(West Asian mythology)

Moses said: ‘Thous shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech.’ It was formerly thought that Moloch, or Molech, could have been Melqart, the god worshipped in Tyre as well as Carthage, its colony. A Roman author records that in Carthage there was a bronze statue of a deity on the outstretched hands of which children were placed, so that they fell into the fire below. Because the Ras Shamra tablets do not mention child-sacrifice, the present view is that Molech was not a god but simply the term used for this primitive Canaanite rite. When Yahweh tempted Abraham, he said: ‘Take thou thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee to the land of land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.’ The patriarch was released from this gruesome obligation when Yahweh provided a ram instead. The ultimate sacrifice of the firstborn, for Christians, was the crucifixion of Jesus, ‘the Lamb of God’. This mode of death, which the Roman authorities reserved for the lowest criminals, originated in Canaan.

A Dictionary of World Mythology. Copyright © Arthur Cotterell 1979, 1986, 2003. All rights reserved.