Hold Me, Thrill Me,
We're not just talking about a few animals dying of natural causes here. How many animals were supposedly sacrificed on a daily basis, for over 2 million people, over a 40 year period? Millions? More?
Just the daily lamb slaughter by the priest would have amounted to over 40,000 lambs slaughtered.
This doesn't include sin offering. How often did 2 million + people make individual sin offerings? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Say 500,000 are children. That's 1.5 million people making a sin offering at least once a month. 16 million animals varying from bulls to pigeons killed yearly.
This doesn't include voluntary offerings.
Seems like a lot of animals to dispose of in such a dry climate with nothing to show for it.