The Biblical Data...
The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: `I am the LORD your God. 3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. 4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the LORD your God. 5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD.
6 "`No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the LORD.
7 "`Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her.
8 "`Do not have sexual relations with your father's wife; that would dishonor your father.
9 "`Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father's daughter or your mother's daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere.
10 "`Do not have sexual relations with your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter; that would dishonor you.
11 "`Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father's wife, born to your father; she is your sister.
12 "`Do not have sexual relations with your father's sister; she is your father's close relative.
13 "`Do not have sexual relations with your mother's sister, because she is your mother's close relative.
14 "`Do not dishonor your father's brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations; she is your aunt.
15 "`Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son's wife; do not have relations with her.
16 "`Do not have sexual relations with your brother's wife; that would dishonor your brother.
17 "`Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.
18 "`Do not take your wife's sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living.
19 "`Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period.
20 "`Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor's wife and defile yourself with her.
21 "`Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.
22 "`Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.
23 "`Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.
24 "`Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. 25 Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things, 27 for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. 28 And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you. 29 "`Everyone who does any of these detestable things -- such persons must be cut off from their people. 30 Keep my requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them. I am the LORD your God.'" (Lev 18, repeated in Lev 20)
The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Say to the Israelites: `Any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him. 3 I will set my face against that man and I will cut him off from his people; for by giving his children to Molech, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. 4 If the people of the community close their eyes when that man gives one of his children to Molech and they fail to put him to death, 5 I will set my face against that man and his family and will cut off from their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molech. (Lev 20.1ff)
You must not worship the LORD your God in their way, because in worshipping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods. (Deut 12.31)
10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, (Deut 18.10)
They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood. (Ps 106.38--about Israel!)
There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites. (I Kgs 14.24, cf. also Deut 23.17--No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute.)
So, the list of Canaanite "religious" practices included:
Child sacrifice (with at least some of it in fire)
Incest
Bestiality
Homosexual practices
Cultic prostitution--both male and female.
Let's see if the extra-biblical data supports the biblical material.
Child sacrifice (with at least some of it in fire)
Sadly, Yes.
Let's look at some of the scholarly descriptions of the data:
"Its origin (human sacrifice) must be sought, evidently, in Canaanite culture (in the broad sense). Punic and Neo-Punic inscriptions contain the expressions mlk 'mr (transcribed mokhomor in Latin) and mlk 'dm. Very probably, these phrases mean respectively 'offerings of lamb' and 'offering of man', and refer to the sacrifice of an infant, or of a lamb as substitute. This interpretation is supported by a find in the sanctuary of Tanit at Carthage, where archaeologists have discovered urns containing burnt bones of lambs and goats, and, more often, of children. There is, too, a famous text of Diodorus Siculus (Biblioth. Hist. XX 14): in 310 B.C., when a disaster was threatening Carthage, the inhabitants of the town decided it was due to the anger of Kronos, to whom they had formerly sacrificed their finest children: instead, they had begun to offer sickly children, or children they had bought. Thereupon, they sacrificed two hundred children from the noblest families. There was a bronze statue of Kronos with outstretched arms, and the child was placed on its hands and rolled into the furnace. Whether the details be true or false, the story is evidence of a custom to which other classical authors also allude.
"These inscriptions and texts are of late date, but the molk offering is mentioned in two steles from Malta belonging to the seventh or the sixth century B.C. The sacrificial term has not so far been found in inscriptions from Phoenicia proper, but child-sacrifice was practised there: a fragment of Philo of Byblos cited in Eusebius (Praep. Evang. I 10) says that the Phoenicians had an ancient custom--'they offered their dearest children in a way full of mystery' when danger threatened the nation. Porphyry (De abstin. II 56) says that the Phoenician History written by Sanchuniaton and translated by Philo of Byblos was full of stories about child-sacrifices offered to Kronos in times of calamity. These texts furnish the connecting-link with the story told by Diodorus Siculus, and we may mention also the reference to the king of Moab's offering his son as a holocaust when his capital was under siege (2 K 3 : 27).
"The sacrifice of children, then, by burning them to death probably made its way into Israel from Phoenicia (note: the main transmitter of Canaanite culture) during a period of religious syncretism. The Bible mentions only two specific instances, and they are motivated by the same exceptional circumstances as the Phoenician sacrifices: Achaz 'made his son pass through the fire' (2 K I6: 3) during the Syro-Ephraimite War, and Manasseh did the same (2 K 2I: 6) when confronted with some Assyrian threat which is not mentioned in the Books of Kings but which may be alluded to in 2 Ch 33:11f. Yet the custom must have been fairly wide- spread to have deserved the condemnations uttered by Deuteronomy, Leviticus and the Prophets. Though Phoenician texts properly so called do not mention the word, it is possible (we say no more) that the sacrifice was called molk in Phoenicia, as in Carthage, and that it came into Israel under this name." (AI:445-446).
