Primitive religions have routinely thought sacrificed humans paid a debt demanded by the gods, Christianity included (but Rod Dreher doesn't think so)

 

How Science Is Helping Us Understand Human Sacrifice

Ancient DNA reveals mysteries surrounding once-widespread practice

By Aylin Woodward

July 3, 2024

Death by strangulation, decapitation, exsanguination. Buried alive, burned on pyres, crushed by stones, thrown off cliffs. 

Homo sapiens in nearly every part of the world has practiced human sacrifice at some point over at least five millennia, often killing females in fertility rites or for burial alongside powerful males.  

But new research enabled by DNA analysis and other scientific advances has challenged assumptions about the identity of sacrificial victims, at least among the Maya of Central America. 

Between 900 and 1,400 years ago, the Maya regularly sacrificed boys—particularly twins or close male relatives—according to a study published in June in the journal Nature. 

The findings are based on the ancient DNA of 64 children who had been deposited in an underground cistern at the site of Chichén Itzá, a city built on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

For the ancient Maya, being sacrificed was considered a privilege, so these boys—most of whom were between the ages of 3 and 6—were likely given up willingly by their families, according to Rodrigo Barquera, an immunogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and co-author of the recent study. 

A possible explanation for the sacrifices lies in Maya lore. According to the culture’s written traditions, “Hero Twins”—both male—traveled to the underworld to avenge their father, a twin himself, who was killed by the lords of the underworld. Sacrifices of two male children were likely part of a ritual that helped the Maya honor this part of their mythology and belief system. 

At the distance of millennia, these and other ritual killings appear barbaric. But to the cultures that carried them out, human sacrifices served myriad purposes, including fulfilling a universal desire to manage the uncontrollable world in which they lived.

“We think of this as such a bizarre practice, something very unusual and unexplainable, but three-quarters of societies did it,” according to Peter Turchin, an evolutionary scientist at the Complexity Science Hub, a Vienna-based research organization, who wasn’t involved in the research.

For the most part, ritual killings fell into one of two categories. 

The first was what anthropologists called a retainer sacrifice, when servants or consorts, for example, were killed to accompany someone who had died—usually a member of the elite—into the great beyond.

It was particularly prevalent among members of the African Kingdom of Dahomey, which persisted until roughly the beginning of the 20th century; during the Shang Dynasty of China some three millennia ago; and in Egypt between about 3100 and 2900 B.C. King Djer, a pharaoh who ruled during ancient Egypt’s first dynasty, had more than 500 retainer sacrifices surrounding his tomb in Abydos.

The other form was the sacrifice of captives or community members to placate, please or ask favors of gods and ancestors. “You’re supplying the divine world with something valuable in order to get something in return,” said Glenn Schwartz, a professor of archaeology at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s often discussed in the literature as a gift-giving enterprise.”

The Aztec, who mostly postdated the Maya and were famous for cutting out the hearts of prisoners atop pyramids as an offering to their gods, didn’t even have a word for human sacrifice.

“The word they always used for these ceremonies was debt payment,” said Davíd Carrasco, a historian of religions at Harvard University.

Children were believed to be among the best emissaries to the gods because in many cultures they were considered purer than adults, and thus better able to communicate with the spirit world.

The ancient Carthaginians sacrificed their infants and buried the ashes in urns at special seaside burial grounds, perhaps to engender safe voyages across the Mediterranean. 

Centuries ago, the Inca drugged and sacrificed their children in a ritual known as capacocha to appease the gods during times of crisis, such as a drought or disease, according to Angelique Corthals, a forensic anthropologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

“The Inca were trying to control that event by offering the most precious thing that they had,” she said. Some of these children were brought high atop a dormant volcano in the Andes, where their bodies ended up mummified and exceptionally preserved because of the cold atop the peak.

In one of the largest known examples of child sacrifice, the Chimú killed more than 100 boys and girls in prehispanic Peru some 500 years ago. Hundreds of baby llamas were killed too.

Experts have interpreted the Chimú sacrifice as “a very desperate act to communicate with the gods during a period of extreme climate change,” said Brenna Hassett, a biological anthropologist and lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire in the U.K. It followed a time of heavy rainfall and flooding from an El Niño event, concurrent with an invasion threat from the nearby Inca.

But inferring motives, or even distinguishing ritual killings from executions with nothing more than visual examinations of bones or burials is challenging. 

The contents of a tomb can offer hints—such as the presence of objects for use in the afterlife called grave goods or the positioning of bodies in relation to one another—but now a new wave of studies is using genetic analysis to shed light on archaeological mysteries. 

DNA analysis and other tools enable anthropologists to discern where a person was from, the quality of their diet and health and their sex—something previously impossible for children and a key to the discovery of the Maya boys. 

“While you can determine sex from adult bones, the result of hormone changes during puberty, these changes are lacking in children,” said Barquera’s co-author, Christina Warinner, a biomolecular archaeologist at Harvard. 

Barquera and his group analyzed the petrous bone—a dense part of the skull’s temporal bone that preserves DNA well—from 64 children found in the Maya cistern. 

In addition to learning that the children were male, they found identical genomes in the different bones, revealing the pairs of identical twins. The DNA also revealed genetic continuity between these boys and the modern-day Maya living in the area today, underscoring that those being sacrificed had been chosen from within the local community near Chichén Itzá, rather than being outsiders. The findings run counter to historical narratives passed down by Spanish officials and priests that Mesoamerican cultures tended to sacrifice enslaved captives.

Radiocarbon dating of the bones showed the boys weren’t all killed at once, hinting, Warinner said, that the sacrifices might have been related to a cyclic ritual ceremony. Isotopic analysis showed that most of the boys shared the same diet, suggesting they were raised together and deliberately prepared for sacrifice, Barquera added.

“It’s such an exciting time to be doing archaeology,” said Nawa Sugiyama, an anthropologist from the University of California, Riverside, who wasn’t involved in the Maya work. “The level of detail with which we’re able to reconstruct these rituals has really opened up our ability to be there and relate to these families and communities.”

Write to Aylin Woodward at aylin.woodward@wsj.com 

 

Primitive Christianity reflects, rather than repudiates, this ancient human barbarism by insisting on the salvific meaning of the man Jesus' death as a pure sacrifice which paid a debt owed to the one God.

That is another milestone in the long trend of regressive thinking in Judaism (as was apocalyptic in particular, which the historical Jesus eschewed, and eschatology in general, which he did not; the establishment of human kingship over Israel; the building of a box for God called the temple; et cetera), which putatively from the time of Moses had repudiated human sacrifice as an abomination (Deuteronomy 12:31; 18:9ff.), or even earlier as foreshadowed in the halted sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22), aka the temptation of Abraham.

But in the New Testament the Jewish God himself, completely out of character, is actively nailing his own son to the cross as a sacrifice for sins.

And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 

-- Hebrews 10:10 

For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. 

-- Galatians 5:3

And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross.  

-- Colossians 2:13f.

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 

-- II Corinthians 5:21 

Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.

-- Romans 3:24f.

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:  

-- I Peter 1:18f.

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? 

-- Matthew 27:46

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? 

-- Mark 15:34

  

LOL Gerald O'Collins, Society of Jesus, 1971, speaking up for the Cosmic Christ without the slightest hint of self-awareness

 First, Jesus must not be turned into a contemporary. He is rightly viewed within the historical framework of the first century. To describe Him as a revolutionary leader, a truly secular man or the first hippie may be emotionally satisfying, but for the most part these stereotypes are intellectually worthless. Albert Schweitzer’s warnings against creating Jesus in accordance with one’s own character still stand. ...

We meet God in the cosmic Christ who encounters us now, as well as in the strangeness of a first-century Galilean whose preaching resulted in His crucifixion.

-- America: The Jesuit Review, March 6, 1971 and August 26, 2024 

Gerald O'Collins was a systematic theologian, not a philologist, who passed away August 22, 2024 after a long and distinguished Catholic academic career at Pontifical Gregorian University, 1973-2006.

Perhaps the most famous proponent of the cosmic Christ was the fellow Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose offenses against Catholic doctrine were repeatedly warned against but never proscribed. Several Catholic intellectuals sought to rehabilitate his reputation after his death in 1955, not the least of whom was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI.

O'Collins was a child of this time.

The theological idea of the cosmic Christ certainly has its germ in the Pauline Colossian epistle and later in Irenaeus, but can hardly be said to be a Synoptic idea. O'Collins wanted these to have equal weight:

Both the Synoptic account of the preacher from Nazareth and Paul’s reflections on his Lord’s death and resurrection belong within the canon of scripture.

Yet it was Paul himself who eschewed the historical Jesus:

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer.

-- II Corinthians 5:16 

 

Cancel culture isn't so different from religion in that, sometimes, religion also offers no chance of reconciliation

 Cancel culture looks a lot like old-fashioned church discipline  

The story is good, as far as it goes, and makes many useful points. At the end the author discusses an interesting religious example of reconciliation where mutual listening and reconciliation occurs, but stops short of providing a secular example of same. 

Admittedly, it is difficult to think of any in these polarized times.

An astute commenter grasps the salient points:

The key difference is Southern Baptists only disciplined members…free to leave and join rest of society if you want…today’s cancel culture cancels you from society as a whole, not a small group which you are free to leave if you like. 

Exactly.

The true analogy from the secular side is e.g. to Greek ostracism and exile. But even there exile was temporary by law and carried no stigma on expiry, and required a significantly sized quorum to be legal.

Some Biblical examples seem downright Draconian by contrast:

And the LORD said unto Cain ... a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
 

-- Genesis 4:9ff.

Offenders against the Holy Ghost are irredeemable:

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

-- Matthew 12:31

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

-- Hebrews 6:4ff.

Paul, on the other hand, is all about reconciliation:

Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

-- Galatians 6:1

But he recognizes that this is more of a vertical business than a horizontal one, dependent as it is on the divine action in Christ, not human initiative:

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 

-- II Corinthians 5:19

And then we have Matthew's Jesus swinging back in the other direction again. Jesus is more sanguine about the appropriateness, necessity, and efficacy of human action in reconciliation than Paul is:

Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

-- Matthew 5:24

And why is that?

Because Jesus isn't planning on dying for anyone's sins, let alone rising from the dead. He's planning, instead, on the imminent end of everything and God's final judgment, and it's up to his hearers to repent.

The cancel culture warriors probably have more in common with this flinty Jesus than we'd like to admit, and are about as unpopular.

Jesus' family and friends thought he was a little touched, but Paul speaks positively of being so

And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself. ... There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him.

-- Mark 3:21, 31

For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause.

-- 2 Cor. 5:13

N. T. Wright misses that Paul took recourse to conceptions of a heavenly dwelling in order to advance beyond the older failed apocalyptic

Here is N. T. Wright, wrong again, fittingly in Slate:

Jesus, Paul, and all other first-century Christians known to us embraced the older Israelite view, in which the created physical order was of primary importance. God’s promises concerned the present world, seen as the combination of “heaven” and “earth.” The Jerusalem temple symbolized the coming together of those two spheres, pointing ahead to a time when the divine glory would fill the whole creation. Israel’s scriptures offered only cryptic hints about resurrection and the divine purpose extending beyond the grave. But this belief came to the fore, not least through times of persecution, in the last centuries before Jesus. God would, at the last, raise from the dead all his faithful people to share in his new creation. This belief remained at the heart of early Christian hope. ...

They still believed in an interim between death and resurrection, though they did not speak of this in terms of immortality, a word they applied rather to the new resurrection body itself. When Paul speaks of the “interim,” he talks about “departing and being with the Messiah, which is much better.” Perhaps that is the best way of putting it: Jesus, the prototype of new creation, will look after those who belong to him until the moment of new creation. The Book of Revelation speaks of “souls under the altar;” the martyrs pray for God’s ultimate justice to triumph. Like all our speech about life beyond death, this is picture language. The first Christians were not hugely concerned with the immediate post-mortem future, but rather with the ultimate resurrection and new creation, the bodily immortality launched with Jesus’ own resurrection.

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The narrative of 2 Corinthians 5 argues that Paul had moved forward in his thinking to reconcile the failure of the predicted kingdom to appear by recasting the old ideas in terms of heavenly, eternal, non-corporeal living realities with which we are clothed quite apart from the resurrection:

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling, so that by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we sigh with anxiety; not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage; we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.

Similarly Romans 14:

None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

And 1 Thessalonians 5:

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with him.

And Philippians 1:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If it is to be life in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.