Sin Tranference

[Purple Knight]

Sin transference seems to be a universal concept in monotheism. Christians believe* Jesus can make up for their sins, and Jews believe* that chickens can make up for their sins.

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(*some)

So here's my question: If you tortured a baby to death, or even just killed it, could it still potentially work? Could that baby carry your sins away somehow?

I understand that God said no more human sacrifices at one point, so perhaps it wouldn't work... but I'm asking if the act has that potential. Could it work, not would it work.

Another really, really weird question... Let's say there are humanoid aliens, and you stole one of their babies and killed it. Could that work?

[Divine Insight]

I don't see how anyone can blame secularists who suggest that religious people may not be the brightest people on the planet. I think that's a fair position to take in light of some of these common religious traditions.

[marco]

Sin transference seems to be a universal concept in monotheism. Christians believe* Jesus can make up for their sins, and Jews believe* that chickens can make up for their sins.

So here's my question: If you tortured a baby to death, or even just killed it, could it still potentially work? Could that baby carry your sins away somehow?

I understand that God said no more human sacrifices at one point, so perhaps it wouldn't work...

Sin transference is closely linked to cash transference. Where you have sinners and guilt you have a willingness to subscribe to views that remove sin. You might even build a palace on the proceeds.

As for God banning human sacrifice, after he had said that the smell of sacrificial victims was good, Christianity has him sacrificing his own son (to himself) because he "so loved the world." What Yahweh thinks on Thursday is not what he says on Saturday.

Poke around in the Abrahamic religions and absurdities fall out.

[SallyF]

The propagandists do not have the Archangel Gabriel mention the purpose of the Jesus character being implanted in her uterus was for him to become either the ethnically-customary, Jehovah-mollifying sacrificial goat or scapegoat.

The archangel only informed her he was to become the King of Israel - you know, with donkey parades to trash Herod the Great's temple and the non-appearance of the legions of angels.

The sin-transference idea looks to me to be a fabrication put forward by the propagandists to put a spin on the failure of their supposed Messiah.

The spin would have found acceptance amongst certain Jewish contemporaries.

Christians of a later time have bought the sin-transference idea.

But this notion of a sin-transference to a HUMAN, son-of-a-king/god sacrifice notion may have a genuine history in the Canaanite culture of the people who became known as Jews.

We can recall the story of Moses offering himself as a human sacrifice to Jehovah

And the writers writing that Jehovah rejected the idea, declaring that everyone was responsible for their own sins.

[marco]

The propagandists do not have the Archangel Gabriel mention the purpose of the Jesus character being implanted in her uterus was for him to become either the ethnically-customary, Jehovah-mollifying sacrificial goat or scapegoat.

I believe Gabriel forgot and returned later when Jesus was wandering in Gethsemane. The announcement was: "Change of plan. No kingdom. You're gonna get crucified, but don't worry, you'll die before they break your legs, which can be awfully sore."
We know Christ's reaction. He sweated blood and said; "Please don't do this." But he knew it was for the people of China and Japan, of Mongolia and Samoa and even parts of Russia. Jesus did not say to his Father: "But you said no more blood sacrificed!" Instead he willingly accepted death, death on a cross, as Paul piously tells us. And Paul would know.

[Elijah John]

Sin transference seems to be a universal concept in monotheism.

Stopping right here, please demonstrate the veracity of this statement. In modern Christianity the transference is only to Jesus. In modern Judaism, animal sacrifice is no longer required nor is it desirable. Islam? The Muslims never preached that. So how is sin transference "a universal concept in monotheism"? And what about Ba'hai, or Sikhism? Zoroastrianism?

Also, regarding the outmoded "sin transference" practice of ancient Judaism, the OP and several of the subsequent posts on this thread ignore passages like this from Micah:

6 How shall I come before Yahweh,
and bow myself before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7
Will Yahweh be pleased with thousands of rams?
With tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my disobedience?
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8
He has shown you, O man, what is good.
What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly,
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Doesn't fit the narrative, so inconvenient passages like this are often ignored by YHVH's detractors.

[Elijah John]

Jesus did not say to his Father: "But you said no more blood sacrificed!"

Not verbatim, but yeah he did, in essence when he quoted the prophet Hosea channeling YHVH, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice". Jesus was echoing what the other prophets had been saying for years. He also did this by following in the Baptist's footsteps in preaching repentance and the Father's mercy, never alluding to the supposed necessity of the shedding of blood. (the Lord's prayer, the Parables, the Beattitude, etc.)

Instead he willingly accepted death, death on a cross, as Paul piously tells us. And Paul would know.

Jesus accepted a martyr's fate, dying for what he believed in. That John and Paul told us it was a blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins is their theological interpretation of the event. It's not what Jesus went around preaching.

[Willum]

Sin transference seems to be a universal concept in monotheism.

Stopping right here, please demonstrate the veracity of this statement. In modern Christianity the transference is only to Jesus. In modern Judaism, animal sacrifice is no longer required nor is it desirable. Islam? The Muslims never preached that. So how is sin transference "a universal concept in monotheism"? And what about Ba'hai, or Sikhism? Zoroastrianism?

It is practically offensive when you say, "in modern Judaism..."
So you are essentially saying that the Judaists/Hebrew, who got the word practically from God's mouth, are quaint and wrong, while those with modern sensibilities are right?

That is quite the hubris to decree on other peoples.
There are Judaists who still practice the rights.

So is animal sacrifice required or desirable?
The question lies in who cancelled the policy.

Men or God?
It was man, which means that all those folks who believed animal sacrifice was required, are now going to Hell for not practicing it. If most modern Judaists still believe in Hell. Or the Hebrew translation... or what ever judgment they are ambiguous about because it now causes modern embarrassment.

But in conclusion, would animal sacrifice still work?
Hey possibly the reason why we haven't seen God in 2000 years is because we haven't been giving him his sacrifices.
It fits the data.

[Difflugia]

Also, regarding the outmoded "sin transference" practice of ancient Judaism, the OP and several of the subsequent posts on this thread ignore passages like this from Micah:

So you are essentially saying that the Judaists/Hebrew, who got the word practically from God's mouth, are quaint and wrong, while those with modern sensibilities are right?

This is exactly the tension that exists in Christianity between Pauline and more Jewish views of Christianity. The prophets in general were reformers that preached what would be the Jewish equivalent of Paul's salvation by grace, while the Deuteronomist represented the traditionalist view and its equivalent to the "faith without works is dead" sentiment of the Epistle of James. The tension isn't even just old versus new, either, because both views appear to have been contemporaries within Judaism itself right up to the time of Jesus. The prophets most opposed to empty sacrifice (and perhaps any sacrifice) like Hosea, Amos, and Micah actually wrote before the Assyrian capture of Israel, long before the Deuteronomist began compiling his history. The traditionalist books of Chronicles were exilic or post-exilic as were the arch-traditionalist books of Ezra and Nehemiah (let's build a wall to keep out foreigners and make Israel great again!). It's interesting to me that parts of what is now Exodus may have been a traditionalist response to reformers denigrating the practice of sacrifice. The Exodus tradition that Amos knew appears to have had none of the extant examples of sacrifice in the wilderness. Verse 5:25 is a rhetorical question that appears originally to have assumed a negative answer, but must awkwardly now be answered "yes:"

Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings while in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel?

Equating animal sacrifice with idolatry goes back at least as far as any independent writings of the prophets, but animal sacrifice only disappeared from Judaism when the Romans destroyed the Temple and its sacrificial altars in AD 70.

[Elijah John]

So is animal sacrifice required or desirable?
The question lies in who cancelled the policy.

God cancelled it, according to progressive revelation. The prophets were participants in that progressive revelation as was King David. Consider: Psalm 50.9-15

I will not take a bull from your house,
Nor goats out of your folds.
10
For every beast of the forest is Mine,
And the cattle on a thousand hills.
11
I know all the birds of the mountains,
And the wild beasts of the field are Mine.
12
If I were hungry, I would not tell you;
For the world is Mine, and all its fullness.
13
Will I eat the flesh of bulls,
Or drink the blood of goats?
14
Offer to God thanksgiving,
And pay your vows to the Most High.
15
Call upon Me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.

And there are several other passages which indicate that God doesn't need, nor desire blood sacrifice.

The great Jewish sage Maimonides indicated that God only tolerated blood sacrifice as a transition from pagan polytheism, to true worship of the one, Living God YHVH. From Rabbi Jeffrey Wildstein writing in the Idiot's Guide to Judaism:

The great medieval scholar Maimonides explained that God knew the Israelites needed sacrifices as their form of worship after the Exodus from Egypt. The Israelites had seen the Egyptians using sacrifice as worship to their many deities, and assumed God also preferred this form of worship.

God commanded the Israelites to perform sacrifices at the temple, but to direct the sacrifices to God instead of the Egyptians or pagan gods. This command constituted an improvement, and a step towards weaning the Israelites away from idolatry, while not forcing too many changes on them that they were not prepared to do. Maimonides concluded that, at this stage in his life, the Jews had outgrown the need for sacrifices, and would never adopt this way of worship again.

So YHVH never had any need for blood, not did he ever desire it. He only tolerated it according to the Prophets and the sage Maimonides.