It is impossible to understand the biblical narrative of the binding of Isaac, for example, without addressing the context in which such a narrative was popularized and eventually codified into a sacred text.
Maybe not. Humans first do something practical, and then use rituals and tradition to justify it.
Here's an alternative scenario:
In an age where abortion had a higher chance of killing the woman than childbirth, this was the only practical abortion.
It's only after the fact that it gets justified as a sacrifice demanded by the gods.
And once the practice is accepted, the next step is to forcefully sacrifice the children of your political enemies, i.e. the woman is not making the choice here.
They only had issues with ritualizing the process or killing older children..
But let's say there was a medical reason to do so for the sake of a child who was already born perhaps extremely premature and lost an arm in the process of extraction. By the standards given above, the already born child outranks the one still in the womb, and should be entitled to the arm if the owner of the womb agrees to donate it.
Your example is so far from relevance as to be really just an attempt to change the subject. The existence of some random person in a coma, unless they are my own child, or perhaps a clone, is not contingent upon actions undertaken with the participation (willing or not) of my reproductive system.
Apt if the creation of the fetus wasn't your choice, but inaccurate if it was. If someone loses their balance and you grab their hand to stop them falling off a cliff, is it murder to deliberately let go before they regain their balance? Why can a person be legally compelled to sustain the life of a child after birth but not before?
What happens when we invent artificial wombs? It isn't that far away.
take this and combine it with sibling
>And I think the conclusion of the Phoenicians was that people get away with, and are even rewarded for doing evil things, because the gods are into that sort of stuff.
and then you get my theory.
That is from Ecclesiastes 4. The author was talking about the problem of evil - power was on the side of the oppressors. People were being evil, and getting away with it.
There's this idea that "the problem of evil" is, why does God permit this? I think that's too convenient. When people are being evil, and getting away with it, that's a problem not just for people who believe in a good God, but for people who believe goodness matters.
And I think the conclusion of the Phoenicians was that people get away with, and are even rewarded for doing evil things, because the gods are into that sort of stuff. The gods are sickos, so you're pretty much screwed, but get their attention with a ritual act of cruelty, and you might get a share of their power.
“””And when they had both submitted and he put him down upon his forehead, 104. We called to him, "O Abraham. You have fulfilled* the vision." Indeed, We thus reward the doers of good. Indeed, this was the clear trial. And We ransomed him with a great sacrifice”””
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_in_Islam#Sacrifice
*Ibn Arabi has this as “you have believed the dream”.
“”” Then when the boy reached the age to work with him, Abraham said, “O my dear son! I have seen in a dream that I ˹must˺ sacrifice you. So tell me what you think.” He replied, “O my dear father! Do as you are commanded. Allah willing, you will find me steadfast.” ”””
In Izutzu [1] we read how Ibn Arabi, a very influential Muslim mystic-saint, had read the narrative as Abraham being still in thrall of the illusion of materiality (“the world”) and reading the signs of God literally. This vision then, a great trial, was entirely designed to knock sense into him, awakening him to a higher consciousness.
[1]: https://traditionalhikma.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Sufi...
This didn’t really change untill the chirch started equating it with murder.
On the whole, the Romans were quite enlightened compared to the other brutal civilizations of the ancient world, being governed more by law than superstition, but they still had these quirks that wouldn't be eradicated till Christianity replaced the state religion.
It's not the killings of prisoners themselves - those were common throughout the ancient world, alongside slavery. It's the fact that they killed them at the temple to the chief god.
I'd define anything as human sacrifice that the culture performing the act would label thus. E.g. we, as a modern civilization, don't call an abortion, war or execution "human sacrifice", so it isn't. The Romans didn't consider executing prisoners as such, because the prisoners were just subhuman and it was just an execution, so it isn't. The Carthagians seemed to think they were doing a human sacrifice, so yes, they were.
I'm not talking about car (or chariot?) accidents here, I'm talking about literally thousands of people being executed on the grounds of a temple dedicated to Rome's chief god. Certainly people died in the Circus Maximus, and that is just sporting accident. I wouldn't even call gladiatorial combat human sacrifice, since it was mostly an entertainment spectacle in a more brutal time.
We're talking about Romans taking prisoners captured in war, marching them to one of the most significant religious locations within the sacred boundaries of the city, and executing them.
My issue with just trusting the ancients is that they sometimes aren't trustworthy. It's very possible that Rome didn't admit this was human sacrifice because Roman culture condemned human sacrifice, and kind of turned a blind eye to the ethics of this ritual.
The Romans did this through the ritual of immolation, where the animal was marked as a sacrifice by spreading mola (wheat spelt) and salsa (salt) on it. No immolation, no sacrifice. If they killed someone without immolation, to them it didn't have the purpose of pleasing the gods and thus wasn't human sacrifice. Edit: "immolation" in this context might be somewhat different in the english meaning. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mola_salsa for what I mean.
A lot of religions (don't know about the Roman in that aspect) also frown upon the intent of a sacrifice being impure: If you do the sacrifice with more than just the goal of pleasing God, e.g. to additionally get rid of that obnoxious goat/cock/person/..., then God won't be pleased.
It will be unusual that for children the unwanted ones suddenly are considered a good offering
Seems like a win-win for me. The child is suddenly no longer unwanted but your ‘most prized possession’.
To be serious I’m not necessarily claiming that sacrifice was a direct alternative to infanticide just that there might have been some links and generally the fact that infanticide was quite widespread made sacrifice a bit more palatable.
Or maybe it started in a time of famine or other stress, where the young children were likely to die anyways. The reasoning of it seem to be 1.) Sacrifice your child and maybe make a god bring rain or otherwise change the situation. Or 2.) Do nothing and the kid dies anyway, and the famine (or whatever) continues.
Wikipedia provides some material on child sacrifice by the Incas in e.g. [2] and [3].
[1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-10-08-bk-201-st... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plomo_Mummy [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Llullaillaco
Huh? It is quite easy to understand for me.
Abraham and Sarah were childless and Sarah was infertile/too old DRC. Abraham prayed for an heir and miraculously Sarah gives life to Isaac.
Yahwe demands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, the most precious "thing" he has, to test his belief.
Since Abraham does as he is told, a angel stops him from killing Isaac in the last second.
Then he is promised by Yahwe his descendants that his descendants will be plentiful.
A myth/fairy tale IMHO but to each the most. Dawkins said that the god from the old testament is one of the most vile characters humans ever made up. To sick/tired to give examples, there are many.
Imagine if someone came up to you tomorrow and said "God talked to me and told me I also need to sacrifice my child." You'd assume they were crazy, hopefully to the point of calling the authorities.
It's impossible to look at that story from a modern context and think Abraham's actions are remotely right or rational. Why would anyone trust a god who does that? But if child sacrifices are a somewhat common thing, Yahwe looks like the good god who doesn't actually make you kill your kid, just asks that you're willing to kill your kid.
That’s just pure demagoguery. There are plenty of examples of much crueler cults we just don’t have as many surviving texts describing their practices.
Compared to someone like Huitzilopochtli Yahweh was pretty chill…
1. God promises Abraham that his descendants will be numerous as 'stars in the sky'
2. Abraham and Sarah have 1 kid in their old age: Isaac, the only chance for God to fulfill the promise
3. God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his compliance indicates his faith in God's promise (that it can happen outside of his control, and beyond his knowledge)
4. God stops it and provides a 'ram in the thicket' as substitute, note the sacrifice still occurs.
5. Sacrifice is required to save the Israelites in Egypt from the angel of death, Passover begins.
6. We see a whole system and culture of sacrifices instituted in the tabernacle and later the temple as a method of 'atonement'
7. Jesus presents himself as the ultimate atonement or 'propitiation', closing the circle
Essentially in the Bible sacrifice is integral to the entire story, beginning to end. In some ways the story of the sacrifice of Isaac is a peek into the nature of justice and how in the Biblical God's conception of justice wrongdoing must be paid for by blood, just not necessarily the blood of the perpetrator themselves. All members of Israel are responsible for providing their sacrifices indicating that no one is free from guilt providing the backdrop for Christianity's pessimistic take on the nature of Man.
It's a good idea to disguise this as "child sacrifice" as in the "GOD" asked you to do this. Kind of make you at ease with the decision and execution since you'd not do it on your own.
But hey, that's just my guess and am a random dude on the Internet.
North Africa and the Fertile Crescent are great examples of climate change.
They're deserts now but they were lush fertile lands several thousand years ago. The Nile floodplain was also substantially larger and more fertile than it is today.