Sacrifice as Celebration - (Worship, Part 5) - Episode 045

Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel. And in today's episode, I am again joined by Cindy Beaver, and we are going to be continuing our worship series. Today we're going to get into the meat of sacrifices.

What is a sacrifice? What do they do? What is the point of them? And how do they look in the ancient world? Those are some of the things we're going to be talking about. We're going to end up getting into some of the specifics in the Bible, but we're also going to be looking at the broad view of sacrifices as well because both Cindy and I are of the opinion that we do not understand sacrifice very well today. We're kind of... Very far away from that ancient context of [00:01:00] the need for sacrifice, of the participant bringing the animal or the grain offering or whatever it was .

Some of our current cultural situations in Christianity are very much echoes of those situations. And so we need to really understand them in that context so that we can understand what we are doing. Why do we do what we're doing? Why do we call things that we do sacrifice, or offerings, or different kinds of terms as well?

How do those things relate back to what the ancient world was looking at? So, this is a big topic. I'm honestly not quite sure exactly how much information we're gonna get into in one episode, but we are super excited to talk about this today. So welcome, Cindy.

Cindy Beaver: Hi Carey. And hi everybody once again. Yes, I'm back.

The thing that I find really interesting about talking about sacrifice is really how different our perspective is today[00:02:00] versus what the ancients thought. And again, I am of the opinion that the ancients were just as smart and intellectual as we are. , they weren't superstitious. They weren't doing things for random reasons.

There was always something, and sacrifice is a really, really important aspect of their world. We see it not only in the Bible and where God is giving instructions to do certain things that are sacrificial in nature, but we see other cultures doing the exact same thing. It is everywhere. And so one of the things that I want to make use of during our conversation today is this really excellent book by Jeremy Davis that I have in my stash.

The book is called Welcoming Gifts. Sacrifice in the Bible and Christian life. And what I found really cool about this book is it really gives some [00:03:00] historical background about how did we get to where we are today in our thoughts about sacrifice versus What did the ancients think? And it also then kind of helps us understand better , what were the intentions and the expectations of an ancient person when they were participating in sacrifice?

So I just am really impressed with this book and in talking with you as we were preparing for this there were just a lot of good points that I'm actually going to be doing quite a bit of reading different parts and pieces from this book. But not going to be doing the whole thing like I did last time with our Babylonian Job.

At least I hope not.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, I know that there's a lot we're going to be talking about as we structure our conversation here.

Cindy Beaver: Yeah, I think it's really important because, you know, in today's world, we use the word sacrifice in so many [00:04:00] things, you know, we talk about this Sacrificing our personal time or our career , on behalf of our families.

I mean, there's so many things that we throw into this word that it, I mean, it, it's, we just sacrificing our freedom or sacrificing our happiness, our wealth sometimes our hopes and dreams. And so what is that what sacrifice is about? I don't really, really think so.

Carey Griffel: Well, , our term of sacrifice, we tend to think of this the emphasis is on, what are we giving up?

Yes. We're probably giving something up for a good reason, for a particular goal, or a person, or to get something back. But the emphasis is very solidly on, I am giving this up because I am doing this thing to give this up. And Was that really what they were doing? Were they like, Oh, I [00:05:00] have this sheep and I am going to give up this sheep.

Is that the emphasis that they were thinking or is there a more nuanced way of looking at it?

Cindy Beaver: Yeah, and there's definitely a more nuanced way of looking at it. So reading just a little snippet from the first chapter, it's that in our view, sacrifice takes the shape of a cloud of doom. I mean, sacrifice, there's... killing involved. There's blood and death. And it's, I mean, if we were to practice this today, we would certainly have all of those animal rights people after us you know, preventing us from, doing this type of. cruel behavior to the poor defenseless animals. And yet sacrifice in the ancient times is not about ritual killing.

In fact, killing is just a side effect of what [00:06:00] was needed in order to accomplish what sacrifice was intended to be. It's not an act of violence cloaked in religion. So, other things in our current terms that we think about, there are like secular metaphors about sacrifice. For example, sacrifice you described, it's a loss.

Maybe for the greater good, maybe to gain something better, but it is a loss. It can also mean sacrifice as giving up your life. Or relationships or properties for the benefit of others, you see that I mean, when we talk about the sacrifice of , the armed forces and things like that, or even you know police officers and other people that are in service, this is virtuous.

But again, I don't think that that is what ancient people were thinking about when they're talking [00:07:00] about sacrifice.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, like sacrifice as I am being noble and doing something beyond what I should be doing in order To sacrifice my time or myself or whatever. This, is some sort of nobility in me that is causing me to Sacrifice and it does seem to be this loss and we might be getting something back but we're not really sure that we're really getting that back But we hope we are It's really that idea of loss.

Cindy Beaver: Is it equal in value? Yeah, you know, am I losing and I have to just recognize this loss as the cost? for whatever it is, the price that I need to pay for something. And again, that's not at all what we see in the Bible. They are not thinking that they slaughtered , their unblemished sheep and, we're taking a financial hit here.

We're not going to have the milk or it's only going to feed us for so long. They're not thinking that at all. [00:08:00] So we also have to think about some of the terms that we put in when we're looking at sacrifice is the word victim it's root victim is Latin for an Animal offered in sacrifice, and it was specifically sacrificial term.

It's only since the late 18th century that the usage of victim for any kind of victim became popular in the European languages for instances of injustice or cruel human suffering. Another term that was used from a sacrificial perspective that we have really changed in our view is Holocaust was the whole burnt offering. But when you hear the word Holocaust today, we think of World War II and what happened to the Jews. They were not whole burnt offerings.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, that was a tragic loss of life. That was [00:09:00] not any connection to what a Holocaust, biblically speaking, would be.

Cindy Beaver: Yeah. And so, although these labels are intended to ennoble innocent sufferers, their ennoblement is precarious. They're described as sacrifices because of the loss inflicted upon them, but it doesn't have any reference to any noble aim that ostensibly makes these sacrifices meaningful. And so, again, it's not quite what we're talking about when we're really thinking about sacrifice in an Old Testament Setting. If we look at the Christian tradition, in the New Testament from this perspective of victims and the Holocaust and a sense of loss It sure is hard to understand why God would use sacrifice as the means for saving the human race.

I mean, why should sacrifice even be part [00:10:00] of that? It gets into that whole perspective of God is evil. And God is vengeful and he wants death and there's wrath. And I mean, you and I are in a battle against that perception. That is not the God as we understand him from the Bible.

There are times of wrath. There are times where he extracts vengeance, but it is never unmerited. And so when we, again, just kind of processing through some of these things, , how did we get here? And so one of the things I need to point out is that in the Bible, sacrifice is devoid of the reluctance, regret, fear, futility, or any general negative associations that we have with it.

On the contrary, in the Psalms, sacrifice is an expression of joy.

Carey Griffel: In the context of celebration, even.

Cindy Beaver: [00:11:00] Yes, let them sacrifice to him a sacrifice of praise. Let them proclaim his works with great joy. In the psalm, sacrifice was offered not reluctantly, but willingly, not regretfully, but with joyful shouting and singing.

It was not fearful, but boisterously proclaimed. It was inspired not by drudgery and duty, but because of love for God. In Genesis, the patriarchs would exhibit the same joy. Every time they had an encounter with God, they built an altar and offered sacrifices. And they did so spontaneously as expressions of gratitude.

Look at Noah after the flood. Yes. Look at Abraham. He built those altars at Shechem, at Bethel, and Hebron. Every single time God was saying, I make these promises. I have a covenant with you and you will become a great nation. [00:12:00] Abraham ain't thinking there's a victim going on, that there's some kind of loss.

This is like a huge promise. And I mean, he's like, I won the lottery. So we have to think about it.

Carey Griffel: , Noah did not commit his sacrifices in order to stop the flood from happening. God already had remembered him. God was already doing his thing. Noah was celebrating the fact that this was done and God was so good.

Cindy Beaver: Yes. And so, even if sacrifice is not explicitly mentioned in some of the passages, like with Abraham building an altar and that type of a thing, the patriarch's construction of an altar implies that a sacrifice also took place. The main word used for altar in the Greek Old Testament is theisterium, or place or implement of sacrifice is what that Greek word means. People build altars in order to [00:13:00] perform a ritual.

And so we look within the Old Testament and across the ancient world, sacrifices intimately related to merrymaking. The wine vessels used at pagan Greek banquets, you can see, the pictures that are painted on the Greek pottery and sacrifice is a symbol of celebration. It's joy and revelry. I mean, the Greek philosopher Plato even talks about how sacrifice was part of the ease and relaxation and enjoyment of life and that it could even go too far and become really degenerate if, allowed.

So , he actually was, you know, put the breaks on some of the revelry here. We don't need to get bawdy, so to speak. So where we're repelled by sacrifice, biblical people are attracted to it. We see it as drudgery and loss and they see it as fun and celebration. [00:14:00] So that's something that we have to really Turn our minds.

And so I want to kind of do a recap of how in the world did we get this negative perspective. Although for us Sacrifice is primarily a metaphor like we talked about earlier in the ancient world. It's Predominantly a ritual so it's a whole different thing. It's not a mental exercise. It is something that is done Offerings are burned Or they're poured out on the ground or at the altar.

Sometimes instead of being burned the food offerings were ceremonially displayed and they were eaten by maybe just the priests, but oftentimes by everybody. And it wasn't just within the Israelite culture. This happened everywhere in the ancient world, and you can read about things in the epic of Gilgamesh.

You even see things in Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey. where they're talking about different sacrifices that they're [00:15:00] doing. They were frequent and widespread, and they were essential not just to religious practices, but to social life. Keep in mind, there was not a separation of state and religion wasn't even a concept. Religion was a way of living and it was an orientation to the God or gods and the king or rulers with whom you live. Now sacrifices would have been performed by governments and institutions. So, you know, the king, look at Solomon. You know, and David, , they sponsored many, many, many, and actually you can even see with the allotments of the tribes and , the Holy Land.

The area around Jerusalem specifically was intended to be for the king so that the king could provide the animals and the agricultural products needed to maintain the temple system. [00:16:00] That's not just in Israel. That would have been done everywhere. You look at in ancient Greece, sacrifices and things like this would have been customary at the athletic competitions, think of the Olympics, the ancient Olympics and the other games that they had, they would have taken place for marriages.

At the birth of a child or at the coming of age for somebody, these things would have happened in Rome. Meat, wine, grapes, wheat, and beans could only be consumed after a token part had been offered in sacrifice to the gods. I mean, this was just part of how things were done. Ancient calendars were, filled with feasts and events, and again, we see that in the Old Testament as well where they talk about the new moon and the different festivals. I mean, yes, we have the main feasts of, Passover and Sukkot and all of the different things that go on throughout the [00:17:00] year, but there was daily activities that went on.

We know about , the offering of incense at different times of day. Wasn't it Zachariah, John the Baptist's father, who drew the lot to offer incense that day. And that is when he learned that he would become a father. The day of atonement and all of those festivals that they had and it even makes me think of how the Qumran community really had an issue with , the Jewish temple because they felt that their calendar was off.

And so they were celebrating the festivals at the wrong time. And so they were out of sync with the festivals that were being celebrated in heaven. You know, as on earth, so in heaven, again, all of these things kind of come together. I think it's really cool. What's interesting is with all of this history, thousands and thousands of years, all of a sudden now [00:18:00] we have Christianity. And the Christians did not feel compelled to participate in these sacrifices. They may have done some of it, you know, prior to when the temple fell because we do see the, the disciples of the Lord continued to go and pray and we don't know exactly what all they did at the temple. So they could have participated in some of the sacrifices, although they knew that Christ's crucifixion was the sacrifice to, end all sacrifices.

But I think again, they didn't wake up two days after the resurrection and go, okay, we're Christians and so we don't have to do this thing. It was a gradual thing. So I'm sure that they still participated in a lot of the temple activities. They were good Jews. They were Torah Jews. They wanted to reform judaism, they didn't want to replace it, but then, you know, time went on and the temple did fall and we see in Paul's letters [00:19:00] where, you know, it's like, don't partake of those sacrifices, those are to pagan gods and so you see the struggle begins of we've have the Christian sacrifice to end all sacrifices we can't participate with the greco Roman sacrifices because they're fundamentally opposed to him. It's to these foreign gods that are not God at all. And so Christians wind up abstaining from the civic life of sacrifice that's going on all around them and they suffered greatly because they had to withdraw. They were stigmatized as being atheists and antisocial.

They lost their jobs because they could no longer participate with , the cultic worship of the guilds, the silversmiths, and the leather workers, and all of that. It wasn't until Constantine the Great In the 4th century [00:20:00] converted to Christianity that there really started to become a change.

All forms of pagan sacrifice were gradually prohibited across the empire and abandoned. So, starting in the 4th century is when our culture starts emerging. By the 5th century, public pagan sacrifice ceased in all major cities of the empire. Sacrifices in households and isolated rural shrines were slower in disappearing, but in a few centuries, they too were pretty much a thing of the past.

And so, if you look at it, by 800 1000 AD, sacrifice as the ancients knew it was gone. And you have to also understand that because it was so much of the life of the ancients, they didn't really write about it all that much about what their feelings were and what the intended purpose was.

Everybody knew it because they did it all the time. And so you know, we start filling in the [00:21:00] void over time. And we've, come to some misunderstandings.

So one of the things is that the metaphor of sacrifice became meaningful for Christians in talking about the Christian practices. So the ancient idea of sacrifice, it was familiar to everybody and so they just tweaked it within Christianity, but as the shared memory of what sacrifice actually meant in history began to fade. We lost touch with what it is. The sacrificial symbolism and significance has gone out of focus without the larger frame of reference that the ancients had for what sacrifice means.

That is what has really been difficult in separating us from the understanding. Now, the next thing that happened is [00:22:00] during the Protestant Reformation. So, in the 16th century, sacrifice , is brought to center stage in key debates between the Protestant Reformers and the Catholic counterparts.

Protestants preached that salvation is by faith alone, and they argued that Christ's crucifixion is the only saving sacrifice and therefore that even the Eucharist isn't a sacrifice. However, the Roman Catholics countered that Christ's sacrifices continued by the ongoing sacrifices of Christian life, especially through the Eucharist.

And since both sides were debating about sacrifice, they had to give new attention to what the word meant and what is the sacrifice and if the Eucharist fits that definition. because they've become so dissociated from what ancients thought of sacrifice they looked at Christ's crucifixion as what is the definition of [00:23:00] sacrifice and so that is how we got all focused in on violence on The cruelty that was done to Jesus during the whole process of his trial and his Incredibly cruel death and so during the Middle Ages Western Christians increasingly focused on the cross's violence and it shaped their attempts to define sacrifice The view gained currency that the essential property of sacrifice was the violent destruction of a sentient being and this redefinition became the basis of our modern idea of sacrifice and it's seeped into every corner of our culture.

It has wedded sacrifice to violence, just like we were talking about, violence and loss. It's the reason that all the domains of sacrifice, ritual, secular, and theologically speaking, are now loaded with violent connotations and reek of suffering. But again, as we've talked [00:24:00] about , the historical evidence of what sacrifice meant in the ancient context, It's totally opposite.

It's not focused on violence. It's actually focused on building relationships. And so now we have to look at just kind of refuting some of ancient sacrifice. Let's look at defining sacrifice as violence ignores that most of the sacrifice, a bunch of them didn't even involve killing.

They were grain offerings, they were incense offerings wine other cultures would use beer and other things if we look at Odysseus in the Odyssey, they're sacrificing cheese.

Carey Griffel: Okay, that might be going a bit far, I don't know, what kind of cheese it was, but.

Cindy Beaver: You know, and so [00:25:00] I think food was really important when you look at what people had available to sacrifice because, you know, it did have to be something that was meaningful. It had to be something that was valuable.

What sacrifice was intended to be was relationship building and maintaining that relationship. And so we have to start thinking of these as meals. Think of Abraham when he sees the three men coming to him and he calls to Sarah and make a whole bunch of bread. Kill the fatted calf. Prepare a meal.

It's showing hospitality. That's what sacrifice is about.

Carey Griffel: In the case of the three men Coming to Abraham there was that presence of God and so you could say that that was sacrificed Even though the text never uses any technical terms for what they're doing, but , the whole idea is there and we [00:26:00] can see the whole structure , of what sacrifice and even ritualistic system was even meant for.

Cindy Beaver: Exactly. And, you know, the cereal offerings that they offered at the temple. They would anoint it with oil and that was intended to be a sign of joy. They also had to include salt. Salt was important for everything. You had to salt the meat and you had to salt the, , grains. Salt has that aspect of purity.

But you know, it also enhances flavor.

Carey Griffel: Tastes a whole lot better.

Cindy Beaver: Let's make it tasty.

And keep in mind too, that these bloodless offerings of the grain offerings I've offered at the temple, they were just as effective in providing atonement and making peace as a blood sacrifice was. So we can't say that, only animal sacrifices did something, because that's not true at all.

Incense was also [00:27:00] offered, as we mentioned previously. And the purpose of this for incense, well... It makes things smell better. And keep in mind that the incense offered for the temple had a very special formula and it was not supposed to be replicated elsewhere. That didn't mean that people couldn't burn incense in their home, they just couldn't use that particular combination of, the materials.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, and with incense you have that sense of ascending into the heavens as well.

Cindy Beaver: Exactly. , the turning to smoke is important. I also think that the sense of smell, there's two different things, if you think about it, incense has a beautiful sense of smell, but so does barbecue.

And remember, even with the sacrifice that Noah made, it was a fragrance that was pleasing, the odor is pleasing to God. Again, , it's about establishing the friendship and, that maintaining that relationship. [00:28:00]

Carey Griffel: Yeah. In parallel flood narratives, you have the gods descend on the offering, , like flies, that's the text says, because they're so ravenous, like we haven't eaten forever.

Why did we decide to kill these people because they're not feeding us. And they, descended on the offering as, ravenous beasts , to consume it. But that's not what we're seeing in the Bible. We're seeing the idea of participation in a meal , with God Himself. But it's not because God needs us to feed Him.

It's because He wants our participation. It's because He wants that relationship. And that's, how people form relationships. One of the best ways to form relationships, in my personal opinion, is to do so over food.

Cindy Beaver: So the other thing that we want to point out is, okay, when we are talking about sacrificial animals, killing is a part of what has to happen.

But, [00:29:00] do you notice that there's a lot of detail about the sacrifices and the things that should be done and how people should be dressed and the sequence and the order of the ritual? But it doesn't actually give any detail on how this animal is to be killed. , you know, there's no detail because the death was the required means through which you would get the blood and the meat, but it was not the focus of what the sacrifice ritual was about.

Carey Griffel: It wasn't the point of why you're even doing this. The point wasn't, okay, we're going to kill an animal now. No, the point was, we need some blood because that's what we need. That's symbolic of what we're doing that has something to do with this whole idea and we can get into that later But and we need the meat because how are we gonna eat an animal if we don't have the meat? We're not gonna eat the animal [00:30:00] alive because we can't eat the blood that's forbidden So the animal has to die so that the blood has to be removed because otherwise you can't eat the dang thing

Cindy Beaver: There's some interesting terms that they use for the sacrificial , rituals.

In Latin, sacrifare refers to devoting something to a god. The Greek word, thayin means to turn to smoke and the Hebrew word is Corban, which I find interesting because Jesus uses the word Corban when he's criticizing the Pharisees for putting their money in Corban, dedicating it to the church, as opposed to taking care of their elderly parents.

But the Hebrew term Corban means present or gift. Imolare is another Latin term that's used for sacrifice and it means literally to sprinkle meal, or coarse flour, upon an animal before it was killed. It's a ritual [00:31:00] symbolizing the animal's consecration. So although sacrifice and immolate are now in our words and they're in our world, they mean kill, that's not what they meant way back then. It all was again having to do with the sacrificial ritual. Oh, another thing with sacrifice in the Torah. , the ritual also emphasizes burning the animal's flesh and applying its blood to some part of the sanctuary. These actions can only be performed by priests and they could only be performed in particularly holy places.

Being performed by holy persons in holy places, these actions were , marked as especially holy. It's with the pinnacle of the ritual. So again, it's the blood and the flesh that's needed for the ritual. It's not the killing aspect. That's not what they emphasized at all. Okay. So [00:32:00] basically sacrificial killing is simply a sacred form of meat production.

It's a standard way that they ate animals for food. And we know from Paul's letters and stuff, you go to the meat market and you find the meat. Well, it's coming from the sacrifices at the temple. And so that's why it was so problematic for Christians, early Christians to be meat eaters because they didn't Want to be tied to the idol worship.

Although we also see Paul, you know, kind of going, well, if you don't think about it and you know, that idols are no God, you know, it's like you can eat it. But he also says don't partake if you're going to be a stumbling block to somebody else. I think it's interesting that meat production was predominantly tied to sacrifice in Israel as well.

Israelites were commanded not to butcher any bull, sheep, or goat except as a sacrifice to the Lord at the tabernacle. And that worked fine as long as they were in the wilderness. But then once they had a [00:33:00] temple in Jerusalem that got to be problematic for people who did not live in the nearby, area.

So there were provisions that were made to butcher animals non sacrificially in Deuteronomy chapter 12. Since they couldn't be expected to make the trip to Jerusalem every time they wanted to have a steak. But this was a non sacrificial form of butchery and it's practically unheard of within any other ancient people because it was an accommodation made to the Israelites because of the fact that they had one temple in one place within their land as opposed to The rest of the world around them that had temples on every hill

Carey Griffel: yeah travel was not a small thing back in the day So if everybody had to go to Jerusalem in order to eat their animals that they were raising That would be quite the problem

Cindy Beaver: And so when we think [00:34:00] about sacrifice we need to look at it as it's a source of food.

There's a pleasant aroma, but we also need to think that it's a gift. And I think , this is where we start to get into what was the real intention of, of sacrifice in those days where It is about hospitality, it's about relationship building, and maintaining relationships, or repairing broken relationships.

You look at Jacob, when he is coming back from his years living with Laban, and he's like, hmm, Esau, you know what? I'm gonna have a parade of all these lovely gifts.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, and we, we see that and we, think he's, bribing him. We think that's something kind of underhanded maybe. And really it's just kind of the way their culture was that that was just how they went about things.

Cindy Beaver: Exactly. I look at the Amarna [00:35:00] letters and some of the other international correspondence between various kingdoms and empires and you see the exact same thing going on.

And I mean, so in those letters, you see , one king would write to the other king and either call him my father, my brother, Or my son, depending on where they were in the hierarchy with each other. Are we equals? Are you bigger, more powerful empire than me? Are you my junior?

They would also have, I am sending you 20, 000 camels and three chariots made of gold and all of these things.

I read about, a Babylonian king or maybe an Assyrian king. I can't remember right off the top of my head, but he had some gorgeous sandals that had beautiful carvings on them from the island of Crete that somebody sent to him. I actually think there was some, I don't think he [00:36:00] appreciated them. I think there was some kind of something displeasing.

And so, that's why , The sandals caught my attention because , I don't think they were accepted. And maybe they were claimed to be too small or something like that. But anyways, expensive, rare gifts would be given. And so, yes, when you see Jacob and Esau, yeah, but I do think it was much more of a reparation.

An intent to, we're going to be neighbors, and I want to restore my relationship with him. We didn't leave in such great terms. I want to reestablish this relationship with my brother. And so here we go. It's again, it's a sacrifice as a gift. Abraham did the same thing, even, you know, when he had all those goods when he saved Lot.

And he's like, I don't want to say you Kings, you keep all the good, the booty. I'll take, [00:37:00] you know, the food that we had or , I mean, he didn't take anything because he didn't want to claim to have become rich. by them and he was wealthy enough. So there's definitely political overtones in here and we have to remember again that religion was not a separate thing in their world.

It was how they lived. And so this whole practice of hospitality of meals of different things that are going on. Think of Melchizedek offering wine and bread to Abraham. All of this is just normal practice of hospitality and relationship building in the, ancient world.

Carey Griffel: So I want to talk for a second about how the gifts that people would give would be disproportionate sometimes they would be unequal.

People have disagreed with the idea that sacrifice is primarily about gifts and that kind of a thing [00:38:00] because they're like, well, you give an animal and the God is supposed to give you so much more. How is that an equal trade? So we're thinking of that in terms of the way we want to conduct a business today.

When our nation is conducting business with another nation, we don't want unequal terms. Well, I mean, maybe we want to be out ahead, but we don't want anyone else to one up us. That's a bad thing , in a lot of our ways of thinking. But I think a lot of the way we could switch the ways that we think about is that The gods were okay with giving something way more than man was giving, because, well, first of all, they had more capability, and man had very little capability, but also, there's that idea of superiority, and then the question is, are they trying to show their superiority in order to control, you know, In order to get what they want, [00:39:00] or is that a generous thing?

And I think, again, this is where we can see the comparison between pagan religion and Christianity in particular. When we think of grace, that's a free gift that God gives us, right? Well, in the Greek and Roman culture of the time, there was a patron and client relationship, where the patron would give freely to the client, But the client was also supposed to do something in response to that.

So there's, an exchange there. Now, can we give very much to God at all compared to what he gives us? Absolutely not. But that's not the point. That's not the point of it at all.

Cindy Beaver: No, and it also is, you know, you have to give within your means. What God wants is, and I, it's so interesting because there's something from the wisdom of Sirach.

And it says, give to the most high as he has given, even generously as your hand has found, or as [00:40:00] you've received. For the Lord is a reciprocator of gifts, and he will give you seven times as much in return. So, you know, there is this whole concept of gift giving and an exchange, there is an expectation of reciprocity, but that doesn't necessarily mean equal.

It just means a response back. And again, it's the whole idea of maintaining a relationship. Maintenance one gift followed by another. Think about it. I mean, have you ever had a neighbor that brings you a plate of cookies or some brownies?

Carey Griffel: And then you're like, oh, I have to give them something now.

Cindy Beaver: Yeah, and not today.

You don't do it today. But, you know, in a week or so, you know, or a month, all of a sudden it's like, oh, an apple pie might show up at their house. And again, what are you doing? You're just trying to be nice. You're just trying to be neighborly and [00:41:00] establish that friendship. You want to have good relations.

And that's what this is all about. and the other thing is, is God accepts gifts as long as they're offered with relational intent, but God does not accept bribes. Or, think a few episodes back, Cain and Abel. Which one? It was the intent, and that was what mattered with the sacrifice.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, Cain was obviously not trying to celebrate God. So

Cindy Beaver: he was doing the minimum, his heart was not in the right place. That spotted old banana was not appreciated.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, let's talk a little bit about the sacrifices that we see in Leviticus in particular. These are not the only sacrifices that we see in scripture, but this is kind of the most condensed place we can go to, to see the list of sacrifices [00:42:00] and how they were supposed to be done.

Although even there, there are different places in scripture, which suggests that they're done a slightly different way. And scholars like to talk about which one is normative and which one is the exception and, you know, that kind of a thing. So , it's really interesting to go down these rabbit trails because it's fascinating.

I think Leviticus is an amazing book for Christians to study. I really do. I think Leviticus is awesome. But you have to have that framework of the ancient person in mind in order to read it very well. Because if you go into Leviticus and you think that the emphasis is on the death of the animal and the idea of the victim and the loss you're really going to come away from Leviticus with an exceptionally different view of what's going on there.

But if you read Leviticus through the eyes that , there is celebration, and gift giving, and fellowship, and all of that kind of thing, [00:43:00] and this idea that God wants to participate, and be with his people, It's such a beautiful thing. I just, I love it. It's so beautiful.

And when you go into these different kinds of sacrifices and offerings, It can give you different windows into what's going on and windows into how the people were reacting to God and how God was interacting with humanity as well.

Cindy Beaver: Yeah, and I think it's important to make note that, the sacrificial offerings, they were very, very specific in that the animals had to be domesticated. Only certain ones could be used for certain things. Although there was definitely a graduated scale for how much you could afford. You know, so it wasn't only a rich person that could ever participate.

, they had to be agricultural produce. And the interesting thing is that , the offering had to be the product of its offers work. Now, , sometimes if the distance was too far for them to travel, [00:44:00] they didn't have to bring their own sheep that they raised themselves. They would sell it and then use those funds to purchase a local one, but it was the fact that this is his gift. I worked to give this there's no re gifting going on.

Carey Griffel: You were like, well, I got this sheep, but I didn't really like the color of it. So I'm going to take it back and give it to God because it's just not really my jam.

Cindy Beaver: It's not to limp even though really it's one leg is shorter than the other one, but you know.

Carey Griffel: So we're not going to get too deep into the Hebrew language here, because it's, it's actually very wide ranging.

And it's a shame that we're not all fluent in Hebrew, because if we were able to read this , fluently in Hebrew, we would catch nuances that we wouldn't otherwise. Because in English we have similar words used, but they're actually [00:45:00] different words. So that makes it hard for us English readers to read the text and kind of understand it.

But we have interlinears and really cool toys that we can play with in order to get into the original language. So if you're interested in that, you can absolutely start delving into the original language to see what kinds of terminology is used. But in general, when you see the word offering in our English Bibles, That does cover , quite a range of Hebrew words, but when you see that word offering, you should be thinking in terms of gift, something that you are giving, whereas the word sacrifice that you see in the Bible is quite often more particular word, and sacrifice is usually related to a meal, so there is consumption of the meat going on in a sacrifice versus an offering, you may or may not be consuming some of it. like a drink offering, you're [00:46:00] pouring that out. You're not drinking any of it yourself necessarily. So there is that. And as far as connecting what's going on in Genesis 4 with what we see in Leviticus, and trying to figure out what kind of offerings were they doing, that's kind of hard to do.

And I personally think that the reason is the writer of Genesis isn't using the technical terms of the writer of Leviticus. So Leviticus is giving out technical terms. It's concerned with using the right terminology with the right kinds of offerings and being very particular about that.

So the word that's used for the offerings in Genesis is not a direct translation to any particular offering in Leviticus. So, that's a bit disappointing when we want to pinpoint exactly what they were doing and how they were doing it. But that wasn't the point. So the word in Genesis that is used for offering in Genesis 4 is attached to the grain offering in Leviticus It's not the exact same [00:47:00] word, but it's, the closest that we have, which that's interesting to me because in Genesis 4, it's the grain offering that is not pleasing to God.

So it's quite interesting to me that that word shows up in Leviticus. Attached to the grain offering. But before we get into the grain offering, we should talk first about the burnt offering. The burnt offering is the first offering that shows up in Leviticus.

And it's fairly straightforward. The animal would be brought, the animal would be killed, And the entire animal would be burnt up. There would be no eating of it by either the priests or the humans. The burnt offering is also called, as we pointed out before, the holocaust. That just means the burning up of it.

You will also see it referred to as the ascension offering, because the whole thing is going up into heaven for God. So there's that idea of being offered up in smoke. And the smoke [00:48:00] ascending, the connection of the earthly realm going into the heavenly realm. So we have a lot of instances of heaven coming down to earth in scripture, but this is the instance of earth going into heaven, and us giving that thing , for God.

And allowing God to be a part of our... Celebratory actions. I think that's how we should see it. Instead of, I have this really valuable animal and I have to give it up to God. Well, that's a part of it, but I think it's really, I want God to, celebrate with me because I am so joyful , and interested in that kind of a relationship that I have with God.

Cindy Beaver: I think too, one of the comments in this particular book that I've been looking at is the whole burnt offering, the occasion of it is to rededicate your whole life to God. And so yes by my whole life, I am giving this whole animal and so there's this connection [00:49:00] symbolically between the action that you're doing and the intention that you have for that action. So I think that's incredibly powerful right there.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, absolutely. This idea of wholeness is really essential to what they were thinking about. And quite often when you see it talked about in Scripture elsewhere, outside of Leviticus, it's often associated with something broader than just that one animal. They're offering the burnt sacrifice, and they're offering a grain sacrifice, and they're offering a drink sacrifice. So it's got that whole picture of the celebration going on.

Cindy Beaver: Well, and it's a whole meal. And think about it too when you're looking at , the description of the temple in Ezekiel's vision. They even talk about having kitchen areas and food preparation areas and banquet rooms. And it's like, this is party central. And so there were definitely , in [00:50:00] the official sacrifice it mentions the grain offering, the drink and the meat, but you know, there were probably other side dishes and things as well that the people would have again to celebrate. Hopefully there's a vegetable in there, although my son wouldn't mind if they were skipped.

Carey Griffel: You gotta have the food pyramid, right? Maybe they were done with pyramids, so they didn't want the food pyramid.

Okay, so after the burnt offering is described in Leviticus, we have the grain offering. And the grain offering was done in a couple of different ways. You could just give the grain or you could bake something with it and then give that as well. You have both kinds of descriptions going on.

Depending on where you're looking, the grain offering would also have oil and sometimes some sort of spices and other things as well. But the description in Leviticus is that a handful of the grain would be burnt on the altar to go up to God. And the rest of it would be for the [00:51:00] priests.

And Leviticus does point out that there are specific offerings for the firstfruits. So not every grain offering was a firstfruits offer. But you would have to give that firstfruits offering when it was applicable. I mean, that makes sense because you're not always going to have firstfruits. But you're going to be frequently doing this kind of sacrifice.

Cindy Beaver: And what a sign of trust to be giving your first fruit to God in hopes that you'd have more than just this first fruit, and that your harvest would be plentiful. But it was definitely a sign of trust because wouldn't you want to put that in your barn. Really? So it is again, it's a way to enforce the relationship enforces a bad term.

What is a good term? Promote, encourage the relationship and reliance the dependence of recognition of , . who's responsible for providing , all of these things? [00:52:00] How do the plants grow and all of that stuff? That's God's blessing. And so, to acknowledge that and to give in anticipation of receiving more.

Carey Griffel: Well, and it's so exciting when you get those first things out of your gardens and you want to celebrate that and that's what's going on in those first fruit offerings. It's interesting that the grain offering is not called a sacrifice, even though part of it does go to the priests. The first time we see the term sacrifice is in what the ESV translates as the peace offering.

Calling it a peace offering is, it's not the worst translation, but it's not really the best translation. It's called a peace offering because of the root of the word. The root is shalom, so we think of that as peace. So it makes sense that we're calling this a peace offering. This is also translated as a well being offering. It's not about making peace. This is truly the offering that [00:53:00] is absolutely about celebration. There are several terms that are in our English Bible translated as peace offerings. Because they're a bit related and also scholars are a little bit unsure as to how they exactly relate to one another.

But they're described in similar ways. They're used in similar ways so when we see peace offering, we think, well, what is peaceful? Are they trying to make peace with God because God is so wrathful and vengeful? Or is it promoting a harmonious relationship? Is it in communion with God?

Or this is the type of offering that would happen when a covenant was being made. So, you might be making a covenant because you want to stop fighting with somebody else, but most of the time, certainly the hope of the covenant in the Bible, is that there is that relationship.

That you are accepting God as your God, that you want to be in that relationship. This is also when it starts getting a [00:54:00] little bit complicated when you're going through Leviticus , and you're like, okay, I'm tracking, there's the... There's the burnt offering, there's the grain offering, there's the peace offering, and then suddenly all of these other offerings start cropping up and you wonder how do they start relating, the terms and the actions just start piling on you as you're reading Leviticus and it gets overwhelming and That's probably when you start zoning out and going, this is boring, I don't know what's going on.

But but the peace offering, there's several types of peace offerings. There's one that's called the Thanksgiving Sacrifice. That's probably the most prevalent. And it, it's like we said, it's just a celebration. Thanksgiving. , There's the sacrifice you're making when you're committing yourself to a vow, so that would be a marriage or some other kind of situation.

And then there's what's called a free will offering. And that's one that's kind of harder to pin into some sort of system because it's a free will offering. Like, you're doing this because it's voluntary, [00:55:00] it's not an obligation. It's not attached to any festivals. This was what people were giving in order to build the tabernacle, for instance.

Or if they just have a particular desire to give to the temple, that would be a free will offering. The Passover is probably a type of peace offering as well. And there is the ordination of the priests, And it probably fits under the peace offerings, although it has some other stipulations unique to the situation of the priestly ordination.

Now, the peace offering has absolutely nothing to do with atonement. And, no, we're not going to define what atonement is in this episode today, and what that means. But we tend to think of sacrifices, they're always associated with atonement, and that's clearly not the case. We do have the pleasing odor that's mentioned in the peace offerings.

We do have the blood sprinkling, usually, with the peace offerings. But there is no sin mentioned, [00:56:00] there's no transgressions, there's nothing that people are doing that cause the need for the peace offering in the way that other sacrifices and offerings are mentioned. In the peace offering human consumption is absolutely primary to what's going on there.

Cindy Beaver: Yes, people could offer peace offerings in gratitude for being delivered from dangerous situations or when they completed their Nazirite vows, there would be a votive type offering that they would have that falls within this category or just They're grateful for something, again think of a marriage. Think of a the birth of a child All of those things there's always an occasion to be thankful And again, you can see the whole idea of the relationship building the gratitude the joy This is not victims.

This is not a loss. This is a celebration.

Carey Griffel: Okay, so there's two other types of offerings that Leviticus brings up. [00:57:00] The first one is translated as the sin offering. That's the translation that the ESV has. And while it's not a terrible translation, because the root of the word does have that idea of sin.

It's to miss the mark. But a better way of looking at the sin offering is that it is the purification offering. Because that is what it was for. It was for the process of purification. And the reason we know that straight out is that it's used for things like purifying yourself after childbirth and things of that nature.

So we tend to think, oh, sacrifice is all about removing sin, that's what atonement is. And, again, not going to define what atonement is in this episode, but I want to suggest to you, you really need to bring in that idea of purification into what atonement is. If you're missing the idea of purification, you are missing the idea of what atonement is, [00:58:00] and what it does, and what it's for.

There's really good conversation that I would like to get into, and maybe I'll do this another day, but... , there's really good conversation between scholars about what this purification offering even is, what it's for, what you do with it. The scholar Milgrom suggests that , it's all about purging the sacred place because you don't see any of the blood of this offering being placed on a person.

And you would think that if you were purifying a person from their sin, then the blood would be placed upon the person, but it's not. The blood is placed on the implements of the temple. It's entered into the sacred space. Blood was seen as kind of a detergent.

Cindy Beaver: I remember Dr. Heiser would always talk to as being the reset button. and it wasn't necessarily that sin would have occurred within the temple precincts, but sin occurred in the land [00:59:00] and it just got all over everything, you know, like dust gets over everything. And so this was a way to do the cleansing and the reset. And again, all of this is meant to be, as Paul indicates, it's the temporary babysitter, you know, the law and the Torah and all of these practices when we were in that intermediate state

and so here we go. With that whole reset button and I must say too, I was going to mention this earlier, but listening to the naked Bible podcast episodes on Leviticus. That was how I was able to realize just how wonderful that book of the Bible is because yeah, reading it. is hard, very, very hard.

And, you know, you're like, oh, here's another sacrifice. Oh, here, they're doing another thing. And it's just it's like reading genealogies, you know? So and so begat, so and so begat. But you know what? Genealogies have become [01:00:00] really interesting, too. Dr. Heiser really turned my mind around about a whole bunch of different things of what's in the Bible.

And Leviticus... I'm not going to say that it's boring anymore because it's jam packed full of a lot of good stuff. But you have to learn and understand how to read it. It's not just something you're going to be able to plop down and just figure it out on your own. Our western eyes are not... trained to see what the biblical story tells us.

Carey Griffel: Yes, Leviticus is an absolute goldmine. So I'm, I'm just going to move on and I promise I will talk about purification offerings more because it's so interesting. So I want to make sure I get to this last offering. In the ESV it's called the guilt offering.

And, again, it's not a bad translation because the root does mean to be or to [01:01:00] feel guilty. But a better way of looking at it is the reparation offering. This offering has particular conditions that if you meet these conditions, then you should offer this kind of a sacrifice. , and scholars have tried to find common ground amongst these different conditions, and it's really hard to do because there's always some sort of outlier in the conditions.

One of them is the act of misappropriating or misusing a sacred item. Okay, so that seems kind of straightforward. Another one is swearing falsely regarding damages to another person. Another one is the purification of a leper. Another one is renewing the Nazarite vow if the Nazarene has become unclean.

And the last one is having sex with a slave that is betrothed to another person. And that's the one scholars look at and they go, we don't know how that can fit with these other ideas. Like the act of misappropriating a sacred item and [01:02:00] swearing falsely and, renewing the vow, those all kind of have to do with something that belongs to God.... you're transgressing that. And so, this is going to be part of the reparation of remedying that. But the other things are like, well, we're not quite sure how these fit in. So, scholars have suggested continuity in some things, but nobody has a really good way of describing or understanding why these are the way they are.

And the Reparation Offering in general is the least understood offering in Leviticus just because of that. It's like, how does this fit with the other things? And why do we have these seemingly random things put together underneath the heading of this offering? We're not really sure why.

In a lot of ways the Reparation or Guilt Offering seems extremely similar to the Purification and Sin Offering. The Purification Offering is more about cleansing [01:03:00] from impurity, and the Reparation Offering is maybe, sort of, kind of, about profaning sacred items. That's about as close as scholars have gotten in trying to disambiguate these two kinds of things from each other.

But again, I will probably get more into what the Guilt or Reparation Offering is more when I talk about the purification offering later, because I think they are very related. They seem very similar in a lot of ways in the text, and they probably are very similar to the purposes of why you're offering these things.

Now, as Christians, when we're reading the Old Testament, and we're reading it from Genesis on forward, We might get to those passages in the Prophets, where suddenly the Prophets are critiquing the system of, sacrifice. Or at least that's what it seems like they're doing.

So we kind of read the Prophets and we think, Oh look, the Prophets are saying that obedience is more important than the sacrificial system. [01:04:00] So that must mean the sacrificial system doesn't matter, or it's not important, or maybe God didn't really give it to the people, so we don't really have to dive too deeply into it, because God just wants our obedience.

He doesn't want us to sacrifice things.

Cindy Beaver: Yeah, there's even a passage or at least one, probably, I think there's more where it says, I didn't ask for sacrifices. I mean, it says right out there that God said this, and that will definitely bring into question wait, what do you, what? Wait a minute. I thought you carved this in stone. Yeah, so I, I agree that it's like there's a gap, there's something there and trying to understand what were they intending to say?

Carey Griffel: Well, I like this quote that I read in Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary about this.

And it says, one should not mistake the prophetic [01:05:00] critique of the cult for systematic theology. So, like, the prophets are using hyperbole, they're using rhetoric, they're using polemic, they're using extremely strong language and imagery to get their point across. And as I described in my episode about priests, when I was talking about the difference between priests and a prophet, the entire idea of a prophet was to bring the people back into covenantal relationship with God.

So, I have a hard time believing that they just were going to toss out the whole sacrificial system because the whole sacrificial system was about that relationship. But if you are in the circumstance of the people who are so off the rails that maybe they're doing sacrifices, but they're not actually in relationship with God, so they're doing those sacrifices to some [01:06:00] extent. but they're like Cain. They're not doing it in the right way. They're not doing it with the heart to please and include God in their celebration and honoring God. They were doing it for much different purposes. So if you're in that kind of a situation, this kind of very strong language seems very appropriate to me.

And I don't think it's necessary to take it to the idea that This means the sacrificial system meant nothing or that God didn't institute it or anything along those lines.

Cindy Beaver: Yes, it's a very, very complicated complex subject, which is why we're talking about it. And, Having some excellent conversations about reflecting how we've changed in our understanding today versus how it was biblically , the way We look at sacrifice today as with the loss and victimization as opposed to it really being intended [01:07:00] to nurture and maintain and build a relationship between people.

And yeah, I think that those ancient Israelites. That the prophets were haranguing. I mean, they were so far off the rails. , they needed a shock and awe type of a demonstration from the prophet to even get through to them. I would say they were treating sacrifice as magic, you know protection spells.

You know, it wasn't anything about having a relationship because they. Absolutely didn't want a relationship with him anymore.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, when you're actively rejecting God, and then you're still trying to do the things that God commanded, that's kind of not cool. Not a good situation to be in.

Cindy Beaver: Yes. Oh, and how, what's in, what is in your heart?

Carey Griffel: Yeah. Well, I think we will go ahead and wrap up the episode today as everyone is super excited to hear more about purification offerings at some point, I'm [01:08:00] sure, but but thank you Cindy for this discussion. I know I learned some stuff and I really appreciate what you've brought to the conversation.

Cindy Beaver: , like I said before, this Welcoming Gifts book , was really, really powerful and eye opening to me. To like, wow, it, the history of how we got from where we were to where we are now. That it made a lot of sense to me , but it also helped me reaffirm. That the biblical understanding is so much more wholesome and positive.

And then, you know, another thing that we can save for a later discussion is, what kind of things are considered appropriate sacrifices in our current age prayer, fasting, those types of activities the giving offerings. To benefit others those are the types of things now that we would consider again, sacrificial, but they are also meant to build relationship to build up the [01:09:00] church and to help each other.

but also doing it with the right intentions and with the fact that we want to give the glory to God.

Carey Griffel: All right, well, we will end there. Thank you, Cindy.

Cindy Beaver: Thank you, Carrie.

Carey Griffel: All right. Well, as always, I hope you guys enjoyed that episode. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing the episodes. I will be putting a link to that book that Cindy was talking about and reading from.

I'll put that in the show notes and the description of the podcast episode so that if you're interested in having a look at that, you can. I really enjoyed what she was bringing out from there. I think that book really helped to frame this entire conversation about how we can think about this idea of sacrifice, because I really think we need to change our perspective.

And for many of us, it might be just a slight shift in how we think about sacrifice. [01:10:00] But that slight shift can be absolutely crucial, because it does touch on the work of our Savior Jesus Christ. So, I think that's exceptionally important, and we will be looking at that in the future more, and looking at it very carefully, and having more conversations about that.

But until then, if you want to get a hold of me, you can do so on Facebook, you can do so through email at GenesisMarksTheSpot at gmail. com. You can also send me a message directly through my website at GenesisMarksTheSpot. com. So, many ways you can get a hold of me. If you have any questions for the worship series, or any other questions that you might have for me in general.

Thank you to my Patreon and PayPal supporters. And thank you guys for listening and for the encouragement. You are all awesome and you make this all possible. And I love talking with and interacting with you guys. I am a [01:11:00] little bit behind on my newsletter production. I'm trying to find a better workflow for that so that I can fit that into my week a little bit more smoothly, but I will be sending out newsletters more often once I get that worked out.

In any case, I hope you all have a blessed week, and we will see you later.