my reply to Roger Pearse on Canaanite child sacrifice

 Roger Pearse gives the ancient historical sources for the ancient Canaanite practice of child sacrifice here:

https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2012/05/31/sacrifices-of-children-at-carthage-the-sources/?replytocom=1840887#respond

I posted this reply today, February 2, 2022, but it did not immediately appear as posted, and no message was left indicating the post was awaiting approval or moderation, so I'm cross-posting my reply here, just in case there was a "boo-boo" :)

Roger, what do you think of apologists like Frank Turek who make the specific claim that the Canaanites watched their babies "sizzle to death" in the flames?

That's his answer to the question of why the bible-god treated the Canaanites more harshly.

Apparently, he wants to make the bible-god appear justified to impose harsher treatment upon Canaanites.   And indeed, if the Canaanites were 'worse' sinners than most pagans in OT days, then fine.

Unfortunately, not only do none of the ancient historical sources on Canaanite child sacrifice express or imply that the kids were still alive when put in the fire, Plutarch's comment about cutting the throat of the child makes it reasonable to assume that the fire was used solely for cremation, i.e., the child died before its body was put in the fire.

In other words, Frank Turek and other apologists like him are not giving a reasonable answer, so the question of why God treated the Canaanites more harshly than other pagans, remains without reasonable answer, except of course the "god's mysterious ways" excuse that could be employed by any obvious heretic.

In other words, the skeptical contention that the god of the OT was arbitrarily cruel, has not been debunked, but continues to stay above water.  "Burn their children in the fire" does not necessarily require that the kids were still alive when placed in the flames, yet most Christians read "still alive when placed into the flames" into every biblical reference to this child-sacrifice ritual.  This is otherwise known as eisegesis.

But the bible-god's own willingness to burn babies to death is clear from Leviticus 21:9.  If any such priest-daughter existed, she could very well have become pregnant, and discovery of her sin could possibly be delayed for several months, in which case carrying out that law would mean killing her unborn child by fire too, and not just herself.

And if she is having sex with some guy in her priest-father's house, this is likely because she didn't have her own house to live in, implying she wasn't married, implying she was younger than 12, implying that she was still a "child" in the opinion of most modern Christians.