Israel's sacrificial cult has recently received much attention from biblical scholars. The interpretation of Israelite sacrifice has mainly focused on two ritual acts: the slaughter of animals and blood rites. In this essay, however, I concentrate on a different ritual act: the burning of the sacrifice on the altar. The importance and meaning of this ritual step have been surprisingly neglected in the scholarship of the past seventy years. I shall demonstrate that, rather than the slaughter of animals, the burning rite on the altar is the element common to all types of sacrifice, as well as the feature that distinguishes the sacrifice as an “offering for YHWH” (

). Indeed, it is the burning rite that accomplishes the goal of biblical sacrifice—namely, communication with God.

Sacrifice is a basic category of Israelite religion. The Hebrew Bible includes numerous texts that describe sacrificial rituals or mention sacrifice in other contexts. Chief among these is Leviticus 1–7, which presents detailed regulations governing the preparation of the five principal types of sacrifice found in the Priestly texts.¹

Exodus and Numbers also describe various occasions, especially sacred celebrations, on which sacrifices were performed. The narratives of the Former Prophets are replete with references to sacrifices, while sacrificial language is often used metaphorically in the Latter Prophets and the Psalms.

What the modern scholar does not find in any of these books, however, is an explanation of how biblical writers understood sacrifices to function, or even a clear indication of what biblical writers considered to be the key element of a sacrifice. The Priestly texts, for example, are primarily concerned with the correct performance of sacrificial ritual, or the allotment of the priest's portion, or even the maintenance of the altar. Presumably, the contemporaries of the Priestly writer(s) shared some understanding of the function of sacrifice, even though it is not recorded in the Priestly texts. What once must have been common knowledge about the nature and function of the sacrificial act in biblical Israel is now the subject of scholarly investigation and conjecture.

Currently, there are almost as many theories on sacrifice as there are scholars studying the subject.²

A closer look, however, reveals that today, most scholars agree that the killing of an animal or a human being is the basis of the sacrificial ritual. And this killing is performed for, or on behalf of, an individual or group. Thus, a sacrifice is, vicarious process. René Girard, Walter Burkert, and Hartmut Gese are the main representatives of this consensus. Girard begins with the presupposition that mimetic desire breeds rivalry, conflict, and violence in human society. Violence can be repressed by the imposition of law, or it can be vicariously redirected against an animal or human being, the “scapegoat.” Thus, for Girard, a sacrifice is a legalized form of collective murder. This murder is a vicarious process, because killing an animal—or a human being—is the necessary precondition for the preservation of human society.³

The classicist Walter Burkert has developed an anthropological theory of human culture far too complex to be outlined here. Within his theory, sacrifice plays a role similar to that which Girard assigns it.⁴

According to Burkert, Greek culture and religion must be understood in light of human prehistoric origins: human beings were hunters, and the climax of hunting is the kill. The human being, therefore, is the homo necans.⁵ The success of a hunt requires a special organization of the human group. For this purpose, aggression between the participants must be sublimated, and even enemies need to cooperate. Furthermore, the completion of a successful hunt has a further effect on the dynamic of the group. Hence the killing of an animal—or of another human being—has a positive, creative, and almost conciliating effect on society. It is precisely this effect which becomes ritualized in the context of a sacrifice. Like Girard, Burkert understands sacrificial killing as the precondition for the preservation of human society, and therefore as a vicarious process.⁶

Biblical scholars have also described sacrifice as a vicarious process, but in a somewhat different fashion. Hartmut Gese studied the concept of atonement (

) as it is related to sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible. In his essay “Die Sühne” (1977), Gese described two main features of biblical atonement.

⁷

First, the person offering the sacrifice identifies him- or herself with the sacrificial animal by placing his or her hands on the animal. Thus, the human identity (das menschliche Wesen) that is defiled by sin is transferred to the animal. When the animal is slaughtered, it vicariously suffers the death that the human being actually deserves: “Symbolically speaking, cult is atonement, because it is the way toward the holy, which of necessity leads through our death.”⁸

Second, atonement provides the only way for human beings to encounter the holy God, and to make the two separate worlds of the human and the divine “at one.” This happens when the blood of the slaughtered animal is applied to the

(“mercy seat”), the place in the most holy part of the sanctuary where God is supposed to reside. Since this blood still contains the identity of the person who offers the sacrifice, the human and the divine spheres are brought into contact.

⁹

According to Gese, atonement includes both a vicarious killing of an animal and a vicarious encounter with God by means of the animal's blood.¹⁰

Thus, despite several differences in their argumentation, Girard, Burkert, and Gese all agree that a sacrifice is a vicarious process, and that the center and climax of the sacrificial process is the killing of an animal or a human being.

How does this scholarly consensus fare when we examine the Priestly account of sacrifices in Leviticus 1–7, which I take to be representative of southern Israelite—i.e., Judean—cultic practice? Does the Priestly account support the idea that the slaughter of an animal is the focus of sacrificial ritual, or that the biblical writers conceived of sacrifice as a vicarious process? I summarize the five main types of sacrifice described in the Priestly texts:

1. The burnt offering,
   
   (Lev 1:1–17; 6:1–6).¹¹

   Verse references follow MT/LXX.

   For the burnt offering an animal is slaughtered, cut in pieces and then burned in its entirety on the main altar as an “offering” (
   
   ) for God.¹²

   Like many of the Hebrew sacrificial terms,

   

   is difficult to translate. “Offering” is the most frequent rendering in English Bible translations and scholarly literature, and I shall use it in this essay. However, the Hebrew root

   

   expresses a process of “approaching” God conveyed only partially in the word “offering”; I discuss this point later in the body of this essay. Furthermore, in light of the use of English phrases such as “burnt offering” and “grain offering” to denote the five types of sacrifice, it is important to note that Hebrew,

   

   rendered as “offering” is an interpretative term applied to these types of sacrifice.

2. The grain offering,
   
   (Lev 2:1–16; 6:7–16). The grain offering consists of cereal, oil, and frankincense. A cake is fashioned from the cereal and the oil. This is brought to the priest, who takes a handful for himself. The rest is burned on the altar together with frankincense so that the grain offering can be called an “offering” (
   
   ) for God.
3. The communion sacrifice,
   
   (Lev 3:1–17; 7:11–34). For a communion sacrifice, an animal is slaughtered and cut in pieces. Most of the meat is for the offerer to be consumed at a celebration; some of it is for the priest. The fat, however, the most valuable part of the animal, is to be burnt on the altar. The communion sacrifice is, therefore, also an offering (
   
   ) for God.
4. The sin offering,
   
   (Lev 4:1–5:13; 6:17–23). For a sin offering, an animal is slaughtered and some of its blood is then applied to sancta. The remaining steps of the ritual resemble those of the communion sacrifice: The animal is cut in pieces and its fat is burned on the altar, rendering the sin offering an offering (
   
   ) for God.¹³

   See Lev 4:23, 28, 32, 5:11, 7:38, 9:7, 15, Num 18:9.

   The meat, however, is reserved for the priest, or must be burned outside the camp.
5. The guilt offering,
   
   (Lev 5:14–26; 7:1–7). The ritual of the guilt offering is also similar to that of the communion sacrifice, which means that an animal is slaughtered and cut into pieces, and its fat is burned on the altar. The sacrificial laws in Leviticus 1–7 do not mention any blood application rite for the guilt offering. But it is an offering (
   
   ) for God like the other four types of sacrifice.

Thus, according to the laws on sacrifice in Leviticus 1–7, the sacrificial cult consists of five different types of sacrifice. Four of these types include the slaughter of an animal, and we have seen that such slaughter is central to the theories of Girard, Burkert, and Gese. But there is one notable exception among the five types, which poses a challenge to the prevailing scholarly theories on sacrifice. This exception is the grain offering,

. A sacrifice consisting of wheat, oil, and frankincense cannot be killed—and yet it is regarded as an “offering” (

) for God like the four animal sacrifices. Furthermore, according to Lev 5:11–13, the grain offering can even be substituted for the sin offering (

), which usually requires an animal sacrifice. This substitute grain offering is a fully valid sin offering and a proper “offering” (

) for God. Further evidence of the interchangeability of grain offerings and animal offerings comes from the fifth-century B.C.E. letters that document the contemporary sacrificial cult celebrated at a temple in Elephantine, a Judean military colony in ancient Egypt.

¹⁴

According to these letters, following a conflict between the Judeans and the Egyptian religious authorities, the Egyptian authorities prohibited animal sacrifices at the temple. Worship at the Elephantine temple was not permanently interrupted, however; rather, the Judeans continued to perform grain offerings (

) and burn frankincense. This historical incident confirms that the Judean sacrificial cult could be performed without animal sacrifices. We must ask, therefore, How does the grain offering function? What is its climax? And why do the Priestly texts call it an offering (

) for God, just like the other types of sacrifice?

To solve this problem, I suggest that we look at a different ritual element shared by all five types of sacrifice enumerated above: the burning of the sacrificial material on the altar. In the Priestly texts, three terms are employed to describe this ritual act. First, there is the Hiphil stem of

, often rendered “to turn into smoke,” although I prefer “to burn (on the altar).”

¹⁵

This technical term refers exclusively to the fire on the altar that had been kindled by God at the conclusion of the sanctuary dedication ceremony (Lev 9:24), and that is never supposed to be extinguished (Lev 6:5–6). There are also two interpretative terms that suggest the implications of what happens during the burning rite: the technical terms

and

. The first one,

, may be translated as “fire offering.”

¹⁶

It indicates that a material offering presented by an individual or community is transformed while it is burned on the altar. The second technical term,

, is usually rendered “pleasing odor.” It alludes to the smoke of the sacrifice that ascends to heaven. It also conveys the anthropomorphic idea that God actually smells this smoke. This is the way the biblical God is thought to receive the sacrifice. At the same time, it implies the reason why sacrifices to idols have no effect: “Gods of wood and stone, the work of men's hands, do not see nor hear nor eat nor smell” (Deut 4:28). Only the real God of Israel eats and smells, and what he eats and smells are sacrifices.

Thus, in Leviticus 1–7, the three terms “to burn (on the altar),” “fire offering,” and “pleasing odor” refer to the burning rite on the main altar. “Fire offering” and “pleasing odor” occur less frequently in the context of the sin offering and the guilt offering. Nevertheless, the burning of at least some of the sacrificial material on the altar is a constituent part of each of the five types of sacrifice. This element unites all of them, despite the variations in ritual or offering material that obtain among the five types of sacrifice (e.g., only the grain offering consists of vegetable materials; the communion sacrifice allows the offerer to consume meat during a celebration; and blood rites are characteristic of the sin offering). This shared emphasis on the burning rite deserves special attention, and so I shall re-examine these five different rituals, this time with special attention to the burning rite.

1. The burnt offering,
   
   The burning rite is the central element of this sacrifice. In Leviticus 1, the sole reason for cutting the animal into pieces is so that they can all be placed on the altar, where they are to be burned by the priests. Of course, the importance of the burning rite to a burnt offering is also attested outside the Priestly texts. According to the Yahwistic source, the first action of Noah after the end of the flood is to offer burnt offerings (Gen 8:20–21). God smells the odor of this sacrifice and decides not to harm humankind again. This episode demonstrates how the very burning of the sacrifice was thought to affect God.
2. The grain offering,
   
   . I have called the grain offering a challenge to prevailing sacrificial theories precisely because it does not require the slaughter of an animal. According to Leviticus 2, the ritual of the grain offering consists only of the preparation of cereal, oil, and frankincense for the burning rite, and its final execution. The frankincense is added to increase the amount of smoke produced by the offering, thus rendering the burning rite more impressive.
3. The communion sacrifice,
   
   . While the main purpose of the communion sacrifice is to produce meat for the offerer to consume, more than half of the sacrificial law in Leviticus 3 is devoted to a precise description of the burning rite on the altar, listing which pieces of the sacrificial animal are to be burned.¹⁷

   For a detailed study on the communion sacrifice throughout different periods of Israelite history, see Christian Eberhart, “Beobachtungen zum Verbrennungsritus bei Schlachtopfer und Gemeinschafts-Schlachtopfer,” Biblica 83 (2002) 88–96.

4. The sin offering,
   
   . According to Leviticus 1–7, the sin offering is the only type of sacrifice that regularly features a blood application rite. In the law of the sin offering (Leviticus 4), however, the regulations detailing which pieces of the victim are to be burned on the altar are just about as long as those that indicate where the victim's blood must be applied. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that the formula about atonement and forgiveness (Lev 4:20b; 26b; 31b; 35b) is repeated not after each description of the blood rite, but rather after the description of how each offering is to be burned on the altar (Lev 4:19–20a; 26a; 31a; 35a). The conjunction of the atonement formula with each description of the burning rite underlines the importance of this ritual step for the sin offering.
5. The guilt offering,
   
   . While this type of sacrifice is described in Lev 7:1–7, the actual ritual comprises vv. 2–5, most of which is devoted to describing the parts of the sacrificial animal to be burned and to the burning rite as such (vv. 3–5). Even though information on the guilt offering is rare in the Hebrew Bible, we may conclude that the burning rite is an important element for this type of sacrifice as well.

The burning rite on the main altar occurs in the ritual of each type of sacrifice in Leviticus 1–7. It dominates two of the sacrifices (burnt offering, grain offering) and is an important element in the rituals of the other three. At this point, further remarks shall be made on the fact that every type of sacrifice in Leviticus 1–7 is labelled an offering (

) for God (Lev 1:2, 3, 10, 14; 2:1, 4, 7, 12; 3:1, 7, 12, 14; 4:23, 28, 32, 5:11; 7:13, 14, 16, 38b). Also the Hebrew verb

Hiphil, together with its equivalents

Hiphil and

Hiphil, frequently occurs in the context of sacrificial rituals. The root

describes a dynamic movement through sacred space toward the center of holiness, and thus an “approach” to God. This movement reaches its climax in the burning, which marks the transformation of the material offered by the individual or community, and “transports” it to heaven in the smoke ascending from the altar.

¹⁸

Thus, it is the burning that effects the approach to God expressed in the root

. According to this interpretation, the burning rite determines whether any cultic ritual qualifies as an “offering for God”. It is, therefore, the constitutive element of a sacrifice.

At this point, implications of such an interpretation for a theology of sacrifice need to be addressed briefly. First, however, I want to clarify that a sacrifice, being composed of several ritual acts, is always a multivalent process with various functions. As such, its blood application rites can, for example, effect purification (atonement) of sancta and human beings.¹⁹

By contrast, the burning rite makes the sacrifice an “offering for God,” implying that every type of sacrifice is essentially a token whereby the presenter honors God as the divine king. It expresses the difference in status between humans and the God whom they approach at the sanctuary, the divine residence. In approaching the sanctuary, the human community seeks to receive the divine blessing in one of its various forms—e.g., protection from enemies, fertility, economical welfare—or to express its gratitude for having received such blessings. The offering of sacrifices is, therefore, a way of engaging in a communication with God. Its ultimately reciprocal structure has been appropriately described as do ut des (“I give so that you give”), respectively as do quia dedisti (“I give because you have given”). The climax of this communicative act, however, is the moment when the fire on the altar both transforms the offering and transports it up to the divine sphere.

In the space of this brief essay, I can offer only a few examples of non-Priestly biblical texts featuring the burning rite as the climatic moment of the priest's service, or of the temple cult. According to 1 Sam 2:28, God chose members of the house of Eli “to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn sacrifices (

), to wear an ephod before me.” According to Deut 33:10, Levi was chosen to teach God's laws, but also to “put sacrifices (

) before your nose, and whole burnt offerings upon your altar” (see also Jer 33:18b). And in later biblical texts, comprehensive statements on the sacrificial cult usually refer to the burning rite; Thus the Chronicler's version of Solomon's letter to Hiram of Tyre reads: “I am about to build a house for the name of the Lord my God and dedicate it to him for the burning of incense of sweet spices before him, and for the continual offering of the showbread, and for burnt offerings morning and evening” (2 Chr 2:4). Finally, it is worth noting that in biblical Aramaic, a general term for “sacrifice” is

(Dan 2:46; Ezra 6:10), an abbreviated plural derived from

, “sweet odor.”

Thus the importance of the burning rite is attested not only in the Priestly texts, but also in other books of the Hebrew Bible. As the above survey of recent scholarship suggests, however, this ritual element has been rather neglected. In his article “Die Sühne,” Hartmut Gese devotes only a single sentence to the burning rite.

²⁰

In a lexicon article treating the burnt offering, Dieter Kellermann only briefly mentions the burning rite that characterizes this type of sacrifice. Instead, he focuses on the slaughter of the animal victim and recounts Gese's popular theory of atonement, which is based primarily on the interpretation of blood rites.²¹

The feminist sociologist Nancy Jay also places a similar emphasis on blood rites. In a recent study,²²

Jay has explored the relation between gender, genealogy, and sacrifice, thus developing a general theory of sacrifice. Impressive and thought-provoking in its conclusions, this study nevertheless remains exclusively focused on animal sacrifice. Positive scholarly references to the burning rite are rare. According to Rolf Rendtorff, the incorporation of the burning rite on the altar into the ritual of the sin offering, the

, is the process whereby a ritual dominated by the blood rite became reinterpreted as a sacrifice.

²³

Rendtorff thus understands the burning rite as the constitutive element of a sacrifice. Gary A. Anderson puts a similar emphasis on the burning rite when stating: “Indeed, we might define sacrifice in the Bible as those oblations which are burned (wholly or partially) at the altar (mizbēa

).”

²⁴

Finally, Alfred Marx calls the altar fire “the visible side of God” that symbolizes the divine presence during sacrificial worship²⁵

To summarize: In Leviticus 1–7, the burning rite on the altar is a component of each of the five types of sacrifice. I have shown that this element is dominant in two of the sacrifices, and important in the rest. Two interpretative terms explain what happens during the process of burning sacrificial material:

(“fire offering”) points to the crucial fact that a material offering is being transformed while it is burned on the altar. It turns into the

, the “pleasing odor” that ascends to God. The burning rite transforms the sacrifice and makes it rise, thereby rendering it a suitable offering (

) for God. It thus marks the climax of human communication with God. Hence the burning rite can be considered the constitutive element of sacrifices in the Priestly writings: a ritual may be considered a sacrifice if it incorporates the burning rite on the altar. This is corroborated by several non-Priestly biblical texts summarizing the tasks of priests or the purpose of the temple cult, all of which mention the burning rite as characteristic of the sacrificial cult.

Given the central role of the burning rite in biblical sacrifice, it is worth investigating the role of the burning of sacrificial offerings in other ancient cultures. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, when Utnapishtim offered sacrifices after the flood, “the gods smelled the savor. The gods smelled the sweet savor. The gods crowded like flies about the sacrificer.”²⁶

This text leaves little doubt that it is the burning rite that renders the cultic ceremony effective, and may be compared to the account of Noah's pleasing sacrifice in Gen 8:20–21. And in a description of a meal offering preserved in the Iliad (9.206–21), the slaughter of animals is mentioned as a preliminary step: only after the carcass has been prepared, a fire kindled, and the meat roasted does Patroklos receive the order to burn the gods' portions. I hope to treat these examples and others in more detail in a future essay.