Jesus as human sacrifice? Or Jesus as consecrating priest?

[sophiaserpentia]

Mel Gibson said in September, of his rendition of Jesus, "I wanted to mess up one of his eyes, destroy it."

So, what other one-eyed, spear-pierced deity hanged from a tree for the betterment of humankind comes to mind? :-O

Anselm, who changed Christianity forever by promoting the Christology of substitution atonement, was an 11th Century Archbishop of Canterbury. That he might have been influenced by Anglo-Saxon myths about Wodan is not far-fetched. The theory was first taken up after him by others (Abelard and Bernard) who also hail from northern Europe.

Human sacrifice appears to have been a widespread practice in northern Europe. Even if it was despised by northern-European theologians, they would have considered it thinkable that a human being would have to die to appease God.

This idea does not seem to have really entered Christianity prior to the northern influence. As noted in the essay I linked to, it was hinted at by thinkers like Origen who thought that perhaps Jesus was an atonement ransom to Satan (not God) based on the passage in Matthew about having to pay the jailor before one can be freed. This has Gnostic overtones; for example, in the Cosmic Ascension described in the Gnostic literature, due has to be paid to each ruling archon in the form of tokens before one can proceed to the next aionic sphere.

The net effect of the vicarious atonement doctrine is dehumanization; the separation from God is described as a fundamental nature of human existence, a deep chasm that separates the "sinner" from God and which can only be bridged by God. Nothing the human can do is sufficient. The net effect of this is not love but fear. "Oh, I am not worthy! What if my belief fails me, I will be destroyed!"

Writings to Jewish Christians dealing with "the blood of Jesus" appear to be theological legalism intended to end Jewish reliance on blood sacrifice in the Temple. They argue, for example, that Jesus' one-time sacrifice was superior to the yearly sacrifices that had to be conducted; that Jesus entered not a 'copy' of God's presence (an insult to the asserted holiness of the Temple in Jerusalem) but entered heaven itself. Jesus, as a priest in the order of Melchizedek (who preceeded Aaron!) conducted a sacrifice of himself in the "heavenly temple." This was not done for atonement of sin but in consecration of the heavenly temple (the cosmos), in consecration of the new, superior covenant. Not, in other words, as ransom, but instead to imbue the "heavenly temple" and the new covenant with the substance of life.

[Hebrews 9:19] When Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people.
[20] He said, "This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep."
[21] In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies.
[22] In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
[23] It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
[24] For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence.
[25] Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own.
[26] Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.
[27] Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,
[28] so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

crossposting to my journal and crossposting to challenging_god

Comments

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

"What alternative would you have preferred to see?

That no one wrote anything down, no one ever decided which writings were the most important, and no one ever disagreed?"

Sure seems preferable to endless war.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

I was being facetious - the point is, there is no other thing which possibly could have happened; which means there's no 'confirmation of the essential idiocy of the whole thing' (unless you mean that merely as a nihilistic remark - the essential idiocy of the human condition).

As for endless war, I don't believe people are currently warring over whether or not Revelations should be scripture. Again, if you mean this nihilistically - as in, it's a shame that the human condition gives us war... well, yes; but that's hardly a critique of Christianity.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I go back and forth on the matter of whether Christianity caused more wars than would have been otherwise brought about by human nature. It is hard to imagine how history would have been otherwise; but OTOH there are things in Christian doctrine that are problematic, in that they can be all to readily used to promote bloodshed and injustice.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

It seems like there's been at least as much warring in the non-Christian as Christian context; and, indeed, in an atheist as religious context.

I think one of the main problems we have as Americans and Europeans is inheriting Christianity as the tradition of our ancestors - we tend to be immersed in its history and fairly ignorant about other history. This makes it easy to see all of the errors associated with Christianity, and create a false juxtaposition from that regarding other traditions - so we rebel against our ancestors and romanticize Asiatic and African traditions. On the other side of the coin, Christianity is extremely popular in Africa and Asia.

What in Christianity is constitutive for bloodshed and injustice?

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

This makes it easy to see all of the errors associated with Christianity, and create a false juxtaposition from that regarding other traditions - so we rebel against our ancestors and romanticize Asiatic and African traditions.

For one thing, it's very hard to comb through 2000 years of scripture and doctrine and ferret out what is worth keeping and what isn't.

At the same time, what most Americans are exposed to, of Asian and African religions, is a candy-coated gloss. So of course it seems more inviting.


What in Christianity is constitutive for bloodshed and injustice?

There are passages which many argue were written with anti-Semitic intent.

There are also passages by Paul which could be used to justify torture (as during the Inquisition) since it was done for the sake of the victim's soul.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"it's very hard to comb through 2000 years of scripture and doctrine... what most Americans are exposed to, of Asian and African religions, is a candy-coated gloss"

Certainly; that's part of the dynamic.

"There are passages which many argue were written with anti-Semitic intent."

There are certainly people who base unacceptable arguments on Christian scripture. But it doesn't seem like this can be avoided.

As for anti-Semitism, I don't buy that supersessionism is anti-Semitic.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

At the moment I am wrestling with the assertion of anti-Semitism, which is why I made sure to non-committally write, "There are passages which many argue were written with anti-Semitic intent."

There IS anti-Semitism in the Scriptures, and ONLY the Roman Church is empowered to WRITE IT OUT !

[publius-aelius.livejournal.com]

As for anti-Semitism, I don't buy that supersessionism is anti-Semitic.

The Fathers of the Church, at the 2nd Vatican Council, found it to be so, and that it is, is now official Church teaching.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

Actually, most wars are fought for one of two reasons: territory, and religion. Get rid of the stupidity of religions which allow for only one true interpretation and which declare all who disagree must be infidels who deserve death, and one gets rid of half of the wars.
Not to mention all the killing which gets done outside of war in the name of whatever current translation of scripture is popular.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"Get rid of the stupidity of religions which allow for only one true interpretation and which declare all who disagree must be infidels who deserve death"

Sola Scriptura was not a part of Christianity for the first millenium and a half of it's history, and is still not a part of the majority of Christian belief.

Non-Christians believing death has never been a belief of any Christian sect I'm aware of.

So you must be pleased.

"Actually, most wars are fought for one of two reasons: territory, and religion."

Territory, certainly. Religion? I disagree completely. Religion might have been a contextual variable in the interchange of territory, but as a cause in-itself? No, absolutely not. Which wars do you think this is true of?

"Not to mention all the killing which gets done outside of war in the name of whatever current translation of scripture is popular."

People are being killed for having the Bible in the wrong language now? Which languages are forbidden?

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

If you don't want to open your eyes to the reality of how religious wars have wrecked country after country for thousands of years, I hardly feel the urge to give you a 1000 page history lesson on all the wars which used religion as a rallying cry to acquire troops eager to kill in order to facilitate imperialism. And you are deliberately twisting what I said now in order to try to pretend that Christianity is loving and benign, (for instance - I never said anything about the proper language the Bible should be written/read in, you just made that up) so I really have no further interest in having a conversation with you. The simple fact remains that Christianity has been the most destructive, painful, misery causing force in my life and the life of almost everyone I know.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Underlying all wars is economics (resource scarcity). Religion is just a gloss to make people feel better about doing the horrible things they're doing in the name of their own survival.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

Well, true... but it is so easily used to work people up into a willingness to do harm to others. I have yet to see any other force which makes humans so willing to kill others.