Well since this appears to be the extent of the discussion, it's time to respond, working backwards:
And Now you expect me to waste my time showing you how Marduk Chief God of UR and Sumer at the time of Abraham was the beginning of Human and Child Sacrifice and how all of this goes hand and hand with astrology.
In the first place, Marduk began as a local city-god of northern Sumeria. That is, he was the god of Babylon after the Akkadians had come through. As Babylon grew in prominence, so did the cult of Marduk. Ur, as you don't know, is a southern city. In the latter periods, Marduk rose to prominence as a chief god in the Babylonian Pantheon. One source you may consult on this point would be
A History of the Ancient Near East by Marc van de Mieroop, p.111.
Secondly, there is absolutely no evidence for child sacrifice in Mesopotamia. As you have not provided any evidence for this, I assume you have realised it. I even, since Mesopotamian religion is not my speciality, asked a colleague who immediately told me "no way."
Astrology is more or less a feature of later Mesopotamian religion, not the earlier sort.
Jer:32:35: And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.
Alright, you are attempting first of all to say that Ba'al and Molech/Moloch are the same god. Secondly, you are basing this entirely on your wikipedia article and this particular verse. My response involves several stages: 1)Biblical Evidence 2) Biblical Criticism 3)Archaeological Evidence.
1. Biblical Evidence
The phrase you have quoted "to cause their sons and daughters..." is a very fascinating phrase. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted:
לא-ימצא בך מעביר בני-ובתו באש which means literally "do not let be found among you one who causes his son or daughter to pass through/by/in the fire." Similar expressions are found throughout the OT, especially in reference to
מלך, though "l-moloch" ("to, for, against moloch") is not found here. Some of these examples are:
Leviticus 18:21 reads "and you shall not let your children (lit: seed) to pass [through?] l-moloch" But what is interesting here is that in the Greek translation, the word for "moloch" is αρχονται, which means "ruler." (See below under achaeological and summary).
Most of the occurences of the word "mlk" when pointed as something other than the word "king, royalty" is in Leviticus, ch. 20, vv.2-6 (ESV):
“Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely 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 Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech. “If a person turns to mediums and wizards, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.
I bring this particular passage out because of several reasons: 1) no mention is made of burning or sacrifice. The phrase is repeatedly "pass through l-molech." 2) once again the Greek has
arkontai, "ruler." 3) It is in close proximity to divination, as in Deuteronomy 18:10-11.
The two remaining passages, except for Jer. 32:35 which was quoted above, are from the Deuternomistic history of the Kings:
Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. (I Kings 11:7 ESV) Here the LXX doesn't use αρχοντι, it uses βασιλει and the entire sense is different: "then Solomon built a high place to Chamos the idol of Moab, and to their king, the idol of the children of Ammon."
And he desecrated 'Topheth,' which is in the valley 'ben-hinnom', that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire l-molech.
Here, finally, the LXX reads as a transliteration of the world, μολοχ.
2) Biblical Criticism
Not every one of you cares about so-called "biblical criticism." If you don't, then you might as well skip it. But it is a necessary part of the process. For those of us who have studied the languages, it is obvious that there is disagreement among different ancient translations of scripture and among even one translation (for example, the Qumran tradition and the Masoretic are both in Hebrew). So, in light of that, one may ask what conclusions can be drawn from the way the LXX translates the Hebrew.
In the first place, it's obvious that the LXX-translators didn't know what this "mlk" word was when used in reference to sacrifice. It's translated often as "ruler," otherwise as "Molok" or as "king." Most of you know that the word "moloch" comes from the west-semitic word for "king" which is
מלך. But it obviously does not mean "king" in these passages, and it was not pointed as such by the Masoretic tradition. "King" is normally pointed with two short "e" vowels, "melech" whereas this word is often pointed "molech."
However, I also think that by the time the various strands of the Hebrew bible were being put together into books, child-sacrifice was so long-gone in Israelite thought that they didn't know what to make of this. This may explain why it appears with divination and is almost never written as "sacrifice."
But we still don't know what "molech" is. It is called an "abomination" but never a god, per se, nor is it given any anthropomorphic features as most gods have. To determine more, it is necessary to proceed to the
3.Archaeological Evidence
As your wikipedia article mentioned, JTF, very exciting (in archaeological terms, at least) discoveries were made at Carthage at the beginning of this century through to the 60s. The most important in terms of our discussion was the publication of the latin inscription which Albright translates: "To the holy lord Saturn, a great sacrifice of night-time, molchomor, breath for breath, blood for blood, life for life" (
Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, p.235). The inscription MLK 'MR had been found elsewhere in Punic, and it was known to mean "lamb" as in other Semitic languages. It was realised, since other Punic inscriptions have MLK 'DM ("MLK of man ['DM is "adam"]) that what was happening in the inscription to Saturn is that a lamb was replacing a human in the MLK sacrifice. Then in 1935 Eissfeldt published his article and as a result of that article Albright could write in the 80s, "There are probably few competent scholars who now believe that a god Moloch is intended in any biblical passage referring to human sacrifice" (
Ibid, p.236). What is it then? The word MLK, which can mean "royal, noble, kingly" was taken as an adjective to refer to the type of sacrifice -- that is, a "noble sacrifice."
I can confirm this with Shelby Brown's book
Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice (JSOT Monograph Series, #3), Sheffield: SAP, 1999. Some pertinent quotes:
"Among urban Mediterranean peoples, the ritual of child sacrifice was confined to the Phoenicians." (p.14)
At least for the w-phoenician context, "it seems probable that the word
mlk signifies "sacrifice" rather than a divine name." (p. 29).
Albright,
Yahweh and the gods of Canaan, p.144 Carthaginian El = Latin Saturnus