HUMAN SACRAFICES

On our radio show Brightside Bincheck, we have had mentioned human sacrifice several times, and while I have found it interesting I never really gave it much thought. Lately my mother has been reading a book about this as well, and sharing all the gory details with me (yuck). However I decided last night while dreaming about all the atrocious (thank god for spell check) ways that human sacrafices had been preformed, that I would do a little more research on the subject.

Just about every religion known to man, and a few that aren't ,has preformed human sacrafice throughout the ages. The act of killing one or more human's during a religous ritual was mostly part of the norm. History has seen human sacrafice's preformed in various cultures, victims were typically ritually killed in a manner that was supposed to please or appease the gods, spirits or the deceased, for propitiatory offer, or as a retainer sacrifice when the King's servants are killed in order for them to continue to serve their master in the next life. Closely related pracitices found in some tribal societies are cannibalism and headhunting. The Iron Age and its developments in religion meant that human sacrifice's were becoming less common throughout the Old World, and came to be widely looked down upon as barbaric. However, some people think that capital punishment is a form of human sacrifice, even though it isn't related to religion. Now in modern times human sarcirfice has become extremely rare, most religions condemn the practice, and present day secular laws treat it as murder. In the context of a society which condemns human sacrifice, the term ritual murder is used.

Human sacrifice has been practised on a number of different occasions and in many different cultures. The various rationales behind human sacrifice are the same that motivate religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice is intended to bring good fortune and to pacify the gods, for example in the context of the dedication of a completed building like a temple or bridge. There is a Chinese legend that there are thousands of people entombed in the Great Wall of China. In ancient Japan, legends talk about Hitobashira ("human pillar"), in which maidens were buried alive at the base or near some constructions as a prayer to ensure the buildings against disasters or enemy attacks. For the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they killed about 80,400 prisoners over the course of four days.

Human sacrifice can also have the intention of winning the gods' favour in warfare. In Homeric legend, Iphigeneia was to be sacrificed by her father Agamemnon for success in the Trojan War. According to the Bible, Jephthah vowed to sacrifice his daughter, though it is not said whether he went through with it or not. Another motivation for human sacrifice is burial: in some notions of an afterlife, the deceased will benefit from victims killed at his funeral. Mongols, Scythians, early Egyptians and various Mesoamerican chiefs could take most of their household, including servants and concubines, with them to the next world. This is sometimes called a "retainer sacrifice", as the leader's retainers would be sacrificed along with their master, so that they could continue to serve him in the afterlife. Another purpose is divination from the body parts of the victim. According to Strabo, Celts stabbed a victim with a sword and divined the future from his death spasms.

Even in the Old Testament there is numerous stories of animal and human sacrafice. God, we are told, likes the pleasing aroma of burning flesh. Even though animal sacrafice was much more common than human sacrafice, both of them occur and are "pleasing to the Lord". Genesis, the first book of the Bible, has Abraham preparing to sacrifice his son to God. As a test of Abraham's faith God tells him "Take your son, your only son - yes, Isaac, whom you love so much - and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrafice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will point out to you." (Genesis 22:1-18). Abraham did as his so called God told him to do. He got his son to help him build the altar where he would burn him. He tied his son to the altar, put a knife to his throat, before he hears God tell him this was just a test of his faith. However, God still wanted to smell some burnt flesh so he tells Abraham to burn a ram.

The first seven chapters of Leviticus have extensive rules reagarding animal and food sacrifices. These offereings are supposed to be burnt so that God can smell them. The priests got their followers to make a big feast for them every week, and the priests were very particular about what kind of food to bring and how to prepare it.

We all know that God had a thing about first borns as well, and to my utter shock there are a few bible passages about ritiual human sacrafice................................

JEPHTHAH BURNS HIS DAUGHTER

"At that time the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he went throughout the land of Gilead and Manasseh, including Mizpah in Gilead, and led an army against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD. He said, "If you give me victory over the Ammonites, I will give to the LORD the first thing coming out of my house to greet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering."

"So Jephthah led his army against the Ammonites, and the LORD gave him victory. He thoroughly defeated the Ammonites from Aroer to an area near Minnith – twenty towns – and as far away as Abel-keramim. Thus Israel subdued the Ammonites. When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter – his only child – ran out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. When he saw her, he tore his clothes in anguish. "My daughter!" he cried out. "My heart is breaking! What a tragedy that you came out to greet me. For I have made a vow to the LORD and cannot take it back." And she said, "Father, you have made a promise to the LORD. You must do to me what you have promised, for the LORD has given you a great victory over your enemies, the Ammonites. But first let me go up and roam in the hills and weep with my friends for two months, because I will die a virgin." "You may go," Jephthah said. And he let her go away for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never have children. When she returned home, her father kept his vow, and she died a virgin. So it has become a custom in Israel for young Israelite women to go away for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah's daughter." (Judges 11:29-40 NLT)

GOD COMMANDS BURNING HUMANS

[The Lord speaking] "The one who has stolen what was set apart for destruction will himself be burned with fire, along with everything he has, for he has broken the covenant of the LORD and has done a horrible thing in Israel." (Joshua 7:15 NLT)

JOSIAH AND HUMAN SACRIFICE

At the LORD's command, a man of God from Judah went to Bethel, and he arrived there just as Jeroboam was approaching the altar to offer a sacrifice. Then at the LORD's command, he shouted, "O altar, altar! This is what the LORD says: A child named Josiah will be born into the dynasty of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests from the pagan shrines who come here to burn incense, and human bones will be burned on you." (1 Kings 13:1-2 NLT)

He [Josiah] executed the priests of the pagan shrines on their own altars, and he burned human bones on the altars to desecrate them. Finally, he returned to Jerusalem. King Josiah then issued this order to all the people: "You must celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in the Book of the Covenant." There had not been a Passover celebration like that since the time when the judges ruled in Israel, throughout all the years of the kings of Israel and Judah. This Passover was celebrated to the LORD in Jerusalem during the eighteenth year of King Josiah's reign. Josiah also exterminated the mediums and psychics, the household gods, and every other kind of idol worship, both in Jerusalem and throughout the land of Judah. He did this in obedience to all the laws written in the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had found in the LORD's Temple. Never before had there been a king like Josiah, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and soul and strength, obeying all the laws of Moses. And there has never been a king like him since. (2 Kings 23:20-25 NLT

HUMAN SACRIFICE

Chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself. In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and shall dart about as sparks through stubble; (Wisdom 3:5-7 NAB The Book of The Wisdom of Solomon is mostly in Catholic versions of the Bible.)

CHILD SACRIFICE

And this became a hidden trap for mankind, because men, in bondage to misfortune or to royal authority, bestowed on objects of stone or wood the name that ought not to be shared. Afterward it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of God, but they live in great strife due to ignorance, and they call such great evils peace. For whether they kill children in their initiations, or celebrate secret mysteries, or hold frenzied revels with strange customs… (Wisdom 14:21-23 RSV) The Book of The Wisdom of Solomon is mostly in Catholic versions of the Bible. This passage condemns human sacrifice but acknowledges that it did happen by early God worshipers.

HUMANS ARE FUEL FOR FIRE

As for you, son of man, prophesy: Thus says the Lord GOD against the Ammonites and their insults: A sword, a sword is drawn for slaughter, burnished to consume and to flash lightning, because you planned with false visions and lying divinations to lay it on the necks of depraved and wicked men whose day has come when their crimes are at an end. Return it to its sheath! In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you. I will pour out my indignation upon you, breathing my fiery wrath upon you, I will hand you over to ravaging men, artisans of destruction. You shall be fuel for the fire, your blood shall flow throughout the land. You shall not be remembered, for I, the LORD, have spoken. (Ezekiel 21:33-37 NAB)

BURN NONBELIEVERS

"Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

As I have found this research to be very interesting this will be the first in a series of blogs on Human Sacrafice. But if this is the God so many people try to get me to pray to, then they can keep him.