The Social Meanings of Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible

Download or read book The Social Meanings of Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible written by David Janzen and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2012-08-09 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work uses anthropological theory and field studies to investigate the social function and meaning of sacrifice. All rituals, including sacrifice, communicate social beliefs and morality, but these cannot be determined outside of a study of the social context. Thus, there is no single explanation for sacrifice - such as those advanced by René Girard or Walter Burkert or late-19th and early-20th century scholars. The book then examines four different writings in the Hebrew Bible - the Priestly Writing, the Deuteronomistic History, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles - to demonstrate how different social origins result in different social meanings of sacrifice.