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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

religious sacrifice, Jews, Christians, religious fathers

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

History

Abstract

“Whatever their fate in life, the burghers of Endigen succeeded in constructing a meaningful and moving story out of what would otherwise have been just another reminder of the violence and meaningless of life. Fragmented events now acquired a unifying structure in the ritual murder discourse; violence transformed into relics, tragedy into triumph, and death into life” (Hsia 40 The Myth of Ritual Murder). What exactly is the process of turning tragedy into triumph, meaningless suffering into sacrifice for deity? Often, religion seems to answer (or at least provide an explanation for) human suffering. Thus the question I hope to provide some explanation to is how suffering is turned into a religious sacrifice? Or, using ritual murders as a case study, how can the alleged murder of a small boy or poor family turned into martyrdom and used as evidence of God’s omnipotence and a proof of religious truth?

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