Question: Why were children burned and sacrificed in the Valley of Jerusalem?
(Comment): This was the awful practice of sacrificing children to false gods, by the Jews during one of their worst periods of paganism. This was sanctioned by the kings and priests of the time, and during the very worst of the teachings of the priests of Israel!
All the Jews that descended from Abraham through the miracle son Isaac are much loved by Jehovah, and He requested of them that they should honour Him in thought, word and deed, as they were to be His witnesses throughout the world (Isa. 43:10). In that much honoured role they failed. They did not honour the Almighty in thought, word and deed, so Jehovah God made a way out for them in the sacrifice of animals whose blood and various offerings became the propitiation and atonement between them and their God, Jehovah. Because their failure was continual, the sacrificial system with the priesthood in the Temple in Jerusalem, was also continual. However, even in that they failed, in that they did not keep up the required sacrifices, and even went as far as to deny the existence of their God, and the cessation of Temple worship, and also the bricking up of the Temple entrance; which led to the Babylonian exile.
The Almighty had promised the Jews great blessing if they honoured Him in the ways mentioned, but had already foreseen their failure, and had promised them a second chance to draw close to Him in Righteousness, (Jer. 31:31-32).
Wikipedia: Gehenna Valley of Hinnom Location in Jerusalem, south of Mount Zion 'Valley of the son of Hinnom'[1]) is a historic valley surrounding Ancient Jerusalem from the west and southwest.[2] The valley is also known by the name Gehinnom (גֵיא־הִנֹּם Gēʾ-Hīnnōm, 'Valley of Hinnom') an alternative Biblical Hebrew form which survived into Aramaic and has received various fundamental theological connotations, and by the Greek and Syriac transliteration Gehenna (Γέεννα Géenna/ܓܼܼܗܲܢܵܐ Gihanna).[3]
The Valley of Hinnom is first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as part of the border between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (Joshua 15:8). During the late First Temple period, it was the site of the Tophet, where some of the kings of Judah had sacrificed their children by fire (Jeremiah 7:31).[4] Thereafter, it was cursed by the Biblical prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 19:2–6).[5] In later Jewish rabbinic literature, Gehinnom became associated with divine punishment in Jewish Apocalypticism as the destination of the wicked.[6] It is different from the more neutral term Sheol, the abode of the dead. The King James Version of the Bible translates both with the Anglo-Saxon word Hell.
The Valley of Hinnom is the Modern Hebrew name for the valley surrounding the Old City of Jerusalem and the adjacent Mount Zion from the west and south. It meets and merges with the Kidron Valley, the other principal valley around the Old City, near the Pool of Siloam which lie to the south-eastern corner of Ancient Jerusalem. It is also known as Wadi er-Rababi (Arabic: وادي الربابة "valley of the Rebab").[1][7] The north-western part of the valley is now an urban park.
In Judaism, the term Gehinnom is used for the realm in which the wicked expiate their sins.[8 Child sacrifice at other Tophets contemporary with the Bible accounts (700–600 BC) of the reigns of Ahaz and Manasseh have been established, such as the bones of children sacrificed at the Tophet to the goddess Tanit in Phoenician Carthage,[16] and also child sacrifice in ancient Syria-Palestine.[17] Scholars such as Mosca (1975) have concluded that the sacrifice recorded in the Hebrew Bible, such as Jeremiah's comment that the worshippers of Baal had "filled this place with the blood of innocents", is literal.[18][19] Yet, the biblical words in the Book of Jeremiah describe events taking place in the seventh century in the place of Ben-hinnom: "Because they [the Israelites] have forsaken Me and have made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods, that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter My mind; therefore, behold, days are coming", declares the LORD, "when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of Ben-hinnom, but rather the valley of Slaughter".[20] J. Day, Heider, and Mosca believe that the Moloch cult took place in the valley of Hinnom at the Topheth.[21]
No archaeological evidence such as mass children's graves has been found; however, it has been suggested that such a find may be compromised by the heavy population history of the Jerusalem area compared to the Tophet found in Tunisia.[22] The site would also have been disrupted by the actions of Josiah "And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech". (2Kings 23). A minority of scholars have attempted to argue that the Bible does not portray actual child sacrifice, but only dedication to the god by fire; however, they are judged to have been "convincingly disproved" (Hay, 2011).
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