The sacrifice of animals was a religious ritual common to the majority civilizations and peoples of the Ancient World. Sacrifice, both human and animal, was offered to placate violent gods and spirits and as a sign of recognition of man to the power of nature that surrounded him with all its forces.
‘I never realized that the Jews sacrificed animals.’
‘Well if you read the Bible you’ll remember that Abraham was order to sacrifice his son Jacob!’
‘I suppose so, but here de Lussac talks of thousands of animals being sacrificed.’
‘That was the culmination of their ancient civilization, which was in fact destroyed by the Romans, what remained was changed for ever.’
In the case of the ancient Hebrew civilization the ritual of animal sacrifice in the Temple of Jerusalem was governed by particularly complex laws, but basically these were either complete sacrifices whereby animals sacrificed were integrally offered to God and entirely burnt on the altar or communal sacrifices in which certain parts of the animals sacrificed were burnt in offering to the Eternal and the remainder of the animals destined as food for priests, families, or those who had directly or indirectly offered the sacrificed animal.
The Bible described complete sacrificial rituals in Leviticus:
Then the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When any man of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of animals from the herd or the flock.
If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer it, a male without defect; he shall offer it at the doorway of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord.
He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, that it may be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf.
He shall slay the young bull before the Lord; and Aaron's sons the priests shall offer up the blood and sprinkle the blood around on the altar that is at the doorway of the tent of meeting.
He shall then skin the burnt offering and cut it into its pieces. The sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire.
Then Aaron's sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, the head and the suet over the wood which is on the fire that is on the altar.
Its entrails and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall offer up in smoke all of it on the altar for a burnt offering, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord.
and public ritual sacrifices:
Now if his offering is a sacrifice of peace offerings, if he is going to offer out of the herd, whether male or female, he shall offer it without defect before the Lord.
He shall lay his hand on the head of his offering and slay it at the doorway of the tent of meeting, and Aaron's sons the priests shall sprinkle the blood around on the altar.
From the sacrifice of the peace offerings he shall present an offering by fire to the Lord, the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, which is on the loins, and the lobe of the liver, which he shall remove with the kidneys.
Then Aaron's sons shall offer it up in smoke on the altar on the burnt offering, which is on the wood that is on the fire; it is an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord.
The animals sacrificed were slaughtered in the Temple Court, and the sacrificial altar was in fact an altar for burning parts of the animal sacrificed.
The different operations of slaughtering, flaying, cutting up the fatty parts and offal, washing of the viscera and feet, implied a great quantity of blood and animal dejections of all kinds. In addition not only were the animals slaughtered ritually by cutting their throats, but they were also entirely emptied of their blood.
The number of animals sacrificed in the Temple on certain occasions was extremely important, especially during the great annual Jewish feasts that brought together a great number of people and pilgrims from all of Israel and overseas.
The heads of all Jewish families considered it essential to be present at the Temple in Jerusalem to offer up a communal sacrifice, which sanctified the meat. Those parts not burnt on the altar as offerings to the Eternal and not reserved for the High Priest, the priests and the Levites to be eaten at once or preserved, could then take away.
As for royalty, dignitaries, and other leaders, their glory was amplified when they offered the greatest number of animals possible for sacrifice.
According to the Bible story, for the consecration of the Temple, King Solomon and all the Israelites offered a very great number of animals for sacrifice. The Book of Kings tells of how Solomon offered 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep in sacrifice to the Lord.
These royal sacrifices were the occasion for great festivities that continued for seven days with sufficient food for all, without taking into account meat salted for preservation, prepared by the priests and the Levites as a food stock.
Other accounts speak of 70 bulls, 100 rams, and 200 lambs, sacrificed in a burnt offering to the Lord another speaks of 600 bulls and 3,000 sheep.
Flavius Josephus spoke of the high priests and the Feast of the Passover, calculating the number of sacrifices as 256,500 animals sacrificed at altar in the Court of the Temple. Thus the Temple and its courts were transformed into a huge slaughter house and butchery together with specialised functional areas near to the Altar of Incineration for the slaughtering the animals, cutting their throats and bleeding them, tables for flaying and cleaning the skins, tables for butchering the carcasses according to the ritual for distribution of the parts, eviscerating and rinsing the entrails as well as for washing the animals’ hooves.
Jewish texts describe these areas:
Twenty-four Rings set into the floor to the north of the Altar.
Some said 4 rows of 6 rings.
It was there they slaughtered the animals.
The slaughter area was to the north of the Altar
There were eight columns with square boards in cedar wood at the top to which were fixed iron hooks.
These hooks were arranged in three rows, on which the animals were hung after slaughter (and bled).
The priests flayed them on eight marble tables.
The slaughtering, bleeding, flaying, butchering, removal and washing of the viscera of thousands of animals, even hundreds of thousands of animals, produced vast quantities of waste in the Court of the Priests, not only the blood of the sacrificial victims, but also their urine and dejections of all kinds, transforming the court into a vast, slimy, bloody cesspool that would have quickly become an evil smelling lake if it had not been washed and cleaned immediately.
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A Visit to London