Moloch (; ''Mōleḵ'' or הַמֹּלֶךְ‎ ''hamMōleḵ''; grc, Μόλοχ, la, Moloch; also Molech or Molek) is a name or a term which appears in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Leviticus. The

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...

strongly condemns practices which are associated with Moloch, practices which appear to have included

child sacrifice Child sacrifice is the ritualistic killing of children in order to please or appease a deity, supernatural beings, or sacred social order, tribal, group or national loyalties in order to achieve a desired result. As such, it is a form of huma ...

. Traditionally, Moloch has been understood as referring to a

Canaanite god The Canaanite religion was the group of ancient Semitic religions practiced by the Canaanites living in the ancient Levant from at least the early Bronze Age through the first centuries AD. Canaanite religion was polytheism, polytheistic and, in ...

. However, since 1935, scholars have debated whether or not the term refers to a type of sacrifice on the basis of a similar term, also spelled ''mlk'', which means "sacrifice" in the

Punic language The Punic language, also called Phoenicio-Punic or Carthaginian, is an extinct variety of the Phoenician language, a Canaanite language of the Northwest Semitic branch of the Semitic languages. An offshoot of the Phoenician language of coastal ...

. This second position has grown increasingly popular, but it remains contested. Among proponents of this second position, controversy continues as to whether the sacrifices were offered to

Yahweh Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he po ...

or another deity, and whether they were a native Israelite religious custom or a

Phoenicia Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their his ...

n import. Since the

medieval period In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, Moloch has often been portrayed as a bull-headed idol with outstretched hands over a fire; this depiction takes the brief mentions of Moloch in the Bible and combines them with various sources, including ancient accounts of Carthaginian child sacrifice and the legend of the

Minotaur In Greek mythology, the Minotaur ( , ;. grc, ; in Latin as ''Minotaurus'' ) is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being "p ...

. "Moloch" has been figuratively used in reference to a person or a thing which demands or requires a very costly sacrifice. A god Moloch appears in various works of literature and film, such as

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and politica ...

's ''

Paradise Lost ''Paradise Lost'' is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 16 ...

'' (1667),

Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flaubert ( , , ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flauber ...

's '' Salammbô'' (1862),

Fritz Lang Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary '' Variety'', August 4, 1976, p. ...

's ''

Metropolis (1927 film) ''Metropolis'' is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction drama film directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou in collaboration with Lang from von Harbou's 1925 novel of the same name. Intentionally written as a treatment, it ...

'', and

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

's " Howl" (1955).

Etymology

"Moloch" derives from a Latin transcription of the Greek Μόλοχ ''Mólokh'', itself a transcription of the original ''Mōleḵ''. The etymology of Moloch is uncertain: most scholars derive it from the root "to rule" but with the vowels of "shame" (first advanced by

Abraham Geiger Abraham Geiger (Hebrew: ''ʼAvrāhām Gayger''; 24 May 181023 October 1874) was a German rabbi and scholar, considered the founding father of Reform Judaism. Emphasizing Judaism's constant development along history and universalist traits, Gei ...

in 1857), much like ''

Ashtoreth Astarte (; , ) is the Hellenized form of the Ancient Near Eastern goddess Ashtart or Athtart (Northwest Semitic), a deity closely related to Ishtar (East Semitic), who was worshipped from the Bronze Age through classical antiquity. The name ...

'', or as a ''qal'' participle from the same verb. R. M. Kerr criticizes both theories by noting that — ''Ashtoreth'' notwithstanding – the name of no other god appears to have been formed from a ''qal'' participle, and that Geiger's proposal is "an out-of-date theory which has never received any factual support". Paul Mosca similarly argued that "The theory that a form would immediately suggest to the reader or hearer the word (rather than or ) is the product of nineteenth century ingenuity, not of Massoretic or pre-Massoretic tendentiousness". Scholars who do not believe that Moloch represents a deity instead compare the name to inscriptions in the closely-related

where the word (''molk'' or ''mulk'') refers to a type of sacrifice, a connection first proposed by

Otto Eissfeldt Otto Eißfeldt, spelled alternatively Otto Eissfeldt, (September 1, 1887, in Northeim – April 23, 1973, in Halle) was a German Protestant theologian, known for his work on the Old Testament and comparative near-east religious history. His m ...

(1935). Eissfeldt himself, following

Jean-Baptiste Chabot Jean-Baptiste Chabot (16 February 1860 – 7 January 1948) was a Roman Catholic secular priest and the leading French Syriac scholar in the first half of the twentieth century. Life Born into a viticultural family at Vouvray-sur-Loire, Chabot ...

, connected Punic and ''Moloch'' to a Syriac verb meaning "to promise", a theory also supported as "the least problematic solution" by Heath Dewrell (2017). Scholars such as W. von Soden argue that the term is a nominalized causative form of the verb , meaning "to offer", "present", and thus means "the act of presenting" or "thing presented". Kerr instead derives both the Punic and Hebrew word from the verb , which he proposes meant "to own", "to possess" in Proto-Semitic, only later coming to mean "to rule"; the meaning of Moloch would thus originally have been "present", "gift", and later come to mean "sacrifice".

Biblical attestations

Foster Bible Pictures 0074-1 Offering to Molech

Masoretic text

The word ''Moloch'' occurs 8 times in the

Masoretic text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...

of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Milcom, the god of the

Ammon Ammon (Ammonite: 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''ʻAmān''; he, עַמּוֹן ''ʻAmmōn''; ar, عمّون, ʻAmmūn) was an ancient Semitic-speaking nation occupying the east of the Jordan River, between the torrent valleys of Arnon and Jabbok, in ...

ites. Five of the others are in Leviticus, with one in 2 Kings and another in

The Book of Jeremiah The Book of Jeremiah ( he, ספר יִרְמְיָהוּ) is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and the second of the Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. The superscription at chapter Jeremiah 1:1–3 identifies the book ...

. Each mention of ''Moloch'' indicates the presence of the

article Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: ...

, or "the", therefore reading "the Moloch". Likewise, when passages describe things coming or going "to Moloch", the prepositional

lamedh Lamedh or Lamed is the twelfth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Hebrew Lāmed , Aramaic Lāmadh , Syriac Lāmaḏ ܠ, Arabic , and Phoenician Lāmed . Its sound value is . The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Lambda (Λ), Latin ...

is conjugated with a () to match the form of "...to ''the'' Moloch", as opposed to being conjugated with a (), which would afford the reading "...to Moloch". A is, however, present in 1 Kings 11:7, although this may be explained by the apparently erroneous substitution of ''Moloch'' for ''Milkom'' detailed above. All of these texts condemn Israelites who engage in practices associated with Moloch, and most associate Moloch with the use of children as offerings. The activity of causing children "to pass over the fire" is mentioned, without reference to Moloch, in numerous other verses of the bible, such as in Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 12:31, 18:10), 2 Kings (2 Kings 16:3; 17:17; 17:31; 21:6), 2 Chronicles (2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6), the Book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5) and the Book of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 16:21; 20:26, 31; 23:37). Leviticus repeatedly forbids the practice of offering children to Moloch: The majority of the Leviticus references come from a single passage of four lines: In 2 Kings, Moloch is associated with the tophet in the valley of

Gehenna The Valley of Hinnom ( he, , lit=Valley of the son of Hinnom, translit=Gēʾ ḇen-Hīnnōm) is a historic valley surrounding Ancient Jerusalem from the west and southwest. The valley is also known by the name Gehinnom ( ''Gēʾ-Hīnnōm'' ...

when it is destroyed by king Josiah: Lastly, the prophet

Jeremiah Jeremiah, Modern: , Tiberian: ; el, Ἰερεμίας, Ieremíās; meaning "Yah shall raise" (c. 650 – c. 570 BC), also called Jeremias or the "weeping prophet", was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewis ...

condemns practices associated with Moloch as showing infidelity to

: Given the name's similarity to the Hebrew word "king", scholars have also searched the Masoretic text to find instances of that may be mistakes for Moloch. Most scholars consider only one instance as likely a mistake, in Isaiah:

Septuagint and New Testament

The Greek

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

translates the instances of Moloch in Leviticus as "ruler" (), and as "king" () at 1 Kings 11:7. It contains Moloch at 2 Kings 23:10 and Jeremiah 30:35. Additionally, the Septuagint uses the name Moloch in Amos where it is not found in the Masoretic text: The Greek version with Moloch is quoted in the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

and accounts for the one occurrence of Moloch there ( Acts 7:43).

Theories

Moloch as a deity

Before 1935, all scholars held that Moloch was a pagan deity, to whom child sacrifice was offered at the Jerusalem tophet. The medieval

rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as '' semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form o ...

nical tradition understood Moloch as closely related to other similarly named deities mentioned in the bible such as Milcom, Adrammelek, and Anammelech. The medieval rabbinical tradition also connected Moloch to reports of ancient Phoenician and Carthaginian

; both of these rabbinical ideas were taken over by early modern scholarship. Some modern scholars have proposed that Moloch may be the same god as Milcom, Adad-Milki, or an epithet for

Baal Baal (), or Baal,; phn, , baʿl; hbo, , baʿal, ). ( ''baʿal'') was a title and honorific meaning "owner", "lord" in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied t ...

. G. C. Heider and John Day connect Moloch with a deity ''Mlk'' attested at

Ugarit ) , image =Ugarit Corbel.jpg , image_size=300 , alt = , caption = Entrance to the Royal Palace of Ugarit , map_type = Near East#Syria , map_alt = , map_size = 300 , relief=yes , location = Latakia Governorate, Syria , region = ...

and ''Malik'' attested in

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

and proposes that he was a god of the

underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underwo ...

, as in Mesopotamia ''Malik'' is twice equated with the underworld god

Nergal Nergal ( Sumerian: d''KIŠ.UNU'' or ; ; Aramaic: ܢܸܪܓܲܠ; la, Nirgal) was a Mesopotamian god worshiped through all periods of Mesopotamian history, from Early Dynastic to Neo-Babylonian times, with a few attestations under indicating hi ...

. Day also notes that Isaiah seems to associate Moloch with Sheol. The Ugaritic deity ''Mlk'' also appears to be associated with the underworld, and the similarly named Phoenician god

Melqart Melqart (also Melkarth or Melicarthus) was the tutelary god of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre and a major deity in the Phoenician and Punic pantheons. Often titled the "Lord of Tyre" (''Ba‘al Ṣūr''), he was also known as the Son of ...

(literally "king of the city") could have underworld associations if "city" is understood to mean "underworld", as proposed by William F. Albright. Heider also argued that there was also an

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic ...

term referring to the shades of the dead. The notion that Moloch refers to a deity has been challenged for several reasons. Moloch is rarely mentioned in the Bible, is not mentioned at all outside of it, and connections to other deities with similar names are uncertain. Moreover, it is possible that some of the supposed deities named ''Mlk'' are epithets for another god, given that ''mlk'' can also mean "king". The Israelite rite conforms, on the other hand, to the Punic rite in that both involved the sacrifice of children. None of the proposed gods Moloch could be identified with is associated with human sacrifice, the god ''Mlk'' of Ugarit appears to have only received animal sacrifice, and the sacrifice is never offered to a god name ''Mlk'' but rather to another deity.

Moloch as a form of sacrifice

In 1935,

proposed, on the basis of

Punic inscriptions The Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, also known as Northwest Semitic inscriptions, are the primary extra-Biblical source for understanding of the society and history of the ancient Phoenicians, Ancient Hebrews, Hebrews and Arameans. Semitic ins ...

, that Moloch was a form of sacrifice rather than a deity. Punic inscriptions commonly associate the word with three other words: (lamb), (citizen) and (human being). and never occur in the same description and appear to be interchangeable. Other words that sometimes occur are (flesh). When put together with , these words indicate a "-sacrifice consisting of...". The Biblical term would thus be translated not as "to Moloch", as normally translated, but as "as a molk-sacrifice", a meaning consistent with uses of the Hebrew preposition elsewhere. Bennie Reynolds further argues that Jeremiah's use of ''Moloch'' in conjunction with

in Jer 32:25 is parallel to his use of "burnt offering" and Baal in Jeremiah 19:4–5. The view that Moloch refers to a type of sacrifice was challenged by John Day and George Heider in the 1980s. Day and Heider argued that it was unlikely that biblical commentators had misunderstood an earlier term for a sacrifice as a deity and that Leviticus 20:5's mention of "whoring after Moloch" necessarily implied that Moloch was a god. Day and Heider nevertheless accepted that ''mlk'' was a sacrificial term in Punic, but argue that it did not originate in Phoenicia and that it was not brought back to Phoenicia by the Punic diaspora. More recently, Anthony Frendo argues that the Hebrew equivalent to Punic (the root of Punic ) is the verb "to pass over"; in Frendo's view, this means that Hebrew Moloch is not derived from the same root as Punic . Since Day's and Heider's objections, a growing number of scholars has come to believe that Moloch refers to the ''mulk'' sacrifice rather than a deity. Francesca Stavrakopoulou argues that "because both Heider and Day accept Eissfeldt's interpretation of Phoenician-Punic as a sacrificial term, their positions are at once compromised by the possibility that biblical could well function in a similar way as a technical term for a type of sacrifice". She further argues that "whoring after Moloch" does not need to imply a deity as refers to both the act of sacrificing and the thing sacrificed, allowing an interpretation of "whor ng after the mlk-offering". Heath Dewrell argues that the translation of Leviticus 20:5 in the

, which substitutes ''ἄρχοντας'' "princes" for ''Moloch'', implies that the biblical

urtext Urtext (, from ''ur-'' "primordial" and ''text'' "text", ) may refer to: * Urtext (biblical studies), the text that is believed to precede both the Septuagint and the Masoretic text * Urtext edition An urtext edition of a work of classical mu ...

did not include the phrase "whoring after Moloch". Bennie Reynolds further notes that at least one inscription from Tyre does appear to mention sacrifice (''RES'' 367); therefore Day and Heider are incorrect that the practice is unattested in Canaan (Phoenicia). Reynolds also argues for further parallels. Among scholars who deny the existence of a deity Moloch, debate remains as to whether the Israelite ''mlk'' sacrifices were offered to Yahweh or another deity. Armin Lange suggests that the

Binding of Isaac The Binding of Isaac ( he, , ), or simply "The Binding" (, ), is a story from Genesis 22 of the Hebrew Bible. In the biblical narrative, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Moriah. As Abraham begins to comply, having bound Isa ...

represents a ''mlk''-sacrifice to Yahweh in which the child is finally substituted with a sheep, noting that Isaac was meant to be a burnt offering. This opinion is shared by Stavrakopoulou, who also points to the sacrifice of Jephthah of his daughter as a burnt offering. Frendo, while he argues that ''Moloch'' refers to a god, accepts Stavrakopoulou's argument that the sacrifices in the tophet were originally to Yahweh. Dewrell argues that although sacrifices were offered to Yahweh, they were distinct from other forms of human or child sacrifice found in the Bible (such as that of Jephthah) and were a foreign custom imported by the Israelites from the Phoenicians during the reign of

Ahaz Ahaz (; gr, Ἄχαζ, Ἀχάζ ''Akhaz''; la, Achaz) an abbreviation of Jehoahaz II (of Judah), "Yahweh has held" (; akk, 𒅀𒌑𒄩𒍣 ''Ya'úḫazi'' 'ia-ú-ḫa-zi'' Hayim Tadmor and Shigeo Yamada, ''The Royal Inscriptions of Tiglath ...

As a rite of passage

A minority of scholars, mainly scholars of Punic studies, has argued that the ceremonies to Moloch are in fact a non-lethal dedication ceremony rather than a sacrifice. These theories are partially supported by commentary in the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

and among early Jewish commentators of the Bible. Rejecting such arguments, Paolo Xella and Francesca Stavrakopoulou note that the Bible explicitly connects the ritual to Moloch at the tophet with the verbs indicating slaughter, killing in sacrifice, deities "eating" the children, and

holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. Xella also refers to Carthaginian and Phoenician child sacrifice found referenced in Greco-Roman sources.

Moloch in art and culture

Medieval and modern artistic depictions

Medieval and modern sources tend to portray Moloch as a bull-headed humanoid idol with arms outstretched over a fire, onto which the sacrificial child is placed. This portrayal can be traced back to medieval Jewish commentaries, which connected the biblical Moloch with depictions of Carthaginian sacrifice to

Cronus In Ancient Greek religion and mythology, Cronus, Cronos, or Kronos ( or , from el, Κρόνος, ''Krónos'') was the leader and youngest of the first generation of Titans, the divine descendants of the primordial Gaia (Mother Earth) an ...

(

Baal Hammon Baal Hammon, properly Baʿal Ḥammon or Baʿal Ḥamon ( Phoenician: ; Punic: ), meaning “Lord Hammon”, was the chief god of Carthage. He was a weather god considered responsible for the fertility of vegetation and esteemed as King of t ...

) found in sources such as Diodorus, with George Foote Moore suggesting that the bull's head may derive from the mythological

. John S. Rundin suggests that further sources for the image are the legend of Talos and the

brazen bull The brazen bull, also known as the bronze bull, Sicilian bull, or bull of Phalaris, was a torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece. According to Diodorus Siculus, recounting the story in ''Bibliotheca historica'', Perilaus (or ...

built for king

Phalaris Phalaris ( el, Φάλαρις) was the tyrant of Akragas (now Agrigento) in Sicily, from approximately 570 to 554 BC. History Phalaris was renowned for his excessive cruelty. Among his alleged atrocities is cannibalism: he was said to have ...

of the Greek city of Acragas on

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

. He notes that both legends, as well as that of the Minotaur, have potential associations with Semitic child sacrifice.

In literature

Milton's ''Paradise Lost''

's ''

'' (1667), Moloch is one of the greatest warriors of the

fallen angel In the Abrahamic religions, fallen angels are angels who were expelled from heaven. The literal term "fallen angel" never appears in any Abrahamic religious texts, but is used to describe angels cast out of heaven"Mehdi Azaiez, Gabriel Said ...

s, He is listed among the chief of

Satan Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehoo ...

's angels in Book I, and is given a speech at the parliament of Hell in Book 2:43–105, where he argues for immediate warfare against God. He later becomes revered as a pagan god on Earth.

Flaubert's ''Salammbô''

's '' Salammbô'', a

historical novel Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other t ...

about

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...

published in 1862, included a version of the Carthaginian religion, including the god Moloch, whom he characterized as a god to whom the Carthaginians offered children. Flaubert described this Moloch mostly according to the Rabbinic descriptions, but with a few of his own additions. From chapter 7: Chapter 13 describes how, in desperate attempt to call down rain, the image of Moloch was brought to the center of Carthage, how the arms of the image were moved by the pulling of chains by the priests (apparently Flaubert's own invention), and then describes the sacrifices made to Moloch. First grain and animals of various kinds were placed in compartments within the statue (as in the Rabbinic account). Then the children were offered, at first a few, and then more and more.

Karel Čapek's ''War with the Newts''

In Karel Čapek's '' War with the Newts'' (1936), the Newts counter Christian attempts at

conversion Conversion or convert may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman'' * "Conversion" (''Stargate Atlantis''), an episode of the television series * "The Conversion" ...

by turning to a god of their own creation named Moloch:

Allen Ginsberg's "Howl"

's poem " Howl" (1955), Moloch is used as a metaphor for industrial civilization and for America more specifically. The word is repeated many times throughout Part II of the poem, and begins (as an exclamation of "Moloch!") all but the first and last five

stanzas In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have ei ...

of the section.

As social or political allegory

Moloch is sometimes used to indicate something that demands immense sacrifice and subservience. Museo nazionale del Cinema - Cabiria (Turin) crop

Museo nazionale del Cinema - Cabiria (Turin) crop

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

referred to

money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money ar ...

as a Moloch in ''

Capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used fo ...

'' and in '' Grundrisse''. * Anti-abortion advocates B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols used the child sacrifice to Moloch as a metaphor for

abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pre ...

in an 1894 publication. *In

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, a ...

's ''A Free Man's Worship'' (1903), Moloch is used to describe a particularly savage brand of religion: *During the growth of vehicle ownership in the United States, the concern for automobile deaths prompted at least one editorial cartoonist to label the automobile "the Modern Moloch", viewing the car as a machine of death. *In letters of the Munich Cosmic Circle the name Moloch was used to symbolize a Jewish God, hostile to life. *In ''The Gathering Storm'' (1948), the first volume of

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

's history of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Churchill describes

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...

's triumph at the moment he finally achieved total power in 1933: *

Garry Wills Garry Wills (born May 22, 1934) is an American author, journalist, political philosopher, and historian, specializing in American history, politics, and religion, especially the history of the Catholic Church. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Genera ...

' article "Our Moloch" (2012) in ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'' used Moloch as a metaphor for guns, to which "we sacrifice children".Wills, Garry. "Our Moloch". ''

''. December 15, 2012.

In film

* In

's 1927

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

Metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big c ...

'', the industrial machinery of the factory is envisioned as a sacrificial temple to Moloch. * The 1963 Italian film ''

Hercules vs. Moloch ''Hercules vs. Moloch'' ( it, Ercole contro Moloch, french: Hercule contre Moloch, also released as Conquest of Mycenae) is a 1963 Italian/French international co-production peplum film written and directed by Giorgio Ferroni and starring Gordon ...

'' pits the mythological hero against the evil worshipers of Moloch.

References

Informational notes Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

HelgaSeeden, "A tophet in Tyre?" 1991.
from ''Bertyus'' 39 (American University of Beirut). {{Authority control Book of Leviticus Child sacrifice Deities in the Hebrew Bible Evil deities Horned deities Mythological bulls Phoenician mythology West Semitic gods Gehenna

Etymology

Biblical attestations

Masoretic text

Septuagint and New Testament

Theories

Moloch as a deity

Moloch as a form of sacrifice

As a rite of passage

Moloch in art and culture

Medieval and modern artistic depictions

In literature

Milton's ''Paradise Lost''

Flaubert's ''Salammbô''

Karel Čapek's ''War with the Newts''

Allen Ginsberg's "Howl"

As social or political allegory

In film

See also

References

Sources

External links