Clivedurdle

I am reading the Iliad, Penguin Fagles edition. In it, they have a huge sacrifice to Zeus and basically proceed to eat the lot, with drinking etc. As far as I can work it out, Zeus gets some smoke! The priests do not get more than anyone else. OK, the king gets a nice bit of beef, interestingly on a cleft stick...

What happened? Something that looks like a slap up nosh, that feeds the poor, that builds community and strengthen bonds, gets changed into only a select few getting something, that reifies human sacrifice, becomes really minimal with a bit of wafer and a sip of alcohol?

Why did we go all puritanical and minimalist and ritualistic about a slap up nosh and a good celebration?

Tenorikuma

What happened in the case of Judaism is that a powerful priestly class conspired with the rulers in Jerusalem to confine sacrifice rituals to the Jerusalem temple, where only a special priesthood could perform it. Perhaps it happened as early as King Hezekiah, but it definitely happened when John Hyrcanus destroyed Shechem and the rival temple at Mt. Gerizim.

I'm not sure that the Eucharist ritual has much to do with sacrifices.

Clivedurdle

Isn't this accepted theology generally? There might be academic arguments but I thought the general position is that it is a sacrifice.

I think there has been a clear process of tidying up sacrifice that is definitely worth thinking about.

http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/dan...thestreets.htm

I am trying to work out when and where dance fun and sacrificing to the gods got minimised into for example, a eucharist. I am actually not clear that this is a Jewish impulse - potato kugels are the way to heaven!

Tenorikuma

Burnt sacrifices, if I'm not mistaken, came from the ANE association of anger with the nostrils, and the belief that the anger of the gods could be placated with pleasant aromas — particular roasting meat and incense. (After all, the Bible literally speaks of aromas pleasing to Yahweh.)

The Eucharist is a very different sort of thing — a sacramental ritual probably borrowed from Mithraism, performed in order to participate in the salvific act of a saviour god. Paul compared it to the manna and water shared by the Jews in the wilderness in 1 Corinthians. While this is obviously not the origin of the Eucharist, it shows that even early participants did not view it as a sacrificial ritual.

Iskander

Is this one the banquet you admire?

A girl is captured by Greek soldiers during a raid on a Trojan village and is taken as a sex slave to the camp of the invading Greek army’

The elderly father of the girl comes to beg for her release and brings costly gifts to facilitate the release.
For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain
His captive daughter from the victor’s chain.
Suppliant the venerable father stands;
Apollo’s awful ensigns grace his hands
By these he begs; and lowly bending down,
Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown
He sued to all, but chief implored for grace
The brother-kings, of Atreus’ royal race6


The king will keep the daughter
Mine is thy daughter, priest, and shall remain;
And prayers, and tears, and bribes, shall plead in vain;
Till time shall rifle every youthful grace,
And age dismiss her from my cold embrace,
In daily labours of the loom employ’d,
Or doom’d to deck the bed she once enjoy’d
Hence then; to Argos shall the maid retire,
Far from her native soil and weeping sire.”

The father leaves the camp and prays to god
“O Smintheus! sprung from fair Latona’s line,7
Thou guardian power of Cilla the divine,8
Thou source of light! whom Tenedos adores,
And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa’s shores.
If e’er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane,9
Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain;
God of the silver bow! thy shafts employ,
Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy.”

The god descends from Olympus to destroy the Greeks
Fierce as he moved, his silver shafts resound.
Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread,
And gloomy darkness roll’d about his head.
The fleet in view, he twang’d his deadly bow,
And hissing fly the feather’d fates below.
On mules and dogs the infection first began;11
And last, the vengeful arrows fix’d in man.
For nine long nights, through all the dusky air,
The pyres, thick-flaming, shot a dismal glare.

The Greeks decide to placate the god and sacrifice a large number of animals
“Why leave we not the fatal Trojan shore,
And measure back the seas we cross’d before?
The plague destroying whom the sword would spare,
’Tis time to save the few remains of war.
But let some prophet, or some sacred sage,
Explore the cause of great Apollo’s rage;
Or learn the wasteful vengeance to remove
By mystic dreams, for dreams descend from Jove.13
If broken vows this heavy curse have laid,
Let altars smoke, and hecatombs be paid.
So Heaven, atoned, shall dying Greece restore,
And Phoebus dart his burning shafts no more.

The Greek chief priest tells the army what to do to placate the avenging god
“Nor vows unpaid, nor slighted sacrifice,
But he, our chief, provoked the raging pest,
Apollo’s vengeance for his injured priest.
Nor will the god’s awaken’d fury cease,
But plagues shall spread, and funeral fires increase,
Till the great king, without a ransom paid,
To her own Chrysa send the black-eyed maid.14
Perhaps, with added sacrifice and prayer,
The priest may pardon, and the god may spare.”

Ulysses returns the girl to his father
Chryseis last descending on the strand.
Her, thus returning from the furrow’d main,
Ulysses led to Phoebus’ sacred fane;
Where at his solemn altar, as the maid
He gave to Chryses, thus the hero said:
“Hail, reverend priest! to Phoebus’ awful dome
A suppliant I from great Atrides come:
Unransom’d, here receive the spotless fair;
Accept the hecatomb the Greeks prepare;
And may thy god who scatters darts around,
Atoned by sacrifice, desist to wound.”

The Priest accept the sacrifice
“God of the silver bow, thy ear incline,
Whose power incircles Cilla the divine;
Whose sacred eye thy Tenedos surveys,
And gilds fair Chrysa with distinguish’d rays!
If, fired to vengeance at thy priest’s request,
Thy direful darts inflict the raging pest:
Once more attend! avert the wasteful woe,
And smile propitious, and unbend thy bow.”

The animals are sacrificed
And now the Greeks their hecatomb prepare;
Between their horns the salted barley threw,
And, with their heads to heaven, the victims slew: 28
The limbs they sever from the inclosing hide;
The thighs, selected to the gods, divide:
On these, in double cauls involved with art,
The choicest morsels lay from every part.
The priest himself before his altar stands,
And burns the offering with his holy hands.
Pours the black wine, and sees the flames aspire;
The youth with instruments surround the fire:
The thighs thus sacrificed, and entrails dress’d,
The assistants part, transfix, and roast the rest:
Then spread the tables, the repast prepare;
Each takes his seat, and each receives his share.

steve_bnk

Moses created the priest class.

The Eucharist as it became in the RCC to me is ritual cannibalism.

It is derived from the Last Supper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Supper

Mark 14:22-24
'...And as they were eating, he took bread, and when he had blessed, he brake it, and gave to them, and said, ‘Take ye: this is my body.’...'

1 Corinthians 11:23-25
'...For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me.’..'

At an evangelical Christian service I attended there was a basket of bread and people took a piece to eat.

I believe th term sacrificial lamb originates in the OT. A lamb was substituted for a human.

To Christians Jesus was the sacrificial lamb for all times atoning for all sins past and to come for the believers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_of_God

'...Although "Lamb of God " refers in Christian teachings to Jesus Christ in his role of the perfect sacrificial offering, Christological arguments dissociate the term from the Old Testament concept of a "scapegoat," which is a person or animal subject to punishment for the sins of others without knowing it or willing it. Christian doctrine holds that Jesus chose to suffer at Calvary as a sign of his full obedience to the will of his Father, as an "agent and servant of God".[2][3] The Lamb of God is thus related to the Paschal Lamb of Passover, which is viewed as foundational and integral to the message of Christianity.[4][5]..'

Biblical sacrifice.

http://www.rationalchristianity.net/...sacrifice.html

The ancient Jews were a nasty spiteful vindictive bloody lot, but probably no more that any others.

Clivedurdle

It is the later one before they attack Troy following Agememnon' dream - the point was not to discuss the morals of the story, but the very interesting descriptions of how they did things.

And I don't like that translation with its rhymes!

Iskander

And how do they do things?

outhouse

This probably has its roots from the Emperors feast/celibration in which it is one of many Christian parallels to the emperors divinity. Which of course as you noted, has its roots in Hellenism.

Cheerful Charlie

It goes back to ancient Egypt. The 5 intercalary days added to the lunar year to sync with the solar year was celebrated as Osirian religious holidays, celebrating Osiris's death and resurrection. This involved a ritual meal of barley beer and barley bread baked in the shape of Osirus's body. In Egypt barley was the symbol of resurrection and the promise of eternal life in the Westen lands, Egyptian heaven. Such rituals were well known in the cult of Isis, and was adopted in various forms in the mystery religions. It predates the Roman emperors by many centuries. The 5 day passion play of the death and resurrection of Osiris is a soter god model for Christianity.

Cheerful Charlie