Jews, Christians and Animal Sacrifice.

[Monty]

@Jim_B

Why don’t Jews and Christians practice animal sacrifice?

It is mentioned in the Bible. Well the Old Testament at least. And I think Muslims practice it.

Plus Jews and Christians do eat meat by and large, which is worth pointing out.

:):)

Well, a certain kind of Jew, Samaritans*, still practice animal sacrifice. Eating meat does not equal sacrifice as the sacrificial critter was put to a special use beyond just slaughtering it.

*Yes, I know Judaism doesn’t accept them as Jews, but the Samaritans consider their religion the true religion of old Israel.

[puzzlegal]

The Samaritans are a Jewish heresy. They, of course, consider all the other Jews to be heretical. (They believe the people who were carted off to Babylon made some mistakes upon their return to Israel.) They hold that a different location is the correct site for sacrifices, and they still offer sacrifices there.

There’s some Evangelical Christian group that was trying to breed a perfect red calf to allow the Jews to make sacrifices again. They probably succeeded. As someone said up thread, the real problem is that the dome of the rock covers the site where the temple could be rebuilt.

[Kobal2]

@puzzlegal

The Samaritans are a Jewish heresy. They, of course, consider all the other Jews to be heretical.

I hear some of them are OK though. Well, at least one.

[Atamasama]

@Kobal2

I hear some of them are OK though. Well, at least one.

The Parable of the OK Samaritan.

[ftg]

@Peter_Morris

Why do Jews no longer sacrifice animals?
Straight Dope Staff Report by Dex

This article does cite actual animal sacrifice by Muslims, btw. “The Feast of Sacrifice (Idu-l-adha)”

[DrDeth]

@Yllaria

Practical guess - as money became more prevalent, the meat wasn’t as necessary to support the priestly caste and the pressure to supply it dropped. If I remember correctly, it wasn’t the entire animal that was burned, but only representative parts.

It’s been awhile, so I could have misread it.

Nope, since it stopped as soon as the second Temple was destroyed by the Romans.

[cmkeller]

Yllaria:

If I remember correctly, it wasn’t the entire animal that was burned, but only representative parts.

Depended on the type of sacrifice. Burnt offerings (olah in Hebrew) and certain types of communal atonement sacrifices were burnt in their entirety. Other types of sacrifices were, as you described, had specified parts burnt on the altar, and the rest was for human beings to eat.

[Chronos]

And the original meaning of the word “holocaust” was a sacrifice which was burnt in its entirety.

[septimus]

@Chronos

If someone bears the name “Cohen” or one of its variants, and has Y haplogroup J-P58, you can be extremely confident that that man is in fact of the priestly lineage.

“One of its variants”? You mean Al-Kuhen, Caen, Cahan, Cahen, Cahn, Cahon, Cahona, Cain, Choen, Coen, Cofen, Coffen, Cohan, Cohane, Cohen, Cohn, Cohne, Cone, Conn, Coon, Cowan, Cowen, El-Kohen, Kagan, Kaganovich, Kahana, Kahane, Kahano, Kahanow, Kahansky, Kahin, Kahn, Kan, Kaplan, Katz, Kogan, Koganovitch, Kogen, Kogon, Kohenteb, Kohentov, Kohn, Kohne, Kohner, Kohnowsky, Kohányi, Koihen, Kon, Konstamm, Koon, Kouihen, or Xohen ?

Here’s the clading tree for J-P58; as you can see the P58 mrca was 6500 BC or so. Most of J1 lies in the P58 clade. A very large portion of Cohens fall in the Y3088 subclade of P58, about ⅛ of the way down the above page. It’s mrca is 900 BC ±500, about what might be expected for an ancient Israeli priest progenitor.

As shown here there are other haplogroups associated with the Cohen surname. (This page might be the easiest Google hit for Cohen Y-haplogroups, but doesn’t show well the large cluster at Y3088/Z18271.)

[Smapti]

@cmkeller

Hari Seldon:

This is not true. Priests don’t need to be “created”, any male-line descendant of Aaron is one by birth, and there are plenty of Jews who identify as such. In theory, sacrificial service could resume as soon as a) it is 100% certain the exact spot upon which the Temple altar had stood, and b) it can be done without loss of human life (e.g., Arabs rioting), as that is not one of the commandments that the Torah requires risking one’s life for.

The HIGH priest would need consecration, but the Temple sacrificial service could be (mostly) performed even if that office was not filled. Not performing the parts that the High Priest performs does not invalidate the other parts of the service.

So how does one go about consecrating a High Priest, then?

[puddleglum]

@Smapti

So how does one go about consecrating a High Priest, then?

According to Exodus, the high priest is consecrated by ritual washing, being dressed in the priestly clothing of his predecessor, then being anointed with olive oil along with his instruments, and then seven days of ritual sacrifice of animals. Then the priest is anointed with the blood of the final sacrifice.