Human Sacrifice in Jewish and Christian Tradition

Human Sacrifice in Jewish and Christian Tradition PDF Author: Karin Finsterbusch
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 904740940X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
This volume asks to which extent ancient practices and traditions of human sacrifice are reflected in medieval and modern Judeo-Christian times. The first part of the volume, on antiquity, focuses on rituals of human sacrifice and polemics against it, as well as on transformations of human sacrifice in the Israelite-Jewish and Christian cultures, while the Ancient Near East and ancient Greece are not excluded. The second part of the volume, on medieval and modern times, discusses human sacrifice in Jewish and Christian traditions as well as the debates about euthanasia and death penalty in the Western world.

Human Sacrifice in Jewish and Christian Tradition

Human Sacrifice in Jewish and Christian Tradition PDF Author: Karin Finsterbusch
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 904740940X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 380

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume asks to which extent ancient practices and traditions of human sacrifice are reflected in medieval and modern Judeo-Christian times. The first part of the volume, on antiquity, focuses on rituals of human sacrifice and polemics against it, as well as on transformations of human sacrifice in the Israelite-Jewish and Christian cultures, while the Ancient Near East and ancient Greece are not excluded. The second part of the volume, on medieval and modern times, discusses human sacrifice in Jewish and Christian traditions as well as the debates about euthanasia and death penalty in the Western world.

Sacrifice in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Sacrifice in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam PDF Author: David L. Weddle
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814762816
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
An examination of the practice and philosophy of sacrifice in three religious traditions In the book of Genesis, God tests the faith of the Hebrew patriarch Abraham by demanding that he sacrifice the life of his beloved son, Isaac. Bound by common admiration for Abraham, the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam also promote the practice of giving up human and natural goods to attain religious ideals. Each tradition negotiates the moral dilemmas posed by Abraham’s story in different ways, while retaining the willingness to perform sacrifice as an identifying mark of religious commitment. This book considers the way in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims refer to “sacrifice”—not only as ritual offerings, but also as the donation of goods, discipline, suffering, and martyrdom. Weddle highlights objections to sacrifice within these traditions as well, presenting voices of dissent and protest in the name of ethical duty. Sacrifice forfeits concrete goods for abstract benefits, a utopian vision of human community, thereby sparking conflict with those who do not share the same ideals. Weddle places sacrifice in the larger context of the worldviews of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, using this nearly universal religious act as a means of examining similarities of practice and differences of meaning among these important world religions. This book takes the concept of sacrifice across these three religions, and offers a cross-cultural approach to understanding its place in history and deep-rooted traditions.

Child Sacrifice in Ancient Israel

Child Sacrifice in Ancient Israel PDF Author: Heath D. Dewrell
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 1646022017
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Among the many religious acts condemned in the Hebrew Bible, child sacrifice stands out as particularly horrifying. The idea that any group of people would willingly sacrifice their own children to their god(s) is so contrary to modern moral sensibilities that it is difficult to imagine that such a practice could have ever existed. Nonetheless, the existence of biblical condemnation of these rites attests to the fact that some ancient Israelites in fact did sacrifice their children. Indeed, a close reading of the evidence—biblical, archaeological, epigraphic, etc.—indicates that there are at least three different types of Israelite child sacrifice, each with its own history, purpose, and function. In addition to examining the historical reality of Israelite child sacrifice, Dewrell’s study also explores the biblical rhetoric condemning the practice. While nearly every tradition preserved in the Hebrew Bible rejects child sacrifice as abominable to Yahweh, the rhetorical strategies employed by the biblical writers vary to a surprising degree. Thus, even in arguing against the practice of child sacrifice, the biblical writers themselves often disagreed concerning why Yahweh condemned the rites and why they came to exist in the first place.

Flesh and Blood: Interrogating Freud on Human Sacrifice, Real and Imagined

Flesh and Blood: Interrogating Freud on Human Sacrifice, Real and Imagined PDF Author: Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004424806
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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Book Description
Fears and stories about an underground religion devoted to Satan, which demands and carries out child sacrifice, appeared in the United States in the late twentieth century and became the subject of media reports supported by some mental health professionals. Examining these modern fantasies leads us back to ancient stories which in some cases believers consider the height of religious devotion. Horrifying ideas about human sacrifice, child sacrifice, and the offering to the gods of a beloved only son by his father appear repeatedly in Western traditions, starting with the Greeks and the Hebrews. In Flesh and Blood: Interrogating Freud on Human Sacrifice, Real and Imagined, Beit-Hallahmi focuses on rituals of violence tied to religion, both imagined and real. The main focus of this work is the meaning of blood and ritual killing in the history of religion. The book examines the encounter with the idea of child sacrifice in the context of human hopes for salvation.

What Are Biblical Values?

What Are Biblical Values? PDF Author: John J. Collins
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300231938
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
What does the Bible actually say about many of today's most contentious moral issues? "For drawing attention to the relevant scriptures and for guidance in recognizing what are and aren't valid interpretations of them, Collins' pertinent brief is beyond praiseworthy."--Booklist (starred review) "Collins pours a lifetime of scholarship into this study of what the Bible says about controversial ethical topics. It's highly readable, and it's honest."--Jane McBride, Christian Century Many people today claim that their positions on various issues are grounded in biblical values, and they use scriptural passages to support their claims. But the Bible was written over the course of several hundred years and contains contradictory positions on many issues. The Bible seldom provides simple answers; it more often shows the complexity of moral problems. Can we really speak of "biblical values"? In this eye-opening book, one of the world's leading biblical scholars argues that when we read the Bible with care, we are often surprised by what we find. Examining what the Bible actually says on a number of key themes, John Collins covers a vast array of topics, including the right to life, gender, the role of women, the environment, slavery and liberation, violence and zeal, and social justice. With clarity and authority, he invites us to dramatically reimagine the basis for biblical ethics in the world today.

Understanding Religious Sacrifice

Understanding Religious Sacrifice PDF Author: Jeffrey Carter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441109218
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
This volume provides a thorough introduction to the major classic and modern writings dealing with religious sacrifice. Collected here are twenty five influential selections, each with a brief introduction addressing the overall framework and assumptions of its author. As they present different theories and examples of sacrifice, these selections also discuss important concepts in religious studies such as the origin of religion, totemism, magic, symbolism, violence, structuralism and ritual performance. Students of comparative religion, ritual studies, the history of religions, the anthropology of religion and theories of religion will particularly value the historical organization and thematic analyses presented in this collection.

Oxford Bibliographies

Oxford Bibliographies PDF Author: Ilan Stavans
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780199913701
Category : Hispanic Americans
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
"An emerging field of study that explores the Hispanic minority in the United States, Latino Studies is enriched by an interdisciplinary perspective. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, demographers, linguists, as well as religion, ethnicity, and culture scholars, among others, bring a varied, multifaceted approach to the understanding of a people whose roots are all over the Americas and whose permanent home is north of the Rio Grande. Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies offers an authoritative, trustworthy, and up-to-date intellectual map to this ever-changing discipline."--Editorial page.

Ritual and Metaphor

Ritual and Metaphor PDF Author: Christian Eberhart
Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers
ISBN: 9789004211643
Category : Christian literature, Early
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The sanctuary and rituals of ancient Judaism are long gone, yet their concepts, especially that of sacrifice, have remained essential to the rhetoric of politics, religion, and secular culture. The essays in this volume deal with central aspects of sacrificial rituals and processes of metaphor development and spiritualization in Judaism and Christianity.

Stories of Scottsboro

Stories of Scottsboro PDF Author: James Goodman
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0804151687
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 499

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Book Description
From the Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of But Where Is the Lamb? comes a grippingly narrated work of history and "edge-of-the-seat reportage" (Chicago Tribune) that tells the story of a case that marked a watershed in American racial justice. To white Southerners, it was "a heinous and unspeakable crime" that flouted a taboo as old as slavery. To the Communist Party, which mounted the defense, the Scottsboro case was an ideal opportunity to unite issues of race and class. To jury after jury, the idea that nine black men had raped two white women on a train traveling through northern Alabama in 1931 was so self-evident that they found the Scottsboro boys guilty even after the U.S. Supreme Court had twice struck down the verdict and one of the "victims" had recanted. This innovative work tells several stories. For out of dozens of period sources, Stories of Scottsboro re-creates not only what happened at Scottsboro, but the dissonant chords it struck in the hearts and minds of an entire nation.

Glory and Agony

Glory and Agony PDF Author: Yael Feldman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804777365
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
Glory and Agony is the first history of the shifting attitudes toward national sacrifice in Hebrew culture over the last century. Its point of departure is Zionism's obsessive preoccupation with its haunting "primal scene" of sacrifice, the near-sacrifice of Isaac, as evidenced in wide-ranging sources from the domains of literature, art, psychology, philosophy, and politics. By placing these sources in conversation with twentieth-century thinking on human sacrifice, violence, and martyrdom, this study draws a complex picture that provides multiple, sometimes contradictory insights into the genesis and gender of national sacrifice. Extending back over two millennia, this study unearths retellings of biblical and classical narratives of sacrifice, both enacted and aborted, voluntary and violent, male and female—Isaac, Ishmael, Jephthah's daughter, Iphigenia, Jesus. Glory and Agony traces the birth of national sacrifice out of the ruins of religious martyrdom, exposing the sacred underside of Western secularism in Israel as elsewhere.