The Actuality Of Sacrifice

Sacrifice is part of many religions. While the actual ritual has often been abolished, the concept remains alive through stories, rituals, calendars and art. The essays in this book discuss the concept from various social, historical and intellectual contexts ranging from the pre-historical period till today.

In a reissue of a masterly examination of both the Christian doctrine of Atonement and the nature and working of theological language, Professor Gunton reassesses the doctrine and the language in which it is expressed in the light of modern scholarly developments. He explains how the traditional metaphors of Atonement, drawn from the battlefield, the altar and the law courts, all express something of the meaning of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus-and examines their bearing on human life in today's world.

Argues that the modern Western world's reductive understanding of sacrifice simplifies an enormously broad and dynamic cluster of religious activities, drawing on a comparative study of Vedic and Jewish sacrificial practices to demonstrate not only that sacrifice has no single, essential, identifying characteristic, but also that the elements most frequently attributed to such acts--death and violence--are not universal.

Common features of sacrifice -- Theories of sacrifice -- Sacrifice in Jewish tradition -- Sacrifice in Christian tradition -- Sacrifice in Islamic tradition

Robert J. Daly S.J. examines the concept of sacrifice in the ancient Mediterranean world, and discusses how the rise of bloodless Christian sacrifice, and the use of sacrificial language in reference to highly spiritualized Christian lives, would have seemed unsettling and radically challenging to the pagan mind. Acknowledging the difficulties posed by an overwhelmingly Christian scholarly narrative around the topic of sacrifice, Daly specifically sets out to tell the non-Christian side of this story. He first outlines the pagan trajectory, and then the Jewish-Christian trajectory, before concluding with a representative series of comparisons and contrasts. Covering the concept of sacrifice in relation to prayer, ethics and morality, the rhetoric and economics of sacrificial ceremonies, and heroes and saints, Daly finishes with an estimation of how this study might inform further study of sacrifice.

The first general critique of the interpretations of animal sacrifice established by Walter Burkert, the late J.-P. Vernant, and Marcel Detienne.

In Sacrifice in Modernity: Community, Ritual, Identity it is demonstrated how sacrificial themes remain an essential element in our post-modern society.