Although it's called a "sacrifice" (at least in English) the Passover sacrifice is really just a big BBQ. The meat wasn't wasted -- it was all eaten After the lambs were slaughtered, they were roasted up and everyone ate. It was no more or less barbaric than killing or eating meat any time of the year. Rather than calling it a "sacrifice," it would be more accurate to call it "ceremonial BBQing."
What, I ask you, is the difference between a lamb being killed on a farm somewhere and you eating it for dinner, and a lamb being killed on the Temple Mount and you eating it with your family that night?
Incidentally, it is for this reason that the Christian belief that Jesus was a "Passover lamb who saves from sin" displays an incredible ignorance of the Torah and Judaism. The Passover ceremonial BBQ had nothing to do with "saving" from sin. It was a ceremony done for and in remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, when the Jews slaughtered lambs to mark their homes, allowing the Angel of Death to passover them.
In fact, in the entire Bible, the only sins that any sacrfices could redeem were unintentional sins.
You are right. There is no difference, though I personally do not condone either.
I mean this kindly, but what you've said displays an incredible ignorance of what Christians believe.
In fact, in the entire Bible, the only sins that any sacrfices could redeem were unintentional sins.
I happen to know a little bit about this
I'm sorry but you really don't.
Au contraire, Christ's teachings show that Jews don't get it.
Blood was needed to purify the altar of the temple. That ain't A-1 sauce. That's blood. And, they didn't do "donations" to get it. They did "sacrifices."
Blood from the sacrifice on the Cross by the Lord purifies from all impurities. Not just individual sins, but sin in the collective.
"Incidentally, it is for this reason that the Christian belief that Jesus was a "Passover lamb who saves from sin" displays an incredible ignorance of the Torah and Judaism. The Passover ceremonial BBQ had nothing to do with "saving" from sin. It was a ceremony done for and in remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, when the Jews slaughtered lambs to mark their homes, allowing the Angel of Death to passover them."
I am afraid you yourself show an "incredible ignorance" of basic Christianity--not to mention a complete lack of tactfulness about the most sacred and centrally important fact of others' religious belief.
Passover is understood by Christians, as it appears to be throughout the Tanak, as having as fundamental the SALVATION of the people of Israel from Egypt. The fact that they were kept safe from the Angel of Death, and, were finally released from 400+ years of slavery the very next day, is understood as a real historic event, which prophetically looked forward to the eventual spiritual release from death and slavery by made possible by the Messiah, Jesus.
Christianity has never taught that Passover itself was a sin (spiritual) sacrifice, merely that the great defining event of the physical God the King saving of Israel from both death and slavery which itself looked forward to the greater event of the heir of King David saving His people, by voluntarily sacrificing Himself in their place.
Even the 10 Commandments, have at the beginning the rationale of "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" i.e. that saving them came first, and their obedience to the Law was only a rational response, in light of what God had already done for them. That "salvation" from Egypt though, was fully an act of grace...Israel's law-keeping was not the reason God freed them (as they didn't even have the Law before then).
I've read through the entire Torah (have you read the New Testament?), and it very much appears to me that blood sacrifice--starting from the skins given to Adam and Eve, through Abel's good sacrifice, to the various sacrifices of Abraham, into the Law of Moses, on to King David's (intentional) sin with Bathsheba and his sorrow and repentence over that, into the time of the Exile--were an absolute central part of Jewish religion--and these were very solemn affairs, not merely big barbecues as you describe. In practice too, sacrifices were offered for all kinds of sin, not merely the unintentional.
2nd Temple Judaism and before had blood sacrifice as a very CENTRAL rite, (offering (many)lambs every single day) as does in principle Christianity, by reliance on the blood of Jesus on the cross. You are right though, since the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, Judaism has not had blood sacrifice as a central part, as that was seen as impossible without the Temple.
Since for nearly 2000 years now sacrifices have not been a part of Judaism, it doesn't seem unreasonable that Jewish theology and the understanding of the Torah would also reflect (in a big way) that change in practice and have a complete de-emphasis on the central importance of blood sacrifice. The bible doesn't lie though, and we Christians can read and understand it at least as well as modern Jews. Biblical Judaism definitely had blood sacrifice as its central religious act--following closely with obedience to the Torah Law.
Nevertheless, it was the blood of the lambs that protected the Jews from the angel of death. This is a prefigurement of Christ's atoning death on the Cross.
The Old Testament does speak of the coming Messiah as a lamb, who will be slain as an atonement for our sins.
Isaiah 53The Passover also holds import for Jesus teaching regarding the Eucharist.1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied ; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Jews believe that the Passover meal "makes present" the Exodus, in a greater sense than simple remembrance, which is why many Jewish converts to Catholicism have less difficulty with the concept of the Eucharist "making present" Jesus' sacrifice on Calvary.
Additionally, it's important for Christians to remember that the lamb must be consumed for the Passover meal to be complete.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
A lamb which the Israelites were commanded to eat with peculiar rites as a part of the Passover celebration. The Divine ordinance is first recorded in Exodus, xii, 3-11, where Yahweh is represented as giving instructions to Moses to preserve the Hebrews from the last of the plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians, viz. the death of the firstborn. On the tenth day of the first month each family (or group of families, if they are small) is commanded to take a lamb without blemish, male, of one year, and keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, and sacrifice it in the evening. The blood of the lamb must be sprinkled on the transom and doorposts of the houses in which the paschal meal is taken. The lamb should be roasted and eaten with unleavened bread and wild lettuce.The whole of the lamb must be consumed -- head, feet, and entrails -- and if any thing remain of it until morning it must be burned with fire. The Israelites are commanded to eat the meal in haste, with girded loins, shoes on their feet, and staves in their hands "for it is the Phase (that is, Passage) of the Lord." The blood of the lamb on the doorposts served as a sign of immunity or protection against the destroying hand of the Lord, who smote in one night all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. This ordinance is repeated in abridged form in Numbers xix, 11, 12, and again in Deuteronomy, xvi, 2-6, where sheep and oxen are mentioned instead of the lamb.
That the Paschal Lamb prefigured symbolically Christ, "the Lamb of God", who redeemed the world by the shedding of His blood, and particularly the Eucharistic banquet, or new Passover, has always remained the constant belief of Christian tradition.
HUH? Maybe for people that don't take the Jewish religion seriously.
That's like all those shallow evangelicals saying church is just one big party.
Anyway, the passover was the foreshadowing of the true passover Lamb which the Lord provided in Christ. Even the Jews of old knew that this was more than 'just a big BBQ' whether or not they accepted Christ as the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies. The reinstitution of animal sacrifices is important in Christian prophecy as a sign of the end times.
And we were irredeemable from the intentional sins (which we all have committed) until a Greater Sacrifice appeared.