Editing Tophet (section)

==Biblical and Levantine references==
===In the Bible===
[[File:Valley of Hinom PA180093.JPG|thumb|200px|Tombs in the [[Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna)|Valley of Hinnom]], the location of the tophet according to the Bible.]]
The tophet is attested 8 times in the Hebrew Bible, mostly to designate a place of ritual fire or burning, but sometimes as a place name.{{sfn|Stavrakopoulou|2013|p=139}} The connection to ritual fire is made explicit in {{Bibleverse|2 Kings|23:10|he}}, {{Bibleverse|Isaiah|30:33|he}}; and {{Bibleverse|Jeremiah|7:31-32|he}}. In 2 Kings, King [[Josiah]] {{blockquote|defiled Topheth, which is in [[Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna)|the valley of the son of Hinnom]], that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.}} The text includes the destruction of the Tophet among Josiah's other removal of "deviant" religious practices from Israel as part of a far reaching religious reform.{{sfn|Stavrakopoulou|2013|pp=137-138}} However, the continued condemnation of both the tophet and related practices by prophets such as [[Jeremiah]] and  [[Ezekiel]] suggests that the practice may have continued after Josiah's reform, with a mention of the tophet by [[Isaiah]] suggesting it may have even continued after the [[Babylonian exile]].{{sfn|Heider|1999|p=584}} Prior to Josiah's reform, the ritual of passing a child through the fire is mentioned, without specifying that it took place at the tophet, as having been performed by the Israelite kings [[Ahaz]] and [[Manasseh of Judah|Manasseh]]:
{{blockquote|But [Ahaz] walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel. ({{Bibleverse|2 Kings|16:3|he}})}}
{{blockquote|And [Manasseh] made his son to pass through the fire, and practised soothsaying, and used enchantments, and appointed them that divined by a ghost or a familiar spirit: he wrought much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him. ({{Bibleverse|2 Kings|21:6|he}})}}
Both kings perform the sacrifices when faced with the prospect of wars.{{sfn|Bauks|2006|p=72}} The sacrifices appear to have been to [[Yahweh]], the god of Israel,{{sfn|Ackerman|1993}} and to have been performed in the tophet.{{sfn|King|1993|p=136}}

The tophet is condemned repeatedly by name in the [[Book of Jeremiah]], and the term is especially associated with that book of the bible.{{sfn|King|1993|p=136}} An example is at {{Bibleverse|Jeremiah|7:31–33|he}}:

{{blockquote|And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither came it into My mind. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the {{LORD}}, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter; for they shall bury in Topheth, for lack of room.}}

Jeremiah associates the tophet with [[Baal]]; however, other sources all associate it with Moloch.{{sfn|Ackerman|1993}}

P. Xella argues that no fewer than twenty-five passages in the Hebrew Bible show the Israelites and Canaanites sacrificing their children, including passages in [[Deuteronomy]], (Dt. 12:13, 18:10), [[Leviticus]] (Lev. 18:21, 20:2-5), 2 Kings, [[2 Chronicles]], Isaiah, Ezra, [[Psalm 106]], and the [[Book of Job]].{{sfn|Xella|2013|pp=264-265}} In {{Bibleverse|2 Kings|3:26-27|he}}, king [[Mesha]] of Moab burns his first-born son as an offering while besieged by the Israelites:
{{blockquote|And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew sword, to break through unto the king of Edom; but they could not. Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt-offering upon the wall. And there came great wrath upon Israel; and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.}}
This act has been compared with Greco-Roman sources discussing the Phoenicians and Carthaginians engaging in the same or a similar practice in times of danger (see below). It appears to have been performed for the Moabite god [[Kemosh]].{{sfn|Bauks|2006|pp=70-71}}

===Extrabiblical attestations===
There is no archaeological evidence for the Tophet at Jerusalem, so that we are reliant on the biblical descriptions to understand it.{{sfn|Stavrakopoulou|2013|p=139}} Archaeology has not yet securely identified any Tophets in the [[Levant]], but there is other evidence for child sacrifice there.{{sfn|Quinn|2011|p=390}} Ancient Egyptian inscriptions from the second millennium BCE attest the practice in the Levant.{{sfn|Bauks|2006|p=58}} A late 8th-century BCE Phoenician inscription from [[İncirli, Pazarcık|İncirli]] in Turkey may indicate that first born sons were sacrificed there along with sheep and horses.{{sfn|Holm|2005|p=7134}} The sacrifice of first-born sons in times of crisis appears to be dealt with at length in the inscription, although the precise context is unclear.{{sfn|Kaufman|2007|pp=9-10}}

Greco-Roman sources also reference child sacrifice, such as an attempt at [[Tyre, Lebanon|Tyre]] to revive a custom of sacrificing a boy during [[Alexander the Great]]'s [[Siege of Tyre (332 BC)|Siege of Tyre]] in 332 BCE, recorded by first century CE Roman historian [[Quintus Curtius Rufus]].{{sfn|Quinn|2011|p=390}} The church historian [[Eusebius]] (3rd century CE) quotes from [[Philo of Byblos]]'s Phoenician history that:{{sfn|Bauks|2006|p=71}}
{{blockquote|It was a custom of the ancients in great crises of danger for the rulers of a city or nation, in order to avert the common ruin, to give up the most beloved of their children for sacrifice as a ransom to the avenging daemons; and those who were thus given up were sacrificed with mystic rites. Kronos then, whom the Phoenicians call Elus, who was king of the country and subsequently, after his decease, was deified as the star Saturn, had by a nymph of the country named Anobret an only begotten son, whom they on this account called ledud, the only begotten being still so called among the Phoenicians; and when very great dangers from war had beset the country, he arrayed his son in royal apparel, and prepared an altar, and sacrificed him.
:(Euseubius of Caesarea, ''Praeparatio Evangelica'' 1.10.44 <nowiki>=</nowiki> 4.16.11){{sfn|Eusebius|1903}}}}

===Theories===

Although a minority of scholars has argued that the tophet ritual described in the Bible was a harmless activity that did not involve sacrificing any children, the majority of scholars agree that the Bible depicts human sacrifice as occurring at the tophet.{{sfn|Stavrakopoulou|2013|p=140}} Modern scholarship has described sacrifice at the Tophet as a ''mulk'' or ''mlk'' sacrifice. The term appears to derive from a verb meaning "presentation as an offering" from the root {{lang|xpu|ylk}} "to offer, present" and found in Phoenician and Carthaginian inscriptions in the phrases {{lang|xpu|mlk ʾdm}} "sacrifice a human", {{lang|xpu|mlk bʿl}} "to sacrifice a citizen", and {{lang|xpu|mlk bšr}} "sacrifice in place of flesh".{{sfn|Holm|2005|p=7134}} Lawrence Stager and Samuel Wolff argue that the term "refers to a live sacrifice of a child or animal".{{sfn|Stager|Wolff|1984}}{{sfn|Kerr|2018}}

The god to whom these sacrifices was directed is disputed in modern scholarship, with a dispute arising over whether the sacrifices were part of the cult of [[Yahweh]].{{sfn|Xella|2013|p=265}} Traditionally, the god to whom the sacrifices were offered has been said to be [[Molech]], supposedly an underworld god whose name means king.{{sfn|Cooper|2005|p=7132}}{{sfn|Stavrakopoulou|2013|p=143}} The Bible connects the Tophet with Moloch in two later texts, 2 Kings 23:10 and Jeremiah 32:35.{{sfn|Stavrakopoulou|2013|pp=143-144}} Lindsay Cooper writes in support of this connection that "The location of the Jerusalem tofet outside the city's eastern wall, at the traditional entrance to the netherworld, explicitly connects child sacrifice with the cult of death."{{sfn|Cooper|2005|p=7132}} However, while scholars recognize the existence of an underworld deity called "M-l-k" with various vocalizations (e.g. Molech, Milcom) as well as an [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] term {{lang|akk|maliku}} for the shades of the dead, there is no evidence to connect these deities or shades to human sacrifice. Later Phoenician and Punic sacrifices of children called ''mlk'' in inscriptions or described by Greco-Roman sources are not associated with these gods.{{sfn|Holm|2005|p=7134}} On the basis of the word {{lang|he|mlk}} meaning "to sacrifice" "an increasing number of scholars now take the biblical traditions to attest not to the offering of children in fiery sacrifices to the deity "Molek", but rather to the sacrifice of children as "mlk" offerings to another deity".{{sfn|Stavrakopoulou|2013|p=147}} On the basis of the stories of [[Abraham]] and [[Jephthah]] offering their children to Yahweh, as well as Micah 6:6-7 and other passages, Francesca Stavrakopoulou argues that the offerings were in fact for Yahweh rather than for a foreign deity.{{sfn|Stavrakopoulou|2013|pp=147-152}}

===Association with punishment===
The topheth's description as a place of punishment derives in part by the use of the word in {{Bibleverse|Isaiah|30:33|he}}, in which Yahweh ignites a large tophet to punish the [[Assyria]]ns:
{{blockquote|For a hearth [tophet] is ordered of old; yea, for the king it is prepared, deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.}}
The location of the tophet, the valley of [[Gehenna]], subsequently became a place of punishment in the [[eschatology]] of [[Jewish Apocalypticism]], something found in the 3rd- or 4th-century BCE [[Book of Enoch]] (1 Enoch 26:4; 27:2–3).{{sfn|Reich|1993}} The [[Talmud]], discussing the passage in Isaiah, states that whoever commits evil will fall there (Eruvin 19a).{{sfn|Kerr|2020|p=39}}