Posted on 02/17/2010 10:10:18 AM PST by decimon
Kindertoten ping.
Other than 100 or so years of war and invasion, I can’t imagine why the Roman’s would talk smack about Carthage...
That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read. Carthaginian inscriptions, ancient chroniclers, the Old Testament and this scientist’s results all show infant sacrifice by the Carthaginians. But the “scientist” then says: “Our results show that some children were sacrificed, but they contradict the conclusion that Carthaginians were a brutal bunch who regularly sacrificed their own children.” Ridiculous. It’s like he wanted to disprove infant sacrifice and couldn’t so he just spun it that way.
Carthage is not mentioned in the Bible.
Please note that this is University of Pittsburgh research, so still has scientific credibility, unlike Pennsylvania State University, that can no longer be considered a credible research facility as long as Michael Mann, creator of the “horse hockey graph” of global climate change remains in their employ.
Attitudes about Rome are interesting. In recent times it's been popular to portray the Romans as brutal conquerors of harmless peoples. Peoples who were harmlessly attacking Rome for hundreds of years. By modern standards, there just weren't any good guys back then.
Spoilsports.
Wrong in a sense. Caananites and Tophet. The Carthaginian people; their ancestors.
I doubt that ‘infant sacrifice’ was uncommon anywhere back then. Probably not at any time.
The Romans even accused them of purchasing young babies from impoverished peasants along the Italian coast for the purpose of sacrificing them.
The Carthaginians semitic relatives throughout the area ALSO accused them of infant sacrifice.
Now, as nasty a piece of propaganda as the story might seem, EVERYBODY said it about the Carthaginians but not about each other!
It's probably more like the Aztec practice of bringing in sacrificial victims from their tributary tribes. By the time the Spaniards showed up the tributaries were ready for a revolution!
The Spanish economic competitors of the time ~ the Brits, Scandinavians, French and Italians did not criticize the Spanish for helping put down the Aztecs although they did criticize them for every other thing under the Sun.
The fact the researchers found "newborns" suggests nothing else than that the Carthaginians preferred "fresh meat" to serve Saturn!
Our chroniclers will say something like: only 1 in 5 children were sacrificed on the altar of selfishness while still in the womb. This means that America of the late 20th and early 21st century was not at all uncaring about their unborn children.
Just looking through my Bible here, I don’t see the land that Carthage was in isn’t in any of the maps until they show Paul’s mission trips. Those would be after Christ’s death and resurrection.
Maybe this guy set out to prove the Bible wrong, but picked the wrong city. Or maybe the reporter doesn’t have his facts straight. I can’t believe a reporter could be wrong, though.
Agreed, it’s tough to sing Kumbya with a pilum stuck in your back.
Phonecia is mentioned under later names as Canaan, Israel, Judea, Syria, Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and Arvad
Because they hideously murdered fewer children than was thought, the researchers have concluded that the Cathagenians weren’t brutal. That makes sense in liberal academia.
On the other hand, I guess we might not think the Cathaginians not so terribly brutal if we compare their infant sacrifices to the tens of millions of babies we have sacrificed to the religions of feminism, liberalism, and zero population growth.
Lev.18:21 forbids the Israelites to sacrifice their children--which presupposes that it was a known custom in the area which they were not to follow.
2 Kings 3:27 tells of the king of Moab taking his oldest son and offering him for a burnt offering (the king is identified as Mesha in verse 4). The Moabites lived east of the Dead Sea and were descended from Lot, Abraham's nephew, according to Genesis 19:37.
Maybe this guy set out to prove the Bible wrong, but picked the wrong city. Or maybe the reporter doesn’t have his facts straight. I can’t believe a reporter could be wrong, though.
I do not see why you are looking in the Bible to find out about Carthage. What does the Bible have to do with it? Rome completely destroyed the city in 146 BC. The period of the Punic Wars (264 BC-146 BC) is not covered in the Old Testament and predates the New Testament. According to the maps I have seen of Paul's missionary journeys, he did not go to the site of ancient Carthage. In Paul's time, no one would have referred to a country or a place called Carthage. It no longer existed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.