Occasionally a Christian reminds the world that the religion is pagan, its human sacrifice an abomination to the God of Moses

 

What Protestants Get Wrong About the Epistle to the Hebrews

Peter J. Leithart, First Things

 ... The blood of bulls and goats was always impotent; what was needed was the human sacrifice of total obedience, fulfilled in the cross. It’s not a conservative gospel, but a revolutionary one in which first things change place with last things. ...

To wit:

When you come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.  There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD; and because of these abominable practices the LORD your God is driving them out before you.

-- Deuteronomy 18:9ff.

They built the high places of Ba'al in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

-- Jeremiah 32:35

Not only that, Leithart's interpretation of the Eucharist is an abomination to the Christian God, even whose catechumens were excluded from the Lord's Supper as strangers from the third and fourth centuries:

The Eucharist is the Lord’s, and our, hospitality to strangers.

To wit:

The Church urges the entire assembly of the faithful to pray for the catechumens, even though they are still strangers. Indeed, they do not yet belong to the Body of Christ, they have not partaken of the Holy Mysteries; they are still apart from the spiritual flock … They stand outside the royal court, far from the sacred forecourts. That is why they are sent away before those fearful prayers [of the Anaphora] are said. So she asks you to pray for them, that they may become fellow members with you and no longer be strangers and cut off.

— Apostolic Constitutions, 8.32 PG 1.1132B; Apostolic Tradition, 17, SC 11bis, p. 75

The prophet Ezekiel opposed the spiritual determinism of the Torah, favoring instead the personal responsibility of the individual

The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. 

-- Ezekiel 18:20 

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 

-- Exodus 20:5

And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.  

-- Exodus 34:6f.

The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

-- Numbers 14:18

Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,

-- Deuteronomy 5:9

'You show lovingkindness to thousands, and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them—the Great, the Mighty God, whose name is the LORD of hosts.'

-- Jeremiah 32:18

 

The Fourth Gospel notably makes the issue a burning one during the ministry of Jesus, but makes Jesus not exactly a Solomon for his take on it, which is reminiscent of his answer whether to pay taxes to Caesar or not:

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. 

-- John 9:2f.

Luke, however, presents a Jesus who takes no prisoners.

He clearly places Jesus against the view of Ezekiel. Jesus explicitly makes his own generation responsible, and liable, for the murder of ALL past prophets, all the way back to ABEL (Can't you just hear his defenders shouting, But this is clearly hyperbole!?):

That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. 

-- Luke 11:50f.

And Matthew's gospel does the same:

That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

-- Matthew 23:35f. 

 

The truth is the Torah is also divided on the issue.

A proponent of the view of Ezekiel somehow sneaked it into the code and it won enough acceptance to become a touchstone:

The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin. 

-- Deuteronomy 24:16

But the children of the murderers he slew not: according unto that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the LORD commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to death for the fathers; but every man shall be put to death for his own sin. 

-- II Kings 14:6

But he slew not their children, but did as it is written in the law in the book of Moses, where the LORD commanded, saying, The fathers shall not die for the children, neither shall the children die for the fathers, but every man shall die for his own sin.

-- II Chronicles 25:4

 

The perennial problems of good and evil, justice and mercy, the community and the individual, are mightily wrestled with by religion, but hardly resolved by it.

It could hardly be otherwise.

 

Libertarian John Tamny says humans are capital

 

 

 

 Here, just in time for Holy Week.

Yeah. The life of Jesus was worth just 30 pieces of silver. Maybe 30 of these Tyrian tetradrachms, about 4 months' skilled wages.

Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, "What will you give me if I deliver him to you?" And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. ... When Judas, his betrayer, saw that he was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood." They said, "What is that to us? See to it yourself." And throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself. But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, "It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since they are blood money." So they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, "And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord directed me."

-- Matthew 26: 14f., Matthew 27:3ff.