Genesis 22:2: And God said to Abraham, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you."
This happened around 1800 BC to 1500 BC. Abraham worshipped his God. There were other civilizations scattered all over the world. The other communities worshipped their own gods.
To appease their gods, and goaded on by their priests, it was normal for the other communities to sacrifice their most precious possessions to their gods. What were their most precious possessions? - Their children's lives. Child sacrifice was not uncommon.
Abraham would not have been very surprised by God's request. But it had a happy ending.
Read this excerpt, from the book "VANISHED CIVILIZATIONS", on the ancient ritual of child sacrifice carried out in the defunct civilization at Carthage. This could be what happened in ancient civilizations:
"Sacrifices took place at night before a great bronze statue of the supreme god Baal Hammon. The parents brought their sacrificial child to the site - an infant between two and three years old, sometimes older. The ceremony included loud music and a great deal of festivities, and at the appropriate moment the child was taken by a priest to have his or her throat slit in a secret ritual. The body was then placed on the statue's outstretched arms, from which it rolled off into the flames of a fire. During the crisis in the 4th century when Agathocles besieged Carthage, 200 children are said to have been sacrificed."
In Christ, it was the reverse - God sent His Son as a sacrifice to die on the cross to save us. Hallelujah!
(Picture: The Diocletian Palace at Split/Croatia, built for Roman Emperor Diocletian.)
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