Topic: 2. Sacrifice and religion: Comparisons, Antiquarians, Anthropology (16th-18th Century)
Religious sacrifices across various cultures and contexts sparked widespread interest in Early Modern Europe. As Christianity expanded into regions inhabited by "infidels" and "pagans", Europeans encountered a diverse array of sacrificial customs, ranging from the Sati rituals in India to the Aztec sacrifices in the Americas. This cross-cultural exposure captivated a wide audience, including theologians, philosophers, political thinkers, antiquarians, orientalists, missionaries, poets, artists, and even the general public. These encounters broadened the European understanding of sacrifice and led to a critical reassessment of classical and biblical sacrificial rites. This section includes:
- Sources: A selection of early modern printed materials, which include descriptions of the Americas, Asia, and Africa, alongside antiquarian and philological studies on religious sacrifice in classical antiquity and beyond. It also presents early modern works of ethnological observations and the first attempts to compare different sacrificial practices in various traditions and contexts, laying the groundwork for disciplines like the history of religions and anthropology.
- Iconographic Representations: A rich collection of images from the 16th to 18th centuries, illustrating a range of sacrificial rituals and practices as seen in different cultural and geographical contexts.
- Related Bibliography: An extensive bibliography spanning scholarly works from the 19th to 21st centuries, providing contemporary analyses and interpretations of these early studies and observations.
The halal food handboo
Hoboken (NJ): Wiley Blackwell, 2020.
Sanctuary and Sacrifice; a Reply to Wellhausen
London - New York: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1895.
Ritual Sacrifice in ancient Peru
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.
A World of Sacrifice
in: History of Religions , v. 23 (1983), issue 1: pp.37–63.
Sacrificial Slaughter and Dressing Up: Gender Articulations in Muslim Rituals
in: Religious Studies News, v. 22 (1996), issue 3: pp.209-13.
Ovide moralisé en prose (texte du quinzième siècle). Édition critique avec introduction par C. de Boer
Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1954.
Ritual and Metaphor: Sacrifice in the Bible
Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011.
Violence and the Sacred in the Ancient Near East. Girardian Conversations at Çatalhöyük
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Opfer : theologische und kulturelle Kontexte
Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2000.
Martyrdom, Self-sacrifice, and Self-immolation : Religious Perspectives on Suicide
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.