Today's Readings: Questions about sacrifices, holocausts, sin offerings

[Tis_Bearself]

Today’s readings for the Annunciation addressed the four main types of OT sacrifices dating back to Leviticus etc. In Hebrews chapter 10, it talks about how God isn’t pleased with these animal sacrifices and they don’t take away sin. The idea being of course that Jesus was the perfect sacrifice that takes away sin, making all the animal sacrifice unnecessary.

With that in mind I had a few questions, may be dumb questions:

1. When did God stop being pleased with the animal and cereal sacrifices? Only at the time of Jesus’ sacrifice for us? Or before? Is there a context to this, like animal sacrifice used to be meaningful but became more perfunctory over the centuries? If the sin offerings didn’t remit sin, then why did people bother to continue making them?
2. Did all the Christians who had been observant Jewish people just stop making these sacrifices after Jesus’ death and resurrection?
3. I’m presuming the Jewish people carried on with the animal and cereal sacrifices. At what point did they stop, since obviously such sacrifices aren’t being offered today?

 

[Dan_Defender]

We do not know the exact point at which the ritual sacrifices stopped mattering. At some point the emphasis got misconstrued so that too much focus was on the rituals and not on the golden rule. By the time of Jesus it was clear that was the case, that is why he said ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice’.

The rituals stopped when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed in AD 70. They have never restarted because the Temple has never been rebuilt, but I know Orthodox Jews who would love to rebuild the Temple and restart those rituals.

 

[Gorgias]

At some point the emphasis got misconstrued so that too much focus was on the rituals and not on the golden rule. By the time of Jesus it was clear that was the case, that is why he said ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice’.

The problem, which we see described in the OT, is that the Israelites were performing the prescribed sacrifices, but weren’t concerned with any of the standards of behavior. I don’t know that I would limit it to the ‘golden rule’, but certainly, the way they treated their fellow Israelites was abhorrent to God.

(After all, what’s easier to do – buy and hand over an animal for sacrifice, or to actually live one’s life in accordance with the Mosaic law? The Israelites chose the former over the latter, and God pointed out to them that the latter was what mattered to Him more.)

By the time of Jesus it was clear that was the case, that is why he said ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice’.

Or maybe He said it because he’s quoting Hosea, in which context the prophet is proclaiming the same idea…

 

[greenrangerx]

It must have been quite a while before the time of Jesus. It’s mentioned several times in the OT:

“Sacrifice and offering you do not want; you opened my ears. Holocaust and sin-offering you do not request; so I said, “See; I come with an inscribed scroll written upon me. I delight to do your will, my God; your law is in my inner being!”” Ps 40:7-9

“For you do not desire sacrifice or I would give it; a burnt offering you would not accept. My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit; a contrite, humbled heart, O God, you will not scorn.”
Ps 51:18-19

“For it is loyalty that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Hos 6:6