Question
Should
we spotlight the prehistoric information
available on human sacrifice or stay with the historic data. If we stay
with the historic data, do we work with the BC, the pre-Columbian times, post
Columbian times, more modern times? Rat
now?
Prehistoric:
Most
sources agree that prehistoric existence, at best, left things to be desired. Some list poverty, disease, and death. Others say famine (starvation), disease, and war. The difference seems to be academic
Somehow death was always threatening and
seemed to be controlled by a greater, possibly unseen, Power(s).
Archeology looks for clues at burial sites
dating back up to 300,000 years. People
were sometimes buried with items they might need for a continued journey,
possibly indicating a life after death was at least suspected to be a possibility. Sometimes burial sites contained jewelry, utensils,
tools, weapons. Sometimes the site
contained other people who died with the princpal.
Sometimes the site contained other people who were killed to go with
them. Were these people who were killed
a sacrifice? No. Or were they?
If death
and it's cousins were controlled by Powers that be, how could a person
communicate with that Power, maybe gain it's friendship or co-operation,
protection. We've all heard of that
"apple for the teacher". When
visiting someone we seem to tend to want to take them a present, some flowers,
perhaps. It takes no imagination to picture wanting to
give a present to a very powerful personage, so that they might, if not favor you,
just don't mess with you. Is that called
a bribe? Yes, you recognize the term.
How do
you reach the Powers? Well man being a
social animal he/she might look around for someone who might know. Some would say in the caves. "They live behind the wall in the
caves." "You can't just talk
to them, though, it's like talking to a deer or an elk or a mammoth, but you
hang in there..." But if you let me
draw a picture on the cave wall, then they may see them when they come in the
cave at night, and they'll eat the food we leave for them, and see that we want
to catch whatever game we have drawn. ("Of course you'll have to feed me when I'm painting. I can't hunt and paint, too.)
Sooner
or later you feel called upon to give a nicer gift and then a nicer gift, and
soon not just vegetables, a meat gift.
Then you want it to be an animal, especially when you start raising
animals in a pastoral setting. Then you want it to not be
"a scrub" but a perfect animal.
About
here, if he/she's not there already, the Shaman* shows up. She/he may say, in fact may believe, that
he/she has talked to the Power(s) when in a trance state. Trance states are induced many ways. There is a shortness of Oxygen, a loss of Blood, herbs, etc. Here is where faith comes in. There is usually some limited farming by
now. "As with the beans, you plant
now, so you can eat later. You make
sacrifices to the Power(s) through me, now, and later you are favored." "The Power(s) like you and they like you
to bribe them.
Sooner or later, you keep upgrading the bribes
until you ask yourself what can I do to upgrade the gift? Finally it's a human sacrifice. Then a warrior (possibly a prisoner of war). Then a scholar/warrior, then
maybe your first born...
With
farming, of course, sacrifices become more sophisticated. The Shaman is replaced by a Priest. There has to be a Temple for the Power(s) to
dwell in and receive your gifts. And, of
course the gifts are continually upgraded.
In some civilizations, the sacrifices reached industrial proportions. There would be thousands of prisoners of war
sacrificed. There would be hundreds of
children...
Quite
common was the belief that the first fruits belonged to the Power(s). The first grapes in the spring, etc. belonged
to the Power(s). If they were offered
there would be more. In fact according
to several entries in the Bible, for one book, "Concentrate unto me each
first-born," saith the Lord. (Exodus 13:1)
"...man and beast. It is Mine."
There is
not now, nor probably never will be, proof of the existence of the Patriarchs
from the Bible, a Gilgamesh, Achilles, Helen of Troy, but the stories told about their customs is corroborated
by archeology. The killing of sacrifices
was commonplace all around the world, especially in spots prone to
famine(starvation), war (city states), and disease (anywhere there was t
lack of sanitation, travel,
caravans, etc). Starvation was
particularly a problem where rain was not dependable (like the Holy Land,
Mexican valley, etc.). And this instability of rainfall begat a
pantheon of "gods". The chief
god in Canaan was called El, as in Israel.
His wife had different names. One was Astorah. One of their 70 or so children was called Ba"al (The weather god) or Moloch.
By the
time of the purported testing of Abraham in the Crescent (which we talked about
earlier which stated that El no longer wanted sons sacrificed), sacrifices to deities are
commonplace, including human sacrifices.
There are pastoral nomads as Abraham is purported to be, and farmers
as were some of the city states in Canaan. The pastorals
needed the farmers and the farmers needed the pastorals...
There are still plenty of famines, disease, and wars.
*Shaman is actually a Siberian word that is used by
academicians to designate an in trance communicator with the supernatural as described here.
Next: Historic times
Background:
Spent the
whole week plunging through the jungle in Mesoamerican Peru. Then on to Europe, the Celts, the caves, the
Druids, the Greeks, by way of another visit or two to the fertile crescent.
Found
Karen Armstrong again. She has a 7 part
video + a book, all titled A History of God
Youtube
rendered an avalanche of other videos on our subject. The better ones came from BBC, the Discovery Channel, and The History Channel.
The
Bible Unearthed (History Channel version)
History
of Jerusalem HD
The
Bible's Buried Secrets
The
wife of God. BBC
Others
More
books are coming, but not here yet.
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