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Sacrifice
Sacrifice is an act or offering made to a deity. A sacrifice can serve as propitiation, or a sacrifice can be an offering of praise and thanksgiving. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly existed before that. Evidence of ritual human sacrifice can also be found back to at least pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica as well as in European civilizations. Varieties of ritual non-human sacrifices are practiced by numerous religions today. Terminology The Latin term ''sacrificium'' (a sacrifice) derived from Latin ''sacrificus'' (performing priestly functions or sacrifices), which combined the concepts ''sacra'' (sacred things) and ''facere'' (to make, to do). The Latin word ''sacrificium'' came to apply to the Christian eucharist in particular, sometimes named a "bloodless sacrifice" to distinguish it from blood sacrifices. In individual non-Christian ethnic religions, terms translated as "sacrifice" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease deity, gods, a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment, an authoritative/priestly figure, spirits of veneration of the dead, dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein a monarch's servants are killed in order for them to continue to serve their master in the next life. Closely related practices found in some tribe, tribal societies are human cannibalism, cannibalism and headhunting. Human sacrifice is also known as ritual murder. Human sacrifice was practiced in many human societies beginning in prehistoric times. By the Iron Age with the associated developments in religion (the Axial Age), human sacrifice was becoming less common throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia, and came to be looked down upon as barbarian, barbaric during classical antiquity. In the New World, Americas, however, human sacrifice cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animal Sacrifice
Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing and offering of animals, usually as part of a religious ritual or to appease or maintain favour with a deity. Animal sacrifices were common throughout Europe and the Ancient Near East until the spread of Christianity in Late Antiquity, and continue in some cultures or religions today. Human sacrifice, where it existed, was always much rarer. All or only part of a sacrificial animal may be offered; some cultures, like the Ancient Greeks ate most of the edible parts of the sacrifice in a feast, and burnt the rest as an offering. Others burnt the whole animal offering, called a Holocaust (sacrifice), holocaust. Usually, the best animal or best share of the animal is the one presented for offering. Animal sacrifice should generally be distinguished from the religiously prescribed methods of ritual slaughter of animals for normal consumption as food. During the Neolithic Revolution, early humans began to move from hunter-gatherer cultures toward ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qorban
In Judaism, the (), also spelled or , is any of a variety of sacrificial offerings described and commanded in the Torah. The plural form is , , or . The term primarily refers to sacrificial offerings given from humans to God for the purpose of doing homage, winning favor, or securing pardon. The object sacrificed was usually an animal that was ritually slaughtered and then transferred from the human to the divine realm by being burned on an altar. Other sacrifices include grain offerings made of flour and oil, not meat. After the destruction of the Second Temple, sacrifices were prohibited because there was no longer a Temple, the only place allowed by halakha for sacrifices. Offering of sacrifices was briefly reinstated during the Jewish–Roman wars of the second century CE. When sacrifices were offered in ancient times, they were offered as a fulfillment of Biblical commandments. According to Orthodox Judaism, the coming of the messiah will not remove the requirem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sacrifice (chess)
In chess, a sacrifice is a move that gives up a piece with the objective of gaining tactical or positional compensation in other forms. A sacrifice could also be a deliberate exchange of a chess piece of higher value for an opponent's piece of lower value. Any chess piece except the king may be sacrificed. Because players usually try to hold on to their own pieces, offering a sacrifice can come as an unpleasant surprise to one's opponent, putting them off balance and causing them to waste precious time trying to calculate whether the sacrifice is sound or not, and whether to accept it. Sacrificing one's queen (the most valuable piece), or a string of pieces, adds to the surprise, and such games can be awarded . Types of sacrifice Real versus sham Rudolf Spielmann proposed a division between sham and real sacrifices: * In a ''real sacrifice'', the sacrificing player will often have to play on with less than their opponent for quite some time. * In a ''sham sacrifice'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blót
(Old Norse and Old English) or (Old English) are religious ceremonies in Germanic paganism that centred on the killing and offering of an animal to a particular being, typically followed by the communal cooking and eating of its meat. Old Norse sources present it as a central ritual in Old Nordic religion that was intimately connected with many wider aspects of life. Large are often described as taking place in halls, organised by the rulers of the region who were expected to carry out the practice on behalf of the people. were central to the legitimacy of rulers and Christian rulers refusing to hold them were at times replaced by more willing alternatives and driven out of the land. Smaller, household were sometimes recorded as being led by women. Beyond strengthening legitimacy for the ruling elites, the performance of was often in order to ensure the fertility of the land, a good harvest and peace, although they are also recorded as being performed for divination or to ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-sacrifice
Self-sacrifice is the giving up of something that a person wants for themselves, so that others can be helped or protected, or so that other external values can be advanced or protected. Generally, an act of self-sacrifice conforms to the rule that it does not serve the person’s best self-interest, and will leave the person in a worse situation than the person otherwise would have been. Two other common types of sacrifice can easily be confused with self-sacrifice, but do not conform to this rule. The first involves giving up on interests accidentally or unintentionally. This behaviour is frequently engaged in during everyday life even in attempting to serve self-interests, without people being aware of it. A second type of sacrifice involves willfully forgoing a minor benefit in favour of a greater benefit, even while such an action feels like a sacrifice. However, if the action results in deferred gratification, it does not involve a true cost. Although there have been many ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qurban
''Qurbān'' () or ''uḍḥiyah'' () as referred to in Islamic law, is a ritual animal sacrifice of a livestock animal during Eid al-Adha. The concept and definition of the word is derived from the Qur'an, the sacred scripture of Muslims, and is the analog of korban in Judaism. The word and concept are similar as in other Abrahamic religions; in the Jewish faith there are several forms of "korban" e.g. korban shelamim ("peace offering"), or korban olah ("elevated offering", also translated as "burnt offering"). The meat of the Islamic qurban is distributed equally between the poor, the donor of the qurban, and the family of the donor. citing al-Hadiyya al-Ala’iyya of Ala al-Din Abidin A commonly used word which may encompass qurban is ''uḍḥiyah'' (). In Islamic Law, udhiyah would refer to the sacrifice of a specific animal, offered by a specific person, on specific days to seek God in Islam, God's pleasure and reward. Etymology The word is a cognate in several Semitic lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and northwestern part of Costa Rica. As a cultural area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures. In the pre-Columbian era, many Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous societies flourished in Mesoamerica for more than 3,000 years before the Spanish colonization of the Americas began on Hispaniola in 1493. In world history, Mesoamerica was the site of two historical transformations: (i) primary urban generation, and (ii) the formation of New World cultures from the mixtures of the indigenous Mesoamerican peoples with the European, African, and Asian peoples who were introduced by the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Mesoameri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yajna
In Hinduism, ''Yajna'' or ''Yagna'' (, Help:IPA/Sanskrit, [jɐd͡ʒɲə], ) also known as Hawan, is a ritual done in front of a sacred fire, often with mantras. Yajna has been a Vedas, Vedic tradition, described in a layer of Vedic literature called Brahmanas, as well as Yajurveda. The tradition has evolved from offering oblations and libations into sacred fire to symbolic offerings in the presence of sacred fire (Agni). Yajna rituals-related texts have been called the ''Karma-kanda'' (ritual works) portion of the Vedic literature, in contrast to the ''Jnana-kanda'' (knowledge) portion found in the Vedic Upanishads. The proper completion of Yajna-like rituals was the focus of Mimansa school of Hindu philosophy. Yajna have continued to play a central role in a Hindu's rites of passage, such as weddings. Modern major Hindu temple ceremonies, Hindu community celebrations, or monastic initiations may also include Vedic Yajna rites, or alternatively be based on Āgama (Hinduism), A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eucharist
The Eucharist ( ; from , ), also called Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament or the Lord's Supper, is a Christianity, Christian Rite (Christianity), rite, considered a sacrament in most churches and an Ordinance (Christianity), ordinance in others. Christians believe that the rite was instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper, the night before Crucifixion of Jesus, his crucifixion, giving his Disciple (Christianity), disciples bread and wine. Passages in the New Testament state that he commanded them to "do this in memory of me" while referring to the bread as "my body" and the cup of wine as "the blood of my covenant, which is poured out for many". According to the synoptic Gospels, this was at a Passover meal. The elements of the Eucharist, sacramental bread, either Leavening agent, leavened or Unleavened bread, unleavened, and sacramental wine (non-alcoholic grape juice in some Protestantism, Protestant traditions, such as Methodism), are consecrated on an altar or a communio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Propitiation
Propitiation is the act of appeasing or making well-disposed a deity, thus incurring divine favor or avoiding divine retribution. It is related to the idea of atonement and sometime mistakenly conflated with expiation. The discussion here encompasses usage only in the Christianity, Christian tradition. Christian theology In Romans 3:25 the King James Version, New King James Version, New American Standard Bible, and the English Standard Version translates "propitiation" from the Greek word ''hilasterion''. Concretely it specifically means the lid of The Ark of The Covenant. The only other occurrence of ''hilasterion'' in the NT is in Hebrews 9:5, where it is translated as "mercy seat" in all of the Bible translations named above as well as the Revised Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version. For many Christians it has the meaning of "that which expiates or propitiates" or "the gift which procures propitiation". (KJV) reads: "And he is the propitiation for our sins: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Robertson Smith
William Robertson Smith (8 November 184631 March 1894) was a Scottish orientalist, Old Testament scholar, professor of divinity, and minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He was an editor of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' and contributor to the '' Encyclopaedia Biblica''. He is also known for his book ''Religion of the Semites'', which is considered a foundational text in the comparative study of religion. Life and career Smith was born in Keig in Aberdeenshire the eldest son of Rev Dr William Pirie Smith DD (1811–1890), minister of the recently created Free Church of Scotland for the parishes of Keig and Tough, and of his wife, Jane Robertson. His brother was Charles Michie Smith. He demonstrated a quick intellect at an early age. He entered Aberdeen University at fifteen, before transferring to New College, Edinburgh, to train for the ministry, in 1866. After graduation he took up a chair in Hebrew at the Aberdeen Free Church College in 1870, succeeding Prof M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
