Living Sacrifice: Rethinking Abrahamic Religious Sacrifice using Field Narratives of Eid ul-‐Adha (original) (raw)
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Abraham's Curse. Child Sacrifice in the Legacies of the West
Review of Rabbinic Judaism, 2008
Out of the religious resources of three distinct traditions, Chilton forms a single theological system, a theology that makes the same normative statement for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. That single truth claim is sustained out of the revealed resources of the three traditions respectively. Bearing the subscript, "The Roots of Violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam," this remarkable book turns narrative historical study into constructive theology, random facts of times past into a system of eternal truth. Specifically, Chilton traces the doctrine of martyrdom in the history of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and transforms historical facts into probative theological propositions for the three monotheisms severally and jointly. It is not every day that a historian of Christianity undertakes a theological task and not only for Christianity but for Judaism and Islam as well. Chilton takes as his narrative the accounts of the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22) in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Abraham is commanded by God to take his son Isaac to Moriah and to offer him as a sacrifice, and Abraham obediently makes the journey, stopping only when a new instruction substitutes a ram for the boy. But Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son, and Isaac was ready to be sacrificed. The issue embodied in the narrative is martyrdom, dying for God. Isaac, or for Islam his half-brother Ishmael, represents one prepared to give his life for God, and Christianity follows suit in seeing Jesus as the realization of the sacrifice. Chilton says, "By examining the Aqedah and how it has been developed and deployed within the Abrahamic religions. .. I hope to lay bare the sacrificial roots of violence and the driving force behind martyrdom." The shank of the book then unfolds in three parts, dealing with Judaism, then Christianity, and finally Islam. The parts are historical and scholarly narratives, but, as is clear, even if Chilton does not shape the facts he also does not propose to surrender to them without standing in judgment on them. Martyrdom is the Jewish invention, deriving from the time of the Maccabees, who "made Abraham's offering a model for all Israelites,
Sacrifice: A Cultural Reading of Hebrews
2016
The practice of sacrifices to the ancestors is still prevalent among some African Christians and it is inspired by various factors such as religious considerations or political aspirations through African renaissance. Furthermore, scholars argue as to whether this practice of sacrifices to the ancestors is Biblical or not. This article aims to determine that, from Hebrews, the demise of Old Testament sacrifices brings an end to ancestral sacrifice. 1.
Offerings Bloody and Unbloody: Considerations for Christian Sacrifice and Old Testament Theology
The language of sacrifice appears prominently in the New Testament and the liturgical theology of various early Christian writers. It has often been considered a “spiritualization” of the Israelite cult centered at the Temple in Jerusalem. As such it can be seen as an embarrassing holdover from primitive religion, or a moral progression in religious thought. The way that continuity with the Temple cult is applied to the death of Jesus and Christian eucharistic theology has proven ecumenically controversial, and this has in recent year revived interest in the way that the Old Testament cult informs Christian theology. In this paper I will consider how a Christian understanding of sacrifice might helpfully rely upon general contextual understandings of sacrificial rituals. By examining two prominent theologians’ work, I will demonstrate the limit of attempts to trace the language of sacrifice as it pertains to Jesus and Christian worship back to specific types of sacrifice. I will apply critiques from recent Old Testament studies that suggest no easy metaphorical readings for that cult. This will demonstrate that Christian theologians are on firmest ground when they use the Old Testament sacrificial system as a matrix of rituals that maintain Israel’s life with Yahweh. The atoning work of Jesus and the ongoing worship of Christians can be seen as reflecting some of the purposes of that system, but the analogies break down when a strictly defined theory of Old Testament sacrificed is advanced as the basis for them.
The primeval history in Genesis 1-11 has been classified as " mythology " because of the a-historical nature of its content. This has led some people to query the veracity of the incidents and episodes reported in this pericope. It is therefore necessary to reexamine the provenance of these incidents and episodes, in the light of other realities such as the common role of sacrifice in religious traditions across diverse human cultures. Hinged on the theory of Hermeneutic Spiral, this paper employs Inner Biblical Exegesis (IBE) and the Historical Critical methods to examine the relationship between the " Proto-atonement text " (Gen.3:21) and selected " Atonement Texts " within the Bible. The findings are then illuminated with the realities of sacrificial rites in the Yoruba traditional religion and some other African traditional religions. The study reveals that atonement by blood is a shared concept among diverse cultures of the world. This lends credence to the position that all humanity has a shared origin, from which they inherited and perpetuated the concept and practice of atonement by blood. This position, if considered in tandem with other evidences, strengthens the veracity of the Proto-atonement text and thereby fortifies the provenance of Gen.1-11.
Sacrifice in the Holy Scriptures and Jew 2021
This paper presents an alternative to traditional Judeo-Christian viewpoints on the subject of sacrifice and how it relates to worship. It is an abbreviated version of the full length book that we hope to publish through Miltha Ministries on the original faith of Abraham and Jesus.
Perhaps none of the Israelites' activities seem more strange or disturbing to modern minds than the practice of animal sacrifices. Live animals being cut open, their blood poured out on the ground or splashed on the altar, their carcasses being sliced into pieces, their fat and their kidneys burned as a sweet-smelling oblation to the Lord (Lev 3:1-5) – all these things probably turn the current reader's stomach queasy and flood the mind with horrible images of wretched anguish and gore. The stench and the sight of these blood-fests would hardly seem to inspire devotion to God, notwithstanding the awe and fear, nor act as a magnet drawing the Israelites into passionate celebration before the meeting tent (later the temple). Surely there is an elite, naïve bias to this vision. When looking back over the centuries at hunting, for example, people grow teary-eyed and decry the actions of these " nasty men " killing those sweet little (Bambi) deer, those adorable little cottontails, or those furry little squirrels. Since prehistory , men have hunted animals mostly as a way of feeding themselves and their families. How can we claim impartial innocence or religious disdain now when the same God who made the deer, the rabbit, and the squirrel likewise made the wolf, the bear, and the mountain lion? To condemn the predator-prey relationship is, by extension, to condemn nature and God (as well as yourself by exhibiting such prurient ignorance). The world He created is not filled with vicious, evil predators in counter-play to utterly lovable, inoffensive prey. The Lord created a system of checks and balances, as Yellowstone and other nature reserves discovered when the wolves were systematically eliminated or simply allowed to disappear. The elk population expanded and destroyed much of the fauna and the cottonweed and willow seedlings. The scarcity of marshland trees then changed the flow of rivers that beavers used to create dams, so they began to disappear also over the next 70 years. Immense harm and damage befell the park's eco-environment, but has since improved somewhat with the re-introduction of wolves. All of life is a sacrifice of sorts: the hunted for the hunter, the wheat for the miller, and the grapes for the winegrower. True, you may say in retort; but these interactions have their own instinctual beginnings, and most would concede merited ends, as deemed biologically necessary and justified in our ongoing efforts for survival – far from the cold-hearted institution of killing animals simply for the purpose of exculpating someone's sins or expunging human guilt. Looking back on the Israelites now after thousands of years, they really were a gruesome bunch. Quite the contrary, their flocks were valuable to them, like gold, and they were hardly blessed to eat animal protein each and every day, beyond those creatures that were caught or died naturally, such as the antelope or the gazelle. Rarely would they 'kill the fatted calf' from their own herds, which would have been formalized on festive or required occasions. Other nations in the Middle East, to be sure, conducted animal sacrifices, though seldom at the behest of written divine proclamation (Ex 34:23-26). The Egyptians who worshipped, even preserved, some animals as sacred were reportedly offended by the callousness of the Israelites' sacrifices to the point of maybe stoning them at the altar and deigning not even to share a meal with them (Gen 43:32; Ex 8:22-23; 8:26-27 KJV).
Sacrifice in the Old Testament Starbuck
The Lexham Bible Dictionary, 2015
The manipulation of an animal, vegetal, or liquid as religious devotion. This can include ritual slaughter, division, reconfiguration, cooking, consuming, and/or complete burning.