Question: Historically, how popular and wide-ranging was Moloch's worship?
Despite the nasty rap he tends to get in modern popular imagination, Moloch's cult was actually one of the most important ones for the ancient Canaanites and Phoenicians; it appears everywhere their civilization has a strong foothold, from the famous Valley of Hinnom (better known to most as Gehenna) in Canaan to as far away as southern Spain and northern Morocco where the seafaring Phoenicians set up their ports. It's hard to gauge "popularity" for a cult that died so long ago that we don't have much information remaining on it, but the fact that anything on it managed to survive this long despite Moloch not having any myths in the Ugaritic texts that popularized the other Canaanite gods is a testament to its strength.
Moloch's cult was certainly strong enough to heavily piss off the budding Jewish religion, which spends quite a bit of ink in the Bible yelling at wayward members of its own population who were misled or foolish enough to worship Moloch (or worship Yahweh in the style of Moloch, depending on your interpretation, but obviously either was a no-no). King Solomon even famously built a temple to Moloch - on the Mount of Olives, no less - to please his wife, a native Canaanite and devotee of the god. Since Baal was often used as a title for other gods as well as the name of the storm deity, there's also a large presence of scholars who think that the Baal of Carthage might actually have been Moloch, making him, along with Tanit/Anat, ruler of the most famous Phoenician center of human sacrifice.
Pinpointing cults of Moloch suffers from some of the same problems with pinpointing cults of Baal, actually; just as baal was sometimes used as a title meaning "lord", Moloch's name is very similar to malak or melek, a title that could be used to mean "king". This leads to some gods called by either name really being someone else, and other gods only called by those epithets possibly secretly being Moloch or Baal but without giving us much to go on to be able to tell either way. Reconstructed Canaanite language is a real bitch sometimes, and Moloch's name in particular was probably warped by the nearby Hebrews as well, who probably changed its vowels when they talked about him to more closely resemble those in the word boshet, meaning to them "shameful".
But, as far as how widespread Moloch's worship was, it's most reasonable to assume that it was probably about as popular as that of the other major Canaanite gods, spread throughout the Canaanite kingdoms and the later Phoenician empire. He doesn't have much in the way of stories (that have survived for us to survive, at least), but the archaeological and written evidence from the area suggests that that didn't prevent him from enjoying a robust cult presence.
Were you to ever put the Elohim up on the site (fingers crossed), would Moloch make the cut? Cult notwithstanding, you said it yourself, he has little in the way of stories and legends.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I'm not sure. Moloch's super cool, but John does hate the ones who don't have a good mythic narrative. He's been known to let strong cult presence win out once in a while, however - that's why folks like Cernunnos or Xipe Totec are still allowed on the rosters - so who knows?
DeleteI would bet against him wanting to keep him, but my IRL prophecy isn't great.
Yeah, as I said before, I have a huge soft spot for the Elohim and would love to see them up there with the Bogovi one day, but I fear John's merciless axe would be particularly unrelenting towards them.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I feel similarly. Oh, well - optimism springs eternal! :)
DeleteDoes anyone agree with the theroy that the early Izrialites/semits were actually Cannanites/Phoenicians who worshipped the Cannanite gods before they raised one above all others and decided he was the one and only? Remember the first commandment says thou shall have no other gods before me, not except me.
ReplyDeleteThey were almost certainly not Canaanites; the Hebrews were a separate ethnic group of their own (though probably related to the Canaanites or Assyrians), and, historically speaking, Yahweh was probably their personal tribal god. They were most likely originally henotheists, though, meaning that they believed Yahweh was the most important god but not the only one, and only later moved to full monotheism.
DeleteIt's pretty clear that the Hebrews did sometimes worship the Canaanite gods once they'd moved to Canaan; that's usually what the Old Testament is freaking out about, actually, being angry that some of the Hebrews are worshiping figures like Moloch, Baal (who, along with El, probably lent some of his imagery to early descriptions of Yahweh), Asherah (who some scholars believe was occasionally treated as Yahweh's consort instead of El's) or other local deities. Much of the Old Testament's decrying against other gods is to prevent the Hebrews from worshiping them alongside or instead of Yahweh, which suggests that this did happen now and then, enough that the fledgling monotheistic religion had to make some stern pronouncements about it. The Hebrew religion was probably not the same as the Canaanite one originally, but they were probably similar and it was almost certainly influenced by the religion of its Canaanite neighbors and countrymen.
There's mention of some of the Mesopotamian deities being spoken against in the Bible, too, most notably Tammuz.
That kind of sucks considering Tammuz is or was a popular fertility god and as part of the Annuna one of the first gods ever. I understand the stigma against Moloch due to his habit of wanting bbq'd babies, but why do they hate Tammuz?
ReplyDeleteBecause he's not Yahweh. That first commandment thing again; the ancient Hebrews weren't okay with the worship of other gods, no matter who they were.
DeleteThe exact line from Ezekiel is "Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord, and I saw women sitting there, mourning the god Tammuz. And he said to me, 'Do you see this, son of man? You will see things that are even more detestable than this.'” It's in the middle of a passage about how the Israelites are worshiping false idols and foreign gods, and the implication is that doing so is wicked since Tammuz is one of these foreign gods.
That Tammuz, so detestable...detestably sexy.
DeleteHear hear much much sexier and less smity
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