Figures 011 Noah offered burnt offerings on an altar to the Lord

A holocaust is a religious animal sacrifice that is completely consumed by fire. The word derives from the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''holokaustos'' which is used solely for one of the major forms of sacrifice, also known as a burnt offering.

Etymology and usage

The word holocaust derives from the Middle English holocaust, which derived from the Anglo-Norman ''holocauste'' and Late Latin ''holocaustum''. Its original root was the neuter form of the

''holokaustos'' (ὁλόκαυστος), from ὅλος (hólos, “whole”) + καυστός (kaustós, "burnt") or καίω (kaíō, "I burn") with the use of

rough breathing In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing ( grc, δασὺ πνεῦμα, dasỳ pneûma or ''daseîa''; la, spīritus asper) character is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, ...

to pronounce the leading h.

Greek sacrifice

''Holokautein'' (ὁλοκαυτεῖν) is one of the two chief verbs of Greek sacrifice, in which the victim is utterly destroyed and burnt up, as opposed to ''thúesthai'' (θύεσθαι), to share a meal with the god and one's fellow worshippers, ''commensal'' sacrifice. In the latter, the edible parts of the sacrificed animal were roasted and distributed for festive celebration, whereas the inedible parts were burned on the

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paga ...

, those being the god's share. Although not actually ''obliged'' to do so, Greeks would rather sacrifice a domestic animal to a god or hero and then proceed to use its flesh as food than simply consume it without a sacrifice, as animals were thought of as sharing in the sanctity of life, in addition to their secular usefulness (milk, eggs, ploughing). This did not apply to game, fish, and other seafood, which formed a far larger proportion of the diet than they do today – fish was the major foodstuff sold in ancient Greek marketplaces. A sacrifice need not be a public function involving priests and altars; they could also be held privately, domestically or individually. These are the two ideal types of Greek sacrificial ritual; they are appropriate to different divinities, done for different purposes, and conducted by different methods. Holocausts are

apotropaic Apotropaic magic (from Greek "to ward off") or protective magic is a type of magic intended to turn away harm or evil influences, as in deflecting misfortune or averting the evil eye. Apotropaic observances may also be practiced out of superst ...

rituals, intended to appease the spirits of the Underworld, including the Greek heroes, who are spirits of the dead; they are also given to dangerous powers, such as the

Keres In Greek mythology, the Keres (; Ancient Greek: Κῆρες), singular Ker (; Κήρ), were female death-spirits. They were the goddesses who personified violent death and who were drawn to bloody deaths on battlefields. Although they were pre ...

and

Hecate Hecate or Hekate, , ; grc-dor, Ἑκάτᾱ, Hekátā, ; la, Hecatē or . is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding a pair of torches, a key, snakes, or accompanied by dogs, and in later periods depict ...

. One of the earliest attested holocausts was

Xenophon Xenophon of Athens (; grc, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Greek mercenary armies o ...

's offering of pigs to Zeus Meilichius. Holocausts are conducted at night, without wine, and offer black-hided animals at a low altar, with their heads directed downwards; in all these they are opposed to the commensal sacrifice given to the Olympian gods. (This distinction is between extreme types, and was somewhat exaggerated in the early twentieth century, as by Jane Harrison; considerable evidence has also been found of commensal sacrifice offered to heroes.)

Jewish sacrifice

Holman Altar of Incense Altar of Burnt-Offering Laver

A "burnt offering" is a type of korban (sacrifice), specifically an animal sacrifice in which the entire sacrifice is consumed totally by fire. When the

Jewish scriptures The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''

Koine Greek Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond ...

, the translators used the Greek term ''holokautein'' to translate the Hebrew ''olah''.Ancient Israel: its life and institutions Roland De Vaux - 1997 -p415 "The English word 'holocaust' comes, through the Vulgate, from the Septuagint" This form of sacrifice, in which no meat was left over for anyone, was seen as the greatest form of sacrifice''Jewish Encyclopedia'' and was the form of sacrifice permitted to be given at the Temple by

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and

non-Jews Gentile () is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jews, Jew". Other Groups claiming affiliation with Israelites, groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, sometimes use the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More ra ...

. The "whole offering" is believed to have evolved as an extreme form of the

slaughter offering A slaughter offering in the Hebrew Bible ( he, זָבַח, translit=zevakh) is a type of Jewish animal sacrifice. The term specifically refers to the slaughter of an animal to God followed by a feast or a meal. This is distinguished from the burnt o ...

, in which the portion allocated to the deity increased to all of it. In slaughter offerings, the portion allocated to the deity was mainly the

fat In nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers specifically to triglycerides (triple est ...

, the part which can most easily be burnt. The animals, having first been checked to ensure they were free from disease and unblemished (a requirement of the sacrifice), were brought to the north side of the altar, and killed by either the offeror, or a

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...

. The animal's blood was carefully collected by priests and sprinkled around the altar. Unless the animal was a bird, its corpse was flayed and the skin given to the priest, who was permitted to keep it. In later times more powerful priests took possession of the skins from the lesser priests, and it was decreed that the skins should be sold, with the proceeds being given to the

Temple in Jerusalem The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two now-destroyed religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jeru ...

(Tosefta 19). The flesh of the animal was divided according to detailed instructions given by the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

(Tamid 31), and would then be placed on the wood on the altar (which was constantly alight due to the large number of sacrifices carried out daily), and slowly burnt. After the flesh (including any horns and goats' beards) had been reduced to ashes, usually the following morning, the ashes were taken by the priest to a ritually clean location outside the sanctuary, and dumped there. Most biblical scholars now agree that the intricate details of the whole offering, particularly the types and number of animals on occasion of various feast days, given by the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

, were of a late origin, as were the intricate directions given in the Talmud. Whole offerings were quite rare in early times, but as the ritual became more fixed and statutory, and the concentration of sacrifice into a single sanctuary (particularly after Josiah's reform) made sacrifices quite distinct from simply killing animals for food, whole offerings gradually rose to great prominence.

Notes

References

* Jane Harrison, ''Prolegomena to the study of Greek Religion'' Princeton University Press, 1991; * ''Brill's New Pauly : encyclopaedia of the ancient world'', 2002- : Vol XII, Prol-Sar, *Rebecca I. Denova, ''Greek and Roman Religions'' Newark: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2019 {{DEFAULTSORT:Holocaust (sacrifice) Fire in religion Greek animal sacrifice Jewish animal sacrifice Hecate

Etymology and usage

Greek sacrifice

Jewish sacrifice

See also

Notes

References