Interestingly enough, there is evidence of Druid priests conducting sacrifices of cattle to the gods of the underworld, for example at the temple in Gourney, which in turn induced the gods to return good fortune and good produce. Dionenes wrote that traditionally there are three basic truths held by the Druids: the need to honor the gods, to do no evil, and to be brave, things consistent with what the Israelites were exhorted to do.
These types of things are consistent all over the world. Ideas about gods of underworld/death, earth/life, and heaven/over-world are also common, as is the idea of sacrifice. They are consistent with pastoral-early agrarian people who relied heavily on natural cycles for food production, but did not have benefits of modern science to explain a lot of it. It is amazing that many of them, with limited technology, got so far as they did.
Sacrifice, even human sacrifice, was common among all sorts of civilizations at that stage of human development- the Inca, Maya, Aztec, Celts, Middle Eastern peoples, etc. all had this.
I tend to see it as a stage of human development, which, thank goodness, we've mostly gotten over and so we no longer see blood offerings as something desirable.
There is also evidence of human sacrifices, according to Julius Caesar. A quote from this article, from which I have gotten most of my information, should spark some interest:
"The Celts believed, in common with many less evolved religions, not only in an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” but in “a life for a life”, so a sick man’s relatives might sacrifice someone so that the gods might spare his life."
Human sacrifice rarely happened, but did on occasion. We do not know if these were primarily religious or if they were religious means of using capital punishment. The Druids were the judges and advisors to the rulers, not just the priests. There is evidence in some findings of bog bodies that ergot poisoning may have caused some people to go mad, and perhaps they were killed as a result, much as ergot has also been linked to witch trials.
All that said, the Romans' texts on the Druids are largely considered war-time propaganda and thus historically inaccurate. We know very little about the Druids, and what little we do know is primarily through archaeological evidence. The Druids' and Bards' method of knowledge-keeping was through years (over a decade) of intense training in which vast stores of geneaological, folk science, magical, spiritual and other knowledge was committed to memory, and practices done to bring divine inspiration. While some of this knowledge and belief seemed to be later entwined with Celtic Christianity, much of it was lost with the coming of Christian missionaries and the wars between Rome and the Celts, which disrupted the traditional Celtic social system.
The Romans and Celts each saw the other as barbaric and distasteful, so it would be historically likely that there was no unbiased reporting at the time. The Romans had every reason to distort the Celtic religion, society, and culture in order to get support for wars against them, which is largely where legends about the Wicker Man and so forth come from (and for which there is no evidence). The reality is that while we don't know a lot about the Druids, we do know that Celtic society had relative equality for women at a time when the Romans did not, that the Druids and Bards influenced the rulers heavily, and that they blended science, magic, and religion together with philosophy, law, and the arts (particularly poetry and music). While many of the ideas in traditional Druidry and Christianity were complementary or similar, the Druids did not welcome Christian missionaries. Though one can hardly blame them since missionaries were associated with armies and political domination, as well as a cultural system that valued gender stratification and far less individual freedom.
1) God chose Israel to be a people He can call His own. He promised Abraham that through him all the nations of the earth and that his descendants would number the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the beach. In doing so, God had to establish the highest standard to keep Israel in line with what kind of people He wanted preserved throughout her history. Hence the strict edicts of the Law. The Law represents the Holiness of the Lord, from which there could be no shadow of turning, no variance, the natural inclination of a righteous God. So naturally, since the Law is strict, so must be the penalty for breaking the Law, which usually meant death.
I know this explanation, but it still makes no sense to me. It is clear that much of the law distinguished the Israelites from surrounding, competing tribes culturally and that Israel was, through successive displacements, at risk for losing cultural solidarity and so it makes sense it would
believe that deviation from the law would mean death. It all makes sense to me socially. What does not make sense is how it relates to the God I know, worship, and love.
You speak of being small in relationship with God. You are right, because we could never attain the righteousness that the Law demands. It isn't that God just made up arbitrary Laws impossible to keep just to mess with the Jews. But He was in the business of preservation.
I don't think the laws were arbitrary, but nor do I think they were all handed from God direct to the Jews. I am not even sure many Jews would believe the law is untouched by social norms and standards. The law clearly outlays a series of rules and standards that would make Israel a distinct culture in situations of displacement and I can see it has many social functionings, as well as the potential to initiate the mystery of relationship with God through submission and community. But there is a difference between that and buying into the entire Bible as if society and culture had nothing to do with it. The Jews themselves have a running commentary on what it all means, so I have no idea why Christians feel they must look at it all from only one perspective, frozen in time.
Of course I feel small in righteousness, but I mean more than that. I am small in
understanding. My awareness of my own limitations makes me very wary of attaching myself too much to any of my ideas, or other people's ideas.
2) And part of this preservation was the isolation of outside influences that would draw the people away from the high standard that God had for them. It is in this area that we are presented with the idea of a jealous God. His love for Israel meant that He doesn't want them to destroy themselves as a people that He has chosen for the purposes He designed. That meant coming against the pagan practices prevalent in the cultures of those surrounding Israel, which threatened to disrupt that plan.
Or in secular terms, losing cultural solidarity would mean a threat to cultural survival. We can see this happen in other places in the world to other societies, and the same sort of fight against it. I can understand how it is interpreted as having to do with God, but I am not sure how this is materially any different from every other case of cultural survival.
As for coming against the pagan practices, at that time, it was the norm for each tribe/people to have their own god/goddess/suite of gods and to believe their own would triumph and give them advantage in war. It was nothing new, and it is partly why you end up with so many saints in Catholicism. Some of those are remnants of local gods and goddesses that were more expedient to include than to debunk in order to get local people to cooperate. Really, when you study world history and anthropology, you see this stuff happen all over the world and so while I can understand the justification of it religiously, that doesn't make it distinguished from all the other groups that also justified their actions religiously. It was very common at the time.
The whole "paganism disrupting the plan" thing also makes no sense to me. An omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God can't be threatened in His will/plan by mere beliefs of people. Paganism has never been a threat, just a way of people trying to reach out to God.
In most cases, if not all, where there was a widescale elimination of whole cities, it is because those nations struck first. As unfair it seemed to those peoples destroy, it was a necessary evil for the sake of God's people.
I think that is incredibly dangerous. It is this kind of thinking that causes genocide. Arguably, Hitler looked at the Jews in this way, and he was dead wrong. Anyone can justify anything by saying "But it is your fault- you did XYZ first!" or "It's a necessary evil (i.e., God says the ends justifies the means, even though the means is horrific!" I think such thinking can easily become the roots of justifying genocide, and indeed it has justified the slaughter of innocent people (remember, they slaughtered
children in those examples) for all kinds of political, social, and religious entities. It is only a matter of who we
believe is "right" and "really justified" that separates them out.
There are parents in the US who have said they killed their own children because God told them to do it. We say they are crazy and put them in jail. But what is the difference? Only our own
belief about the matter.
3) I don't know why God favors Israel, but that no other ancient nation has ever been revived to become a nation again after 2000 years of diaspora wraps my head around.
All that said, I do not think that means Israel has no purpose as a people. It is mind-boggling to have a diaspora for so long that later becomes a nation again.
