Dog Sacrifices

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Orleander, Apr 7, 2009.

  1. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Why would the church have an issues with dog sacrifices? Would it have been ok if it was a lamb?

    Dog Sacrifices Found in Medieval Hungarian VillageCharles

    A medieval Hungarian town full of ritually sacrificed dogs could shed light on mysterious pagan customs not found in written records from the era, a new study suggests.

    Roughly 1,300 bones from about 25 dogs were recently discovered in the 10th- to 13th-century town of Kana, which had been accidentally unearthed in 2003 during the construction of residential buildings on the outskirts of Budapest.

    These sacrifices probably served much like amulets to ward against evil—for instance, to protect against witchcraft or the evil eye, said study leader Márta Daróczi-Szabó, an archaeozoologist at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest.

    About a dozen other canines were found buried under house foundations. These animals likely served as "construction sacrifices," Daróczi-Szabó said.

    During the Middle Ages it was customary in Hungary to lock sacrificial animals inside new houses or to slaughter the beasts as people moved in.

    Sometimes dogs were beaten to death on the doorsteps or a chicken's throat was slit.

    Dogs were popular sacrificial animals in medieval Hungary, Daróczi-Szabó said. They were seen two different ways: They symbolized loyalty, but they also stood for the deadly sin of envy.

    "There was a very big difference between the hunting dogs of the nobility and the scavenging pariah dogs of everyday life," she said.

    Previous evidence of animal sacrifices—seen even under churches, in Budapest and elsewhere in Hungary—had been mostly isolated cases, Daróczi-Szabó noted.

    But the new findings, described this month in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior, show that "sacrifices were not a rare phenomenon, as one may have thought from isolated finds," she said. "It was practiced regularly in a Christian village."

    The fact that pagan customs such as animal sacrifice persisted for centuries side-by-side with the church is surprising, noted University of Edinburgh archaeozoologist László Bartosiewicz.

    Christianity came to dominate the region after the first king of Hungary, Stephen I, began his rule in A.D. 1000. Under his reign, pagan rituals such as animal sacrifices were explicitly banned.

    "One wouldn't expect these practices in Christian times," said Bartosiewicz, who did not participate in the new study. "It's exciting to see what was sacred and profane back then.

    "The great number of sacrifices we see [in Kana] will significantly improve our chances of interpreting what their meaning was," he added.

    "It's probably the find of a lifetime. I can't imagine lucking upon anything else of this scope."
     
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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The Church substituted the one-time sacrifice of Jesus for the previous Pagan practice of sacrificing animals. Neat, huh?
     
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  5. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Where is that in the Bible?? I mean, I know he suppoedly died for my sins, but not all the other crap.
     
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  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Probably the New Testament. The OT is full of "burnt offerings", which usually meant the finest unblemished livestock. This was certainly in the minds of the Jews, and it's probably responsible for the doctrine of substitute sacrifice (Jesus dying for your sins).
     
  8. CutsieMarie89 Zen Registered Senior Member

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    Yeah he's right. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, that is why Christians don't sacrifice animals to God.
    Americans have strong connections to certain animals such as dogs and cats and monkeys to I think, but that's why Americans get all hyped up about things like dog fights and eating cats. It's not really logical or justifiable though as we kill other animals all of the time without a second thought.
     
  9. Will.T Registered Member

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    Covenant, a mutual agreement between 2 or more persons to do or to refrain from doing certain acts. In the old testament of the Bible God allowed sacrifices of only certain animals that he chose. This was a way people showed there faithfulness to Him. This was a part of a covenent between God and his choosen people. But God said he would make a knew covenent. This knew covenent was Jesus Christ fortold hundreds of years before he was even born. He sent His Son to earth to abolish the old ways such as the sacrifice of animals and Jesus became the way the truth and the life. This was the birth of Christianity. A lot of people will argue this because Jesus said he wasn't here on earth to change anything. But it wasn't Jesus that said he would make a knew covenent it was God. Jesus was just sent here to do the works of His Father in heavan, not to argue with everybody about what he was here to do. Hope this might help answer your question. Thanks and God bless....
     
  10. PsychoticEpisode It is very dry in here today Valued Senior Member

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    Will.....Covenants with God are about killing things? I don't want one of those. You know, if I lived back in the days of Christ then I wouldn't want to kill him at all. I'm sure that not everyone wanted him dead. I hope those people weren't disrupting God's plan and I hope they went to heaven despite the troublemakers they became.
     
  11. SkinWalker Archaeology / Anthropology Moderator

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    Something to keep in mind is that a key component of a "sacrifice" in any religion is to give up something that has value. This is a common thread in all cultures where sacrifice is present, whether it be a virgin thrown to the volcano or down the cenote or the lamb brought to the priest at the Greek temple dedicated to Zeus.

    The Maya sacrificed their own blood by piercing tongues or penises -allowing the blood to be caught and burnt.

    The Greeks brought the best of their stock to the priests to be sacrificed on alters within the temple's tenemos (a fence, wall, or other delineation between the sacred and the profane) -the choice cuts of meat went to the priestly cast, the rest to the peasants.

    Sacrifices were meant to demonstrate piety to peers and subjects and give a perception of faith, be it genuine or not. But not all sacrifices involve the taking of a creature's life. The act of tithing is a sacrifice, as is the dedication of time and space for modern ritual cult practices: bible study groups, prayers at mosques, temples and churches, mass, etc. -one could even argue that allowing a cult doctrine to impose its morality and beliefs over that of reason and rational thought is a sort of sacrifice, much the way otherwise normal, educated persons are given to believe in fantasies about global floods, special creation, etc.

    Given all this, the pagan customs of medieval Hungary don't seem all that strange.
     
  12. swarm Registered Senior Member

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    You know I don't really see that going from animal sacrifice to human or deital sacrifice is really a step up for the xtians.
     
  13. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    but how big of a sacrifice is it to kill a dog? As many as there were, wouldn't it be like killing a rat?
     
  14. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    yes, for our (humans) sins. But what about the blessing of a house? Most of these dogs were buried in houses.
     
  15. John99 Banned Banned

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    Orly, do you think that possibly this is being played up and extrapolated to make the story more interesting? after all it is only 25 or so dogs. seems to me that this has become fairly common to make something more mysterious and more glamorous a find when there really is no real proof.
     
  16. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    sure that's possible.

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    I bet they ate most of the dogs they sacrificed.
    And they were sacrificing dogs while christianity was active. I bet they were sacrificing a heck of a lot more before that.
     
  17. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Yes and no. They were valued for hunting and guarding, but their lives were not valued as they are in modern America, where it's like a member of the family. Animals were seen as given by God for us to use as we see fit, and they could be killed with hardly a thought. Cats especially were seen as evil and regularly tortured, by children, just for fun.
     
  18. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    cats are bad? Torture and kill all cats? LOL, hello black plague.
     
  19. John99 Banned Banned

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    So if you find 25 dead dogs in close proximity it could never have just been some crazy guy killing dogs for the hell of it. Nooooo that could never happen...or just killing them and eating them.

    i know...SACRAFICE,SACRAFICE.SACRAFICE

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    Last edited: Apr 8, 2009
  20. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Dogs didn't have much value at that time. Why go to the trouble of burying them in not only your house, but other people houses? Or did he move around a lot?

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  21. John99 Banned Banned

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    and you know this how?
     
  22. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    seriously? Well, because they ate them. There were hunting/guard dogs the wealthy had and fed. Others ate them and sacrificed them.
    Kind of like cows today. Us kids bottle fed the calves, named them, loved them. When they grew up our parents butchered them and we had food on the table.
     
  23. John99 Banned Banned

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    i dont know about that. dogs are very responsive to kindness and are very loyal. sure if it comes down to starving or eating the dog then it is just another animal. seems to me much of what we read about regarding ancient times is exaggerated.

    did you ever see a cow protect a human? this is a very common characteristic in dogs and this has a psychological effect on humans.
     

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