Pro:
Quoting from your Post #9: "I am aware of the verses in Ezekiel which tell of child sarifice to Molech. However, I have also read(somewhere again) that Molech did not exist as a god to the middle-eastern peoples. Perhaps you know something about this?"
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"Molech was an ancient fire deity, of a common type worshipped throughout Canaan generally, and Phoenicia particularly. Under various names, depending upon the city or country, Molech is essentially identical with Chemosh of Moab, and probably Melqart of Tyre. The general name for this type of fire god used throughout Palestine was Baal, meaning ‘lord.’ Molech was the national deity of the country of Ammon, east of the Jordan, or the Ammonites. Molech was also worshipped by the Israelites on many occasions, much to the distress of the prophets.
According to Jewish tradition, the cult idol of Molech was made of brass, hollow, and with hands so positioned that something laid therein would fall to the fire below. The practice of laying a child across the hands, and thus committing them to the fire, was termed ‘pass through the fire to Molech.’"
For the rest of the article, see:
http://www.ancientroute.com/religion/Godsname/molech.htm
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As to the origin of "Molech" I do not know whether it's Canaan, Assyria, or outside the Middle East, but it seems that most sources agree that Molech by his various names is Canaanite, Moabite, Carthagenean, and Phoenecian in origin.
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At
http://www.btinternet.com/~eleanor.scott there is a very long page with a lot of information on the Eastern Mediterranean region. A ways down the page, under the heading "Sacrifice" you will find this:
"The Carthaginians and other Phoenicians of the fourth and later centuries BC were a cosmopolitan, urbanised people, yet their religion retained a practice that was abhorrent to their Greek and Roman neighbours: they sacrificed their own young children to the gods. (Brown 1991, 13).
A number of Greek and Latin texts dating from the fifth century BC to the fifth century AD survive which refer to infant sacrifice. Shelby Brown has observed that, if the victims are described at all, they are usually said to be one or more of the following: young, male, rich (freeborn, noble), poor, the dedicant's own infant or child, or an infant sold to the dedicant. There are also occasional mentions of the infant being the first-born male or the best-loved (e.g. by Philo and Silius Italicus), and of being sacrificed singly and in huge numbers, in times of personal crisis and in times of war (Brown 1991, 22). In a further useful study of the Phoenician practice, Alexandra Lee notes that the infants were aged between 0-4 years, and they were burnt, possibly whilst drugged or already dead, and their remains collected and placed in cinerary urns along with small trinkets or pottery provided by the parents (Lee 1994, 67; 1997). The pots depicted on sacrificial stelae indicate that there were rituals associated with killing and burying an infant which required planning, preparation and possibly professional assistance, and the parents were careful to add their names and genealogies to the markers in order to announce publicly that they had fulfilled their vow to the gods (Brown 1991, 171, 172).
The ancient historian Diodorus Siculus, writing in the first century BC, discusses Carthaginian sacrifice as a response to war, and offers testimony to the feelings aroused in some parents to the practice. When Agathocles besieged Carthage in 310 BC the Carthaginians decided that the gods must be offended because, during recent sacrifices, noble parents had replaced their own children with secretly purchased substitutes who were clearly being regarded by the gods as less worthy offerings than "best-loved" children. Two hundred noble children were consequently selected for sacrifice and placed in the arms of a large bronze statue of Cronos, from which they fell into a pit of flames (Brown 1991, 23). Clearly that some parents endeavoured to substitute their own children with others' might be held to reveal a society deeply ill at ease with itself and its own religious practices, inasmuch as not all infants were willingly given and that there existed a trade in infants for sacrifice market which originated in the poorer parts of town." Plus additional information regarding human, and specifically child, sacrifice.
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I also found these links interesting regarding our discussion of blood sacrifice:
Sorry, blocked (While you're at this site, click on "Cain's Problem" under "Burnt Offerings.)
and
Sorry, blocked
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It seems to me that the authors of the Pentateuch were at least as committed to eradicating child sacrifice from common practice (thank goodness!), whether in Egypt or Canaan, as were the Prophets who repeatedly condemned its apparent repeated resurgences in Israel, Samaria, and Judea.
I guess the only paradox I see in it all is that in today's theology a grain (Cain's) offering is acceptable in leiu of a blood (Abel's) offering. Weird, huh?
Peace.
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