Origins of Sacrifice
Author: E. O. James
Publisher:
Published: 2013-10
Total Pages: 330
ISBN-13: 9781494086473
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis is a new release of the original 1933 edition.
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Animal Sacrifice and the Origins of Islam
Author: Brannon Wheeler
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2022-06-23
Total Pages: 483
ISBN-13: 100906312X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIslam is the only biblical religion that still practices animal sacrifice. Indeed, every year more than a million animals are shipped to Mecca from all over the world to be slaughtered during the Muslim Hajj. This multi-disciplinary volume is the first to examine the physical foundations of this practice and the significance of the ritual. Brannon Wheeler uses both textual analysis and various types of material evidence to gain insight into the role of animal sacrifice in Islam. He provides a 'thick description' of the elaborate camel sacrifice performed by Muhammad, which serves as the model for future Hajj sacrifices. Wheeler integrates biblical and classical Arabic sources with evidence from zooarchaeology and the rock art of ancient Arabia to gain insight into an event that reportedly occurred 1400 years ago. His book encourages a more nuanced and expansive conception of “sacrifice” in the history of religion.
Sacred Killing
Author: Anne Porter
Publisher: Penn State Press
Published: 2012-09-17
Total Pages: 337
ISBN-13: 1575066769
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhat is sacrifice? How can we identify it in the archaeological record? And what does it tell us about the societies that practice it? Sacred Killing: The Archaeology of Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East investigates these and other questions through the evidence for human and animal sacrifice in the Near East from the Neolithic to the Hellenistic periods. Drawing on sociocultural anthropology and history in addition to archaeology, the book also includes evidence from ancient China and a riveting eyewitness account and analysis of sacrifice in contemporary India, which engage some of the key issues at stake. Sacred Killing vividly presents a variety of methods and theories in the study of one of the most profound and disturbing ritual activities humans have ever practiced.
The Story of Sacrifice
Author: Liane M. Feldman
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Published: 2020-09-21
Total Pages: 259
ISBN-13: 3161596366
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe sacrificial instructions and purity laws in Leviticus have often been seen as later or secondary additions to an originally sparse Priestly narrative. In this volume, Liane M. Feldman argues that the ritual and narrative elements of the Pentateuchal Priestly source are mutually dependent, and that the internal logic and structure of the Priestly narrative makes sense only when they are read together. Bringing together insights from the fields of ritual theory and narratology, the author argues that the ritual materials in Leviticus should be understood and analyzed as literature. At the core of her study is the assertion that these sacrificial instructions and purity laws form the backbone of the Priestly story world, and that when these materials are read within their broader narrative context, the Priestly narrative is first and foremost a story about the origins and purpose of sacrifice.
The Strange World of Human Sacrifice
Author: Jan N. Bremmer
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
Published: 2007
Total Pages: 286
ISBN-13: 9789042918436
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Strange World of Human Sacrifice is the first modern collection of studies on one of the most gruesome and intriguing aspects of religion. The volume starts with a brief introduction, which is followed by studies of Aztec human sacrifice and the literary motif of human sacrifice in medieval Irish literature. Turning to ancient Greece, three cases of human sacrifice are analysed: a ritual example, a mythical case, and one in which myth and ritual are interrelated. The early Christians were the victims of accusations of human sacrifice, but in turn imputed the crime to heterodox Christians, just as the Jews imputed the crime to their neighbours. The ancient Egyptians rarely seem to have practised human sacrifice, but buried the pharaoh's servants with him in order to serve him in the afterlife, albeit only for a brief period at the very beginning of pharaonic civilization. In ancient India we can follow the traditions of human sacrifice from the earliest texts up to modern times, where especially in eastern India goddesses, such as Kali, were long worshipped with human victims. In Japanese tales human sacrifice often takes the form of self-sacrifice, and there may well be a line from these early sacrifices to modern kamikaze. The last study throws a surprising light on human sacrifice in China. The volume is concluded with a detailed index
Contesting Sacrifice
Author: Ivan Strenski
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2002-07
Total Pages: 247
ISBN-13: 0226777367
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom the counter-reformation through the twentieth century, the notion of sacrifice has played a key role in French culture and nationalist politics. Ivan Strenski traces the history of sacrificial thought in France, starting from its origins in Roman Catholic theology. Throughout, he highlights not just the dominant discourse on sacrifice but also the many competing conceptions that contested it. Strenski suggests that the annihilating spirituality rooted in the Catholic model of Eucharistic sacrifice persuaded the judges in the Dreyfus Case to overlook or play down his possible innocence because a scapegoat was needed to expiate the sins of France and save its army from disgrace. Strenski also suggests that the French army's strategy in World War I, French fascism, and debates over public education and civic morals during the Third Republic all owe much to Catholic theology of sacrifice and Protestant reinterpretations of it. Pointing out that every major theorist of sacrifice is French, including Bataille, Durkheim, Girard, Hubert, and Mauss, Strenski argues that we cannot fully understand their work without first taking into account the deep roots of sacrificial thought in French history.
Human Sacrifice and the Supernatural in African History
Author: Mbogoni, Lawrence E.Y.
Publisher: Mkuki na Nyota Publishers
Published: 2013-11-03
Total Pages: 270
ISBN-13: 9987082424
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSince time immemorial, human beings the world over have sought answers to the vexing questions of their origins, sickness, death and after death; the meaning of natural phenomena such as earthquakes, eclipses of the sun and moon, birth of twins etc. and how to protect themselves from such mysterious events. They invented God and gods and the occult sciences (witch craft, divination and soothsaying) in order to seek the protection of supernatural powers while individuals used them to gain power to dominate others and to accumulate wealth. Human sacrifice was one way in which they sought to expiate the gods for what they believed were punishments for their transgressions. One example, the Ghana Asante Kingdom's very origins are associated with human sacrifice. On the eve of war against Denkyira, individuals volunteered themselves to be sacrificed in order to guarantee victory. Later, human sacrifice in Asante was mainly politically motivated as kings and religious leaders offered human sacrifice in remembrance of their ancestral spirits and to seek their protection against their enemies. The Asante Kingdom is one of several examples included in this study of human sacrifice and ritual killing on the African continent. Case studies include practices in Sierra Leone, Tanzania (Mainland), Zanzibar, Uganda and Swaziland. Advertisements relating to the occult was a common feature of Drum magazine, the popular South African magazine in Southern, Eastern and Central Africa in late years of colonial and early years of postcolonial periods, indicating a wide belief in these practices among the people in these countries? Each case examined is introduced by an expose of folklore that puts in perspective beliefs in the supernatural and how folklore continues to perpetuate them. Through careful study of these select cases, this book highlights general features of human sacrifice which recur with striking uniformity in all parts of sub Saharan Africa, and why they persist until today. He draws upon extensive written sources to expose these practices in other cultures including those in Western societies.
Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greek Religion, Judaism, and Christianity, 100 BC to AD 200
Author: M.-Z. Petropoulou
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Published: 2008-03-06
Total Pages: 349
ISBN-13: 0199218544
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA study of animal sacrifice within Greek paganism, Judaism, and Christianity between 100 BC and AD 200. After a vivid account of the realities of sacrifice in the Greek East and in the Jerusalem Temple, Maria-Zoe Petropoulou explores the attitudes of early Christians towards this practice, and the reasons why they ultimately rejected it.
The Actuality of Sacrifice
Author: Alberdina Houtman
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2014-11-27
Total Pages: 494
ISBN-13: 9004284230
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSacrifice is a well known form of ritual in many world religions. Although the actual practice of animal sacrifice was largely abolished in the later history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, it is still recalled through biblical stories, the ritual calendar and community events. The essays in this volume discuss the various positions regarding the value of sacrifice in a wide variety of disciplines such as history, archaeology, literature, philosophy, art and gender and post-colonial studies. In this context they examine a wide array of questions pertaining to the 'actuality of sacrifice' in various social, historical and intellectual contexts ranging from the pre-historical to the post-Holocaust, and present new understandings of some of the most sensitive topics of our time.
Animal Sacrifice in the Ancient Greek World
Author: Sarah Hitch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2017-08-24
Total Pages: 351
ISBN-13: 110821004X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume brings together studies on Greek animal sacrifice by foremost experts in Greek language, literature and material culture. Readers will benefit from the synthesis of new evidence and approaches with a re-evaluation of twentieth-century theories on sacrifice. The chapters range across the whole of antiquity and go beyond the Greek world to consider possible influences in Hittite Anatolia and Egypt, while an introduction to the burgeoning science of osteo-archaeology is provided. The twentieth-century emphasis on sacrifice as part of the Classical Greek polis system is challenged through consideration of various ancient perspectives on sacrifice as distinct from specific political or even Greek contexts. Many previously unexplored topics are covered, particularly the type of animals sacrificed and the spectrum of sacrificial ritual, from libations to lasting memorials of the ritual in art.
