What exactly was the point on animal sacrifices

by jwfacts 51 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  SacrificialLoon

  Homerovah, I sacrificed jelly donuts to you in your welcoming thread.
  
  Oh Homerovah, what hast thou forsaken me? :-(
  
  I think I'll go weep and gnash my teeth now.
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  Homerovah the Almighty

  Sacrificial.... if you were to make a sacrifice of a double cheese burger toward me, I'll promise to redeem you of all your sins for ever and ever

  Come un to me little human, come toward the light for I promise you many wonderful things........now how about that cheese burger.......Oh ya hold the onions
• 

  watson

  That is not true. Jesus sacrificed His life for you.

  You see....the creator of the universe likes ransoms, etc. .....

  Well, sh*t...I don't have the patience for this!

  JC, you are truly a loon!

  I defer to Mr J Winston O'Lennon:

  "God Is a concept..."
• 

  jwfacts

  I log off and look at what transpired by the time I get back. What a wonderful discussion. I will have to reread Leo. JMalik and Narks posts a couple of times to fully get the meaning. Even JC made sense, not that I necessarily agree with all that he says.
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  Clam

  The human race in the 21st Century . . .

  Officials at Nepal's state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft, the carrier said on Tuesday.
  
  Nepal Airlines, which has two Boeing aircraft, has had to suspend some services in recent weeks due the problem. The goats were sacrificed in front of the troublesome aircraft on Sunday at Nepal's only international airport in Kathmandu in accordance with Hindu traditions, an official said.
  
  "The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights," said Raju KC, a senior airline official, without explaining what the problem had been. Local media last week blamed the company's woes on an electrical fault. The carrier runs international flights to five cities in Asia. It is common in Nepal to sacrifice animals like goats and buffaloes to appease different Hindu deities.

  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Nepal_Airlines_performs_goat_sacrifice/articleshow/2337895.cms
• 

  Leolaia

  Thanks for the discussion, Narkissos! Have you perchance read Stephen Finlan's monograph on the subject (The Background and Content of Paul's Cultic Atonement Metaphors, Brill, 2004)? I was following to some extent his discussion of those texts in question (Romans 3:25, 8:3-4, 2 Corinthians 5:20-21, Galatians 3:13). One of his points is that in a text like Galatians 3:13, Paul isn't simply dependent on the Deuteronomistic text that is cited but that he also has a scapegoat metaphor in mind when he describes Christ as becoming cursed on the behalf of others -- a theme that is missing in the cited text.
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  Narkissos

  No I haven't read Finlan's essay, I will see if I can find it. Thanks for the tip.

  Meanwhile, I would definitely agree that substitution is (perhaps more as a deep underlying intuition than as a consciously developed theme) at the very core of Pauline theology, sacrificial expiatory substitution being only one of its expressions (along with other non-sacrificial yet substitutive patterns like redemption from slavery or shifted penalty as far as christology and soteriology are concerned). Moreover, in Pauline thought the believers are saved/justified through the death and resurrection of Christ, which extends substitutive thinking far beyond the limits of any sacrificial pattern. It actually exceeds christology and soteriology proper, inasmuch as a substitution pattern is also apparent in the treatment of the relationship between the believers themselves, especially "the apostles" and the rest in 2 Corinthians (I started a thread on that a while ago) or between Israel and the church in Romans 9--11. The role of substitutive atonement, I feel, must be set in the perspective of this fuzzy but far-reaching substitutive thinking instead of singled out as it usually is in Protestant theology (including JWs)...
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  M.J.

  I'd like to second what JWFacts said. Great discussion and it's exactly the topic I've been wanting to learn more about.
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  Terry

  The role of substitutive atonement, I feel, must be set in the perspective of this fuzzy but far-reaching substitutive thinking instead of singled out as it usually is in Protestant theology (including JWs)...

  It seems to bother ONLY ME that Christian subsitutive thinking (innocent dying for guilty) is against moral justice.

  It violates perfect eye for eye by trying to go for an O.Henry twist ending.

  But, I can't anybody to discuss it in those terms. Sigh.

  Narkissos is right about the idea that "rather him than me" or "better it than me" was popular in ritual and sacrifice. It is a very ego-driven and thoroughly human self-preservation that drives the psychology of letting others suffer on my behalf! But, to find the only true God buying in to the concept is degrading and ethically corrupt.
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  Narkissos

  Terry,

  You seem to have missed my point but it gives me the opportunity to state it more clearly (hopefully).

  Your criticism is aimed at the popular eudemonistic concept of substitutive atonement in Protestantism. Which I might sum up as, "Christ suffered and died for our sins so that we might not have to suffer and die for our sins."

  Pauline soteriology is quite different actually. It says, in effect, "Christ suffered, died, and was raised so that we might suffer, die and be raised with him." (cf. Romans 8:17 for instance).

  The Pauline myth offers representative substitution. Not changing the actual fate of the believer (or perhaps changing it for worse) but giving it another meaning and end.