wrath they would have to perform a human sacrifice.
Hence the beginning of the phenomenon of jewish ritual murder in medieval Europe.
References
(1) Two representative examples of this kind of attitude can be found in the work of Samuel Usque (Samuel Usque, Martin Cohen (Trans.), 1965, 'Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel', 1st Edition, Jewish Publication Society of America: Philadelphia) and the Hebrew Chronicle of Prague (Abraham David (Ed.), Leon Weinberger (Trans.), Dena Ordan (Trans.), 1993, 'A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague, c. 1615', 1st Edition, University of Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa).
(2) See Elliot Horowitz, 2007, 'Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence', 1st Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton
(3) On this see Jay Rubenstein, 2011, 'Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse', 1st Edition, Basic Books: New York, pp. 49-53
(4) Gen. 22:1-14
(5) Ex. 13:1-2
(6) Ibid. 13:11-15
(7) Ibid. 22:29-30
(8) Lev. 18:21
(9) Ibid. 20:1-5
(10) Ibid. 27:28-29
(11) Num. 31:15-18
(12) Deut. 18:9-14
(13) Ibid. 18: 10-11
(14) See the Revised Standard Version, p. 143, n. n
(15) Judg. 11:29-40