Refuting the Myths about Biblical Sacrifice

Nov. 19 2024

To modern readers, the attention the Tanakh pays to the sacrificial slaughter of animals—starting when Noah exits the ark—presents something of a problem since, with exception of Samaritans, these rites are unfamiliar to Jews and Christians.

The Christian Bible scholars Dru Johnson and Matthew Lynch take a careful look at the book of Leviticus and its detailed descriptions of various offerings, and at the ways these have been misunderstood by generations of readers. For instance, they reject the idea that sacrifice is solely about atoning for sin and that the Temple and its rituals are just a series of symbols that need decoding. Instead, they argue that these texts must be understood from the perspective of people who spent most of their lives raising livestock. Lynch and Johnson also construct a parallel to traditional rabbinic arguments about the Oral Torah. (Audio, 61 minutes.)

Read more at OnScript

More about: Hebrew Bible, Leviticus, Sacrifice

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023