The Effect of the Destruction of the Jerusalem Temple on the Jewish Perception of the Sacrificial Cult: A Look at Pseudepigraphical, Deuterocanonical, and Rabbinic Texts

Authors

Allen Kendall, Brigham Young University

Keywords

Jewish religion, sacrifices, Jewish temple, religious development

Abstract

Though many of us are somewhat familiar with today's modern world religions and with ancient religion inasmuch as it is portrayed in our own religious literature, we often do not understand how we got from the ancient world to the modern. For the most part we understand how ancient Jews worshipped in Jerusalem according to the Law of Moses and chat certain biblical practices have changed, but we are not aware of how this happened. This paper attempts to bridge that gap of knowledge by tracing the development of Jewish religious thought and practice vis-a-vis the sacrificial cult. Over the course of time, the slaughtering and sacrifices performed at the Jewish temple in Jerusalem vanished and were replaced with performances of prayers and acts of loving kindness, which in Christian parlance would be called charitable works. This development occurred over centuries in antiquity. This gives an example of how developments in antiquity shaped the modern world.

Recommended Citation

Kendall, Allen (2017) "The Effect of the Destruction of the Jerusalem Temple on the Jewish Perception of the Sacrificial Cult: A Look at Pseudepigraphical, Deuterocanonical, and Rabbinic Texts," The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing: Vol. 46: Iss. 1, Article 9.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol46/iss1/9