{"id":830,"date":"2007-03-04T03:16:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-04T03:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=830"},"modified":"2007-03-04T03:16:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-04T03:16:00","slug":"sacrificing-sheep-in-jerusalem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=830","title":{"rendered":"Sacrificing sheep in Jerusalem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cambridge University classics professor Mary Beard recently suggested that today’s Hellenic Pagans were inauthentic because they did not sacrifice animals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Set aside the Pagans for a moment. What about Jews?<\/p>\n

A small but controversial movement in Israel wants to revive Temple-based religion, including sacrifice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The present-day Sanhedrin Court decided Tuesday to purchase a herd of sheep for ritual sacrifice at the site of the Temple on the eve of Passover, conditions on the Temple Mount permitting.<\/em><\/p>\n

The comments on the article pretty well represent a spectrum of Jewish religious squabbling, from the ultra-orthodox who think that the state of Israel is an affront to their god, to those who think that sacrifice is “cruelty to animals” and those who think that it is not, to those who just want to kick the Muslims off the Temple Mount. Oy vey!<\/p>\n

Via Mirabilis<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cambridge University classics professor Mary Beard recently suggested that today’s Hellenic Pagans were inauthentic because they did not sacrifice animals. Set aside the Pagans for a moment. What about Jews? A small but controversial movement in Israel wants to revive Temple-based religion, including sacrifice. The present-day Sanhedrin Court decided Tuesday to purchase a herd of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[15,51,52],"class_list":["post-830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-islam","tag-judaism","tag-sacrifice"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-do","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":814,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=814","url_meta":{"origin":830,"position":0},"title":"Animal Sacrifice and Authenticity","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Last month Classics scholar Mary Beard suggested that contemporary Hellenic Pagans were not quite authentic because they omitted the centerpiece of ancient Paganism: animal sacrifice. (I discussed her critique here, and she responded.)Orthodox Christian blogger Rod Dreher's recent post--and especially the comments--pretty well illustrate just how squeamish today's population--even omnivores--are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14050,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14050","url_meta":{"origin":830,"position":1},"title":"Will Christians Fulfill a Pagan Emperor’s Plan?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 15, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Julian \"The Philosopher,\" Rome's last Pagan emperor (mid-360s), would get chuckle out of this. (Although to me he comes across as super-serious, he must have found some things funny. I hope.) While he was force-fed Christian theology by bishops, growing up in a royal Christian household, he later studied ancient\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Julian_antioch-mint-bull.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1883,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1883","url_meta":{"origin":830,"position":2},"title":"Giving Animal Sacrifice a Bad Name","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"You know that I am all for polytheism, and I say \"All honor to Durga,\" but isn't this a bit much? The Los Angeles Times reports that more than 40,000 people, many of whom were inebriated, took their sacrificial goats to the Tildiha village temple in Bihar state to pray\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Hinduism\"","block_context":{"text":"Hinduism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=hinduism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":497,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=497","url_meta":{"origin":830,"position":3},"title":"The logistics of sacrifice (2)Part\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The logistics of sacrifice (2)Part 1Bard College is known for its Classics program. Somewhere on the Web there is a video clip transferred from film of 1930s students in ancient Greek costumes having an Olympic-style competition on the fieldhouse.This graphic series from Bard attempts to show the stages of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5677,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5677","url_meta":{"origin":830,"position":4},"title":"When Gods Sacrifice to Themselves","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Almost all traditional Pagan cultures have one religious practice in common that contemporary Pagans for the most part avoid: Sacrifice, which means literally \"to make sacred.\" Earlier this month, in fact, at a Pagan camp-out one of the elders was discoursing on the uselessness of sacrifice. If g\/God were a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/9\/91\/Omphalos_pushkin.jpg\/337px-Omphalos_pushkin.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":519,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=519","url_meta":{"origin":830,"position":5},"title":"Saturday with the PagansRocky Mountain\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Saturday with the PagansRocky Mountain News religion writer Jean Torkelson goes to Denver's Pagan Pride celebration and writes a middle-of-the-road \"Pagans are mostly just regular folks\" column.Behind each pagan, a story: Dressed in brooding black, Michael Torres looked like a shadow falling across the sunlit park. Raised in the intense\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}