Jun 01 2009
Hungry Gods
It is my contention that in the history of religion you will find evolution: descent with modification. Before the ancient Israelites performed circumcision, making it a mandatory requisite for entering into a “spiritual” bond with the great invisible one and the other members of the tribe, circumcision was practiced in Egypt. Likewise, animal sacrifice, as described in the Bible, occurred elsewhere. In fact, centuries before Israelite priests began putting their beliefs on papyrus, Egyptians customarily included “offerings” in their worship. Although these offerings might include clothing and other gifts beside food, Egyptologist Donald Redford notes, “the origin of the Egyptian word for offering comes from hieroglyph representing a loaf of bread, or slab of bread.” (3)
Anyone familiar with the Cain and Abel story in the Bible understands that the god of the early Hebrews had a taste for meat. He preferred the shepherd’s offering over that of Cain, the farmer. Why? Unlike Egypt with the fertile Nile delta, a heavily agrarian lifestyle was not an option. It is also possible that omnivorous cultures might universally prize the more nutrient-rich animal flesh over grains and breads.
As one would expect, in the Hindu religions the offerings made reflect their diet. In the Vedic text, Bhagavad Gita, you will find verses such as this one:
In such corrupt families, there is no offering of oblations of food and water to the ancestors.” (4)(5)
In the arid lands of the ancient Middle East we would naturally find tribes of herdsmen. And what type of religion would herdsmen/shepherds develop and practice? One that best suited the environmental niche they lived in. And so the Bible is replete with verses like this one -
Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he sprinkled on the altar. (Exodus 24:6)
It is no coincidence that the newer Christian Religion would incorporate many of the ideas of the symbolism of the religion theirs evolved out of. For instance, in the Gospel John of the New Testament, the new messiah is referred to as the lamb of their god, sacrificed for the sins of the people. (John 1:29)
That Jesus was a lamb of a god, and not a loaf of bread, offered to “pay” for sins and placate the great invisible leader makes “spiritual” sense only when viewed from within a culture and its conventions but not when viewed from a wider perspective.
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(3) Redford, D. B., The Ancient Gods Speak: A Guide to Egyptian Religion, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002.
(4) Prabhupada, A.C. Bhaktivedanta, Bhagavad Gita As It Is, Collier Books, NY, 1972.
(5) Worshipping ancestors is not far removed from the Old Testament religion. After all, that deity is a great father, one connected to your fathers: I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. (Genesis 26:24)
Several comments, which I don’t have time to track down reference links for:
- The Egyptians were well known in antiquity to have never made animal sacrifices. The Hebrew use of animal sacrifices, if present during their “sojourn” in Egypt, would probably have been highly offensive.
- The animal sacrifices detailed in Deuteronomy (as well as the “P” version whose location I don’t recall: somewhere between Exodus and Numbers) have interesting correlations to the pre-classical (and classical) Greek sacrifice customs: the “sin” offerings of the Judahites correspond to “offerings to heroes” in Greek custom (the whole animal burned up), while the “festival” offerings of the Judahites correspond to the “offerings to gods” in Greek custom (thighbones and fat burned, the rest shared out to feasters).
- The shift from pastoral to farming culture among the Israelites is debated, but well before the 8th century (BCE) customs were codified in the “P” and “D” versions, both cultures had shifted to a mixed farming/transhumant pastoral culture. (BTW, though you didn’t mention nomadism, I’ll point that there’s good evidence that real nomadism didn’t develop in that part of the world until after the camel was domesticated in ca 9th-10th century BCE.)
- The “sacredness” of blood is common to many religions, but AFAIK its prohibition to Israelites/Judahites (the break coming somewhere between the beginning of the dual monarchy and the fall of the northern kingdom) is unique. The difference between the Jewish (i.e. post-return from Babylonian exile) and Christian attitudes towards blood, even symbolic blood, is seminal.
- Your comment that “Jesus was a lamb of a god, and not a loaf of bread” in John shows an unfortunate lack of research of your subject (no offense). In chapter 6 of John Jesus’ body is described as “bread” several times, in different terms. I’ve seen work by several “experts” saying that the Greek word used for “bread” could also mean “meat”, although I remain skeptical.
- The “Lamb of God” expression was specifically meant to evoke the passover lamb, whose blood was used to mark the lintels of Israelite houses in Egypt prior to the Exodus: a clear metaphor that any Jew or “god-fearer” of those times would have understood. Note that the Jews (like the earlier Judahites and probably Israelites) were forbidden to drink the blood, while two of the four canonical descriptions of the establishment of the Eucharist symbolically equate the wine to Jesus’ blood. (While the other two specifically don’t, although subsequent interpreters have glossed over this contradiction as they have so many others in both “testaments”.)
- There’s no prior evidence of “ancestor worship”, AFAIK, in any middle-eastern culture, and no reason to equate either the monotheism/henotheism of the Judahites or the polytheism implied for Abraham’s time with ancestor worship. I know that some recent minimalists have tried to make this claim, but nothing I’ve seen demonstrates anything more like “ancestor worship” than the modern Christian custom of decorating ancestors’ graves with flowers does.
Great comments AK -
A couple “rebuttals”:
First, I am well aware of the many ways Jesus was referred to. Different books, different intended audiences, different ways terms have been translated, etc. Nonetheless, Jesus is more often referred to as a lamb than he is to bread, though bread is also an important symbol/metaphor in the New Testament. In many Christian mythologies, Jesus is commonly spoken of as a lamb sacrificed for our sins. Yes, “God” outdid Abraham and did in fact sacrifice his own son. Today, every week Catholics across the land profess to eat his body and drink his blood. Actual body, actual blood (thanks to transubstantiation). So the thinking goes. The point, of course, was that a sacrifice of flesh is more costly than one of bread.
Second, I beg to differ about “no reason to equate” the Bible religions with ancestor worship. (And actually, in my post I said they were “not far removed.”) Read the Bible with an eye out for mention of “who” the God is and you will find numerous mentions of a god of ancestors. Abraham, Isaac, etc. A god his people were made in the image of. Later “he” develops into the “God of Israel.” And in the New Testament becomes the god of Gentiles, too. Our understanding of a remote, non-corporal, abstract, singular god (monotheistic) may tell us more about our current thinking than about the true beliefs of the ancients.