Child Sacrifice in the Ancient Near and Middle East

Abstract

Child sacrifice is a specific subset of the wider category of human sacrifice, which is a form of slaying that attempts to bring about a shift in the suprahuman realm. Child sacrifice is a subset because it points to the young age of victims or to the parent-child relationship. The practice is closely intertwined with the religious history of the ancient Near East and wider Mediterranean world. It is noticeable in artwork, textual traditions, and a variety of archaeological contexts. Because the practice goes back into prehistory, it is not always clear why certain child sacrifices were performed, such as sacrifices accomplished at the founding of buildings. Through artistic and textual representations, it is possible to gain a better understanding of the meanings attached to sacrificial rites. Nevertheless, there are still ambiguities that exist, and scholars must dig into ancient contexts to discovery how child sacrifices were perceived. This entails careful linguistic analysis, including of biblical texts. Child sacrifice is still a topic of interest to those adhering to the Abrahamic faith traditions that developed out of this area of the world. In this respect, the sacrifice, or almost sacrifice, of a firstborn son would be of greatest significance. Yet the early Israelite story about Abraham’s mountain-top binding of his son to the altar (called the Akedah in Judaism) has neither been viewed identically in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam nor meant the same thing to every generation. It could be said that child sacrifice more generally has experienced shifts within faith traditions, and practices accepted in one time period may not have been agreeable later. This is certainly the case with human sacrifice more broadly. Not only did ancient views on child sacrifice change, but so too have academic opinions varied. Indeed, scholars living in the same period even disagree on the existence or interpretation of particular practices. There are a variety of perspectives on diverse issues, and it is not always clear that child sacrifice actually transpired in some circumstances. Not only are textual sources difficult at times to interpret, but so too are archaeological remains. Some of the complexities of studying child sacrifice are outlined here. What follows is a brief overview of scholarship on child sacrifice organized into seven topics: Mesopotamia and Anatolia, North Africa and Punic Sites, Nonbiblical Levantine finds, Ancient Israelite Traditions, Postbiblical Jewish Views, Christian Perspectives, and Islamic Understandings.