In the Hebrew Bible Tophet or Topheth (Hebrew: תוֹפֶת Greek: Ταφεθ; Latin: Topheth) was a location in Jerusalem in the Gehinnom where worshipers influenced by the ancient Canaanite religion engaged in the human sacrifice of children to the gods Moloch and Baal by burning them alive. Tophet became a theological or poetic synonym for hell within Christendom.
The traditional explanation that a burning rubbish heap in the Valley of Hinnom south of Jerusalem gave rise to the idea of a fiery Gehenna of judgment is attributed to Rabbi David Kimhi’s commentary on Psalms 27:13. He maintained that in this loathsome valley fires were kept burning perpetually to consume the filth and cadavers thrown into it. However, Hermann Strack and Paul Billerbeck state that there is neither archaeological nor literary evidence in support of this claim, in either the earlier intertestamental or the later rabbinic sources.
The Valley of Hinnom was used as a place for worshipers in Judah to burn their own children alive as sacrifices to the gods Moloch and Baal. One section of the Hinnom Valley was called Topheth (also spelled Tophet or Topeth), where the children were slaughtered (2 Kings 23:10). The name Topheth is derived from either, or both, the Hebrew word toph, meaning a drum, because the cries of children being sacrificed by the priests of Moloch were masked by the sound of the beating on drums or tambourines; or from taph or toph, meaning to burn.
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Author: Wikipedia
Keywords: Tophet, Topheth, Valley of Hinnom, Gehinnom, Gehenna, hell, valley of the sons of hinnom, Valley of slaughter, Moloch
Bible reference(s): 2 Kings 23:10, Psalms 106:38, Isaiah 30:33, Jeremiah 7:31, Jeremiah 7:32, Jeremiah 19:6, Jeremiah 19:11, Jeremiah 19:12, Jeremiah 19:13, Jeremiah 19:14
Source: This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Tophet,” which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
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