The centrality of sacrifices in Judaism is clear, with much of the Bible, particularly the opening chapters of the book Leviticus, detailing the exact method of bringing sacrifices. Sacrifices were either bloody (animals) or unbloody (grain and wine). Bloody sacrifices were divided into holocausts (burnt offerings, in which the whole animal was burnt), guilt offerings (in which part was burnt and part left for the priest) and peace offerings (in which similarly only part of the animal was burnt). Yet the prophets point out that sacrifices are only a part of serving God, and need to be accompanied by inner morality and goodness.
After the destruction of the Second Temple, ritual sacrifice ceased. Maimonides, a medieval Jewish rationalist, argued that God always held sacrifice inferior to prayer and philosophical meditation. However, God understood that the Israelites were used to the animal sacrifices that the surrounding pagan tribes used as the primary way to commune with their gods. As such, in Maimonides' view, it was only natural that Israelites would believe that sacrifice was a necessary part of the relationship between God and man. Maimonides concludes that God's decision to allow sacrifices was a concession to human psychological limitations. It would have been too much to have expected the Israelites to leap from pagan worship to prayer and meditation in one step. In the Guide to the Perplexed he writes:
In contrast, many others such as Nachmanides (in his Torah commentary on Leviticus 1:9) disagreed, contending that sacrifices are an ideal in Judaism, completely central.
The teachings of the Torah and Tanakh reveal Judaism's abhorrence of human sacrifices.
Some occasions for human sacrifice found in multiple cultures on multiple continents include:
Some of the best known ancient human sacrifice was that practiced by various Pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica. The Aztec were particularly noted for practicing this on an unusually large scale; a human sacrifice would be made every day to aid the Sun in rising, the dedication of the great temple at Tenochtitlán was reportedly marked with the sacrificing of thousands, and there are multiple accounts of captured Conquistadores being sacrificed during the wars of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico.
In Scandinavia, the old Scandinavian religion contained human sacrifice and both the Norse sagas and German historians relate of this, see e.g. Temple at Uppsala and Blót.
There is evidence to suggest Pre-Hellenic Minoan cultures practised human sacrifice. Sacrificed corpses were found at a number of sites in the Citadel of Knossos in Crete. One such find at the North house in Knossos numbered 337 bones of children who appear to have been butchered. It is possible they may have been for human consumption as was the tradition with sacrificial offerings made in Pre-Hellenic Civilization.The evidence that this practice was widespread throughout Minoan culture is not strong. It is also possible that the human sacrifices at Crete were one-off occurrences as Knossos did befall an epic tectonic natural disaster around the time at which these sites would have been preserved. Hence these human sacrifices could be explained in terms of the Minoans desperation in the situation and being far from routine procedures. The Temple of Anemospilia at Knossos exemplifies this view. Here they found the sacrifice of a teenager which was interrupted by the temple collapsing on the participants due to the tectonic activity at the time. The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur (set in the labyrinth at Knossos) provides evidence that Human sacrifice was commonplace. In the myth we are told that Athens sent seven young men and seven young women to Crete as human sacrifices to the Minotaur. This ties up well with the archaeological evidence that most sacrifices were of young adults or children. This view contrasts with the Utopian view of the Minoans propagated by the archaeologist Arthur Evans.
Human sacrifice still happens today as an underground practice in some traditional religions, for example in Muti killings. Human sacrifice is no longer officially condoned in any country, and these cases are regarded as Murder.
Some people in India are adherents of a religious cult that westerners refer to as Tantrism; a small percent of unscrupulous Tantric practitioners engage in human sacrifice, often with the promise of inducing childbirth in a sterile couple (see Further Reading). Thankfully these superstitious practices are quickly disappearing. Human sacrifice has been completely absent at all times in mainstream Hinduism, and is severely condemned and seen with utmost horror by all mainstream Hindus. But the absence of any central Dogma in Hinduism (as well as large illiteracy in India) has allowed some unscrouplous sideline cults to exist in India. Typically, the British had noted that a few Indian tribes like Maraya and Thugs practiced human sacrifice.
In the Aeneid by Virgil the character Sinon claims that he was going to be a human sacrifice to Poseidon to calm the seas (of course Sinon was lying).
Human sacrifice is a common theme in the religions and Mythology of many cultures.
In the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Church, as well as among some High church Anglicans, the Eucharist or Mass is seen as a sacrifice. It is however, not a separate or additional sacrifice to that Christ on the Cross; it is rather the exact same sacrifice, which trancends time and space ("the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world") (Rev. 13:8), renewed and made present. The complete identification of the Mass with the sacrifice of the Cross is found in Christ's words at the last supper over the bread and wine: "This is my body, which is given up for you", and "This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed...unto the forgiveness of sins". The bread and wine, offered by Melchisidech in sacrifice in the old covenant (Genesis 14:18; Psalm 110;4), are transformed through the Mass into the body and blood of Christ (see Transubstantiation), and the offering becomes one with that of Christ on the Cross. In the Mass as on the Cross, Christ is both priest (offering the sacrifice) and victim (the sacrifice he offers is himself), though in the Mass in the former capacity he works through a solely human priest who is joined to him thorugh the sacrament of Holy Orders and thus shares in Christ's priesthood. Through the Mass the merits of the one sacrifice of the Cross can be appled to the redemption of those present, to their specific intentions and prayers, and to the redemption of the souls in purgatory.
Also often found in Catholic and Orthodox Christianity is the idea of joining one's own sufferings to the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. Thus one can 'offer up' involuntary suffering such as illness, or purposefully embrace suffering in acts of penance, such as fasting. Some Protestants criticise this as a denial of the all-sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice, but it finds support in St. Paul: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (Col 1:24). Pope John Paul II explained in his encyclical Salvifici Doloris: "In the Cross of Christ not only is the Redemption accomplished through suffering, but also human suffering itself has been redeemed...Every man has his own share in the Redemption. Each one is also called to share in that suffering through which the Redemption was accomplished...In bringing about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption. Thus each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ...The sufferings of Christ created the good of the world's redemption. This good in itself is inexhaustible and infinite. No man can add anything to it. But at the same time, in the mystery of the Church as his Body, Christ has in a sense opened his own redemptive suffering to all human suffering."
Most Protestants reject the idea of the Eucharist as a sacrifice, inclining to see it as merely a holy meal (even if they believe in a form of the Real Presence of Christ in the bread and wine, as Lutherans do). The Protestant tendency is to see the Sacrifice on the Cross as a definitely past event which did away for the need for any sacrifices or human priests ever again. In favour of this position is cited the letter to the Hebrews, the theme of which is the uselessness of the human priests of the old covenant and their regular sacrifices against Christ's 'one sacrifice for sins.' (The Catholic/Orthodox response is that the sacrifice of the Mass in the New Covenant is that one sacrifice for sins on the Cross which trancends time, as discussed above, and that Christ is the real priest at every mass working through mere human beings who share in his priesthood). Since the word 'priest' carries heavy connotations of 'an offerer of sacrifice', Protestants usually do not use it for their clergy. Evangelical Protestantism emphasises the importance of a decision to consciously, personally accept Christ's sacrifice on the Cross as atonement for one's individual sins if one is to be saved - this is known as 'accepting Christ as one's personal Lord and saviour.'
As opposed to both traditional Catholic/Orthodox and Evangelical Christianity, modern liberal Christianity has sometimes tended to lessen the focus on the sacrifice of the Cross. If one is uncomfortable with the idea of original sin, or with the idea that sin demands atonement or punishment, as some liberal Christians are, the theological significance of the sacrifice of the Cross is hard to comprehend. Thus liberal Christianity has tended to focus on Christ's life as moral teacher rather than on his death as sacrificial victim. Sometimes his death has been decoupled from the concept of atonement for sin and seen as primarily an identification of God with the victims of political and social injustice.
In chess, a number of plays are described as sacrifices: these typically involve losing a piece or a pawn to disrupt the opponent's formation and open up an attack. Chess openings that involve sacrifices are usually called gambits by chess players; in these gambits, usually a pawn is deliberately lost; gambits that lose a piece are rare and risky. In Baseball, a Sacrifice fly is a play in which a batter deliberately allows himself to be called out so as to enable another player on base to score. Likewise, a sacrifice bunt in baseball is one in which a batter allows himself to be put out while advancing a team mate, usually to second, but sometimes to third base, from where he has a greater chance to score. Players who commit either a sacrifice fly or bunt are not charged with a "time at bat," thus the out that they sacrificed is not charged against their batting average. In Magic: The Gathering, "sacrifice" means to intentionally destroy one's own card, typically to produce some effect.
Sacrifice is also the name of a computer game released by Shiny entertainment in the year of 2000. For more information about the computer game, see Sacrifice (PC game).