Hi, I had a general question about how molech. Were there difference version of whether molech involved human sacrifice and if it did not, were there other forms of avodah zara that did involved human sacrifice
I seem to remember from Sanhedrin that the child was just past through (or the person jumped with the child) through pillars to the molech priest. But there seem to be other places that discuss human sacrifice as a "thing" (meisha melech moav?)
Thank you!
Michael J. Rubin
Brooklyn, New York
Shalom Rav,
The basic Avodah of Molech was to pass the victim over a pile of stones with fires burning on both sides, as the Gemara explains in Sanhedrin (64b). See Rashi DH Shraga d'Livni.
The same Rashi asks from the Gemara on the previous Daf, which explains that Achaz passed his son Chizkiyahu through fire, and he survived only because his mother smeared him with salamander oil. He answers that that was not Molech, but the god of Sefarvayim, where the victims did indeed die.
B'Virchas Kol Tuv,
Eliezer Chrysler