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in Genesis 22:1–19, God tests Abraham’s faith by commanding him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Abraham, who had waited decades for the birth of Isaac, the son promised by God to carry on his covenant, responds without hesitation.
Abraham sets out early the next morning with Isaac, two servants and the wood for the burnt offering. After three days of travel, he sees the mountain in the distance. He tells the servants to stay behind while he and Isaac proceed.
Isaac carries the wood for the offering, while Abraham carries the knife and fire. Along the way, Isaac asks a poignant question: “The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham responds, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”
When they reach the appointed place, Abraham builds an altar, arranges the wood and binds Isaac. He lays his son on the altar. As Abraham raises the knife to slay his son, an angel of the Lord calls out to him from heaven:
“Abraham! Abraham! Do not lay a hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
Abraham looks up and sees a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. He sacrifices the ram instead of Isaac.
The angel of the Lord speaks again, renewing God’s covenant with Abraham:
“Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me.”
The story—a profound meditation on the tension between a divine command and human ethics—remains one of the most enigmatic passages in biblical history, as Abraham must choose between obedience to God and love for his son. It is both a test of Abraham’s faith and of God’s character.
For Jews, the Akedah is commemorated during Rosh Hashana and is seen as a paradigm of faith, obedience and God’s mercy. For Christians, the story foreshadows God sacrificing his own Son, Jesus, for humanity’s redemption. In the Quranic version, Abraham (Ibrahim) is similarly tested, but the son is often identified as Ishmael (Isma’il). The event is celebrated during Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice.
The story of Abraham and Isaac, then, is a pivot point—a reflection of humanity’s transition from literal blood offerings to more abstract forms of devotion and moral responsibility. It symbolizes the move toward a world where life is sacralized, not sacrificed.
Human sacrifice was widespread in the premodern world as a way to appease deities, secure divine favor or maintain cosmic order.
So, too, was what the Romans called expositio (exposure), abandoning infants, typically in a public place, such as on a hillside, in a marketplace or near a road, leaving them to die from exposure to the elements, be taken by animals or be claimed by others. Common reasons included the child being illegitimate, born with deformities or simply being an additional economic burden. Female infants were more frequently exposed due to their perceived lower social and economic value.
Why was human sacrifice common?
Many premodern societies viewed the cosmos as unpredictable and governed by deities whose favor was essential for survival. Human sacrifice was seen as the ultimate offering to ensure fertility, good harvests, military victories or protection against natural disasters.
The Mexica (i.e., the Aztecs) believed human blood nourished the sun, ensuring its daily rise, while in Mesopotamia, sacrifices were made to placate gods in times of crisis.
Human sacrifice often reinforced the power of rulers or priests by demonstrating their ability to mediate between humans and the divine. By offering something as precious as a human life, leaders signaled their devotion and authority. In ancient China, sacrifices often accompanied royal burials to demonstrate the ruler’s divine mandate.
The sacrifice could also serve as a scapegoating mechanism, fostering social cohesion by symbolically transferring guilt or disorder onto the victim. The concept of the scapegoat in ancient Hebrew tradition reflects this function, although human victims were replaced by animals.
Not all ancient cultures practiced human sacrifice. Apparently, ancient Egypt did not.
What brought human sacrifice to an end?
Religious transformations played a critical role. With the shift toward ethical monotheism, the Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—rejected human sacrifice as an affront to divine will. Early Christianity’s emphasis on the sanctity of life and Jesus’s sacrifice as a substitutionary atonement obviated the need for ongoing ritual bloodshed.
Buddhist and Jainist traditions emphasized nonviolence (ahimsa) and rejected sacrificial practices, influencing cultures like those in India to move away from human sacrifice.
The rise of philosophical rationalism also contributed to this shift. In ancient Greece, philosophers such as Pythagoras, Plato and later the Stoics critiqued sacrificial practices as barbaric and irrational. This intellectual shift undermined the justification for human sacrifice in many societies.
Centralized states began to regulate violence, replacing sacrificial rituals with legal systems to address disorder and cosmic concerns. Human sacrifice, often tied to local or tribal rituals, came to be seen as incompatible with state authority. The Roman Empire outlawed druidic human sacrifices in Gaul as part of consolidating imperial control.
In addition, in agricultural societies, human labor became increasingly valuable, making human sacrifice economically disadvantageous. Societies that preserved their population tended to outcompete those that practiced large-scale sacrifice. Ritual sacrifice was often replaced with symbolic offerings (e.g., grain, animals or other tokens) that retained ritual meaning without the moral and practical costs of human life.
Human sacrifice, though largely eradicated, has left a deep imprint on cultural and religious practices.
Societies still grapple with notions of ultimate devotion, communal cohesion and the sacred. Rituals and ideologies, even in their transformed forms, carry echoes of ancient sacrificial practices, reframed to align with evolving moral, cultural and religious sensibilities. These themes are particularly evident in rituals like the Christian Eucharist, the veneration of self-sacrifice and the framing of war as a kind of collective sacrifice.
The Eucharist, central to Christian worship, symbolizes Jesus Christ’s ultimate sacrifice for humanity’s salvation. By re-enacting the Last Supper and partaking in bread and wine, Christians ritually consume the body and blood of Christ in a manner that symbolically echoes ancient sacrificial practices.
Unlike earlier human sacrifices, which sought to appease angry gods or secure tangible benefits, the Eucharist transforms the act into a spiritual and redemptive offering. It underscores themes of love, grace and selflessness, reshaping the meaning of sacrifice into one of eternal communion and moral renewal.
The notion of willingly giving oneself for a higher cause—be it a nation, community or ideal—reflects an evolution of sacrificial thinking. This is evident in acts of heroism, martyrdom and even the valorization of figures who endure suffering for societal good.
Figures like Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. are revered for their self-sacrificing commitment to social justice. Such acts are framed as moral imperatives that inspire collective identity and purpose, linking personal sacrifice to communal benefit.
The battlefield has become humanity’s new altar, as human sacrifice has evolved from a divine offering to a national duty. As humanity has progressed, we have evolved from human sacrifice to sacrificing humans.
War can be understood as a modern, secular form of human sacrifice and a manifestation of sacrificial logic, particularly when viewed through the lens of ritual, symbolism and communal narratives.
Soldiers’ deaths are often framed in terms of ultimate devotion to the nation, freedom or collective survival. Memorials and commemorations, such as national holidays for fallen soldiers, evoke sacrificial imagery by portraying their deaths as necessary and redemptive for the greater good.
The language of war frequently mirrors sacrificial rhetoric, emphasizing terms like “honor,” “duty” and “sacrifice.” Such framing elevates the act of dying in battle to something sacred and transformative.
Like ancient sacrifices that sought communal protection or renewal, war often serves as a collective enterprise aimed at securing existential goals—whether defending territory, preserving values or asserting power. The dead are mourned not only as individuals but as representatives of a larger cause, reinforcing group identity and purpose.
Military ceremonies, burial rites and commemorative rituals parallel ancient sacrificial acts. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, for instance, symbolizes the collective sacrifice of all who died for a nation, transforming anonymous loss into sacred remembrance.
Just as ancient societies justified human sacrifice as necessary for cosmic balance, modern societies often frame war as a necessary evil to maintain order, justice or peace. The moral weight given to “just war” theory reflects an echo of sacrificial reasoning: Certain losses are deemed acceptable or even noble for the preservation of larger ideals.
In modern warfare, the echoes of ancient human sacrifice resound, reframed and secularized but no less potent. While ancient societies offered human lives to appease the divine and maintain cosmic balance, modern war functions as a secular form of sacrifice, transforming the deaths of soldiers and civilians into a means of reaffirming national identity, communal cohesion and existential purpose.
The structured rituals of war—its ceremonies, memorials and the symbolic language of honor and duty—reveal humanity’s enduring need to sacralize collective loss. Through these rituals, fallen soldiers are elevated to sacred figures, their deaths imbued with meaning far beyond the battlefield.
War mirrors the logic of ancient sacrifices by converting individual suffering and death into symbols of devotion to causes that transcend the self. Just as ancient sacrifices sought to reassert order through the shedding of blood, war serves as a mechanism to reinforce societal unity and sustain shared ideals. Modern warfare, with its emphasis on duty, sacrifice and collective commemoration, perpetuates this ancient interplay between bloodshed, power and meaning, recasting it within the framework of secular nationalism.
The moral and symbolic dimensions of war expose its deep continuity with human sacrifice. Lives are offered, not on altars to appease gods, but in service to collective ideals and existential aspirations. Through rituals of remembrance, the rhetoric of honor and the sanctification of the fallen, war reconfigures the religious origins of sacrifice into a secular practice that seeks to sanctify suffering and death in the name of a greater purpose. In doing so, it reveals humanity’s persistent, perhaps inescapable, need to find meaning in collective loss, even as the cost remains immeasurable.
War offers only one example of a secular sacrament, maintaining order and meaning in a world where explicit religious sacrifice is no longer accepted. It evokes the same themes of communal survival, sacred duty and ultimate devotion.
Let’s turn to another form of sacrifice.
Contemporary society continues to demand sacrifices from women, particularly in their roles as mothers, daughters, caregivers and sources of emotional and physical support. These sacrifices often go unrecognized, even as they sustain families, communities and economies.
Examining these expectations through the lens of sacrifice reveals a troubling continuity with ancient patterns of human sacrifice—structures that demand personal loss or suffering to uphold collective well-being. By connecting these modern gendered sacrifices to the broader framework of human sacrifice in contemporary society, we can illuminate how deeply ingrained these dynamics remain and challenge their persistence.
Mothers are society’s ultimate caregivers. Motherhood is often framed as the pinnacle of selflessness, with women expected to prioritize their children’s needs above their own. Sacrifices of career aspirations, personal identity and physical well-being are normalized, even valorized. The ideal of the self-sacrificing mother parallels ancient sacrificial victims, offered up to secure the future of the family and society.
Daughters’ filial duty offers another example of naturalized self-sacrifice. Daughters disproportionately bear the burden of caregiving for aging parents, often sacrificing their own time, resources and mental health. This expectation reflects a continuation of the sacrificial logic: Daughters are seen as obligated to give of themselves to maintain familial harmony and social stability.
Even outside the home, women are frequently cast as the emotional bedrock of workplaces, expected to absorb stress, mediate conflicts and provide support without reciprocation. This invisible labor reinforces the sacrificial archetype, where women are the unsung sustainers of communal well-being.
The cultural fixation on women’s appearances imposes another form of sacrifice, demanding time, money and emotional energy to conform to societal standards of beauty. This dynamic commodifies women’s bodies, echoing sacrificial rituals where physical offerings symbolize collective values or ideals.
The sacrifices expected of women often align with the underlying logic of ancient human sacrifice:
- Sacrifice as a social stabilizer: Just as ancient societies demanded human offerings to appease gods and maintain order, modern systems often expect women to sacrifice their own well-being to preserve family structures, professional environments and societal norms.
- The normalization of sacrifice: Ancient sacrifices were ritually codified; in modern times, the sacrifices of women are similarly institutionalized, framed as natural, inevitable or even virtuous. The notion that caregiving, selflessness and personal denial are intrinsic to femininity perpetuates this expectation.
- Collective blindness to costs: The suffering of sacrificial victims was often obscured or justified by the greater good. Today, the sacrifices of women are similarly overlooked or taken for granted, their tolls on mental health, economic opportunities and autonomy minimized or ignored.
These gendered sacrifices connect to my larger theme: Human sacrifice as a persistent, albeit transformed, cultural logic. Just as war demands lives in service of the nation, society demands women’s unpaid labor, emotional support and physical sacrifices in service of families and communities. Both reflect a system where individual suffering is valorized as essential to collective survival or progress.
Moreover, these sacrifices are often cloaked in narratives of honor, love or duty, masking the inequities they perpetuate. Women are lauded for their selflessness while the structures that demand it remain unchallenged, much like ancient societies that venerated sacrificial victims while reinforcing the systems that necessitated their deaths.
If we are to rethink the place of sacrifice in contemporary society, we must interrogate these gendered dynamics. What would it mean to value caregiving, emotional labor and selflessness without demanding them disproportionately from women? How might society redistribute the burdens of these sacrifices to ensure equity and recognition?
Drawing connections between the sacrifices expected of women and the broader framework of human sacrifice offers a powerful critique of the systems that perpetuate inequity while sanctifying suffering. It invites us to envision a society where the logic of sacrifice no longer relies on exploitation but seeks to honor and sustain all lives equally. The conversation about women’s sacrifices should become part of a larger reckoning with the persistence of sacrificial structures in modern culture.
Human sacrifice is often viewed as a relic of a benighted, morally primitive past. But the study of this phenomenon should encourage us to reflect on the ethical frameworks of modern society and reconsider our assumptions about moral progress.
As we have seen, sacrifice remains a powerful idea today, even if its forms have changed. While we no longer perform ritual killings in temples, we engage in acts that bear a striking resemblance to the ancient logic of sacrifice. Exploring these continuities allows us to question whether our sense of ethical progress is as clear-cut as it appears.
Sacrifice—offering something of great value for a higher purpose—has always been central to human societies. Ancient rituals of human sacrifice addressed existential anxieties, such as survival, divine favor and communal cohesion. Today, the concept persists in transformed but equally potent forms.
In war, individuals offer their lives for the survival of the nation, the preservation of freedom or the pursuit of justice. This parallels ancient sacrifices, where the death of one served the perceived well-being of the many. The language of “duty,” “honor” and “ultimate sacrifice” echoes the sanctification of bloodshed seen in earlier eras.
Acts of self-sacrifice for the greater good—whether through military service, motherhood, caregiving, activism or even martyrdom—remain celebrated. These acts reflect the enduring human need to invest suffering and loss with transcendent meaning.
Just as ancient societies built altars and held ceremonies to honor sacrificial victims, modern societies create monuments, observe national holidays and conduct public rituals to commemorate those who have “given their lives.” These acts transform individual loss into communal meaning, reinforcing collective identity.
Ancient sacrifices often sought to restore cosmic balance or secure divine favor in times of crisis. Similarly, wars are frequently justified as necessary to uphold higher ideals, from freedom to justice to national survival. The deaths of soldiers are framed not as senseless losses but as noble contributions to a greater purpose.
In both ancient and modern contexts, sacrifice serves to address societal anxieties. The scapegoat mechanism, where guilt or disorder is symbolically transferred onto a victim, persists in subtler forms, such as the justification of civilian casualties in conflicts or the targeting of marginalized groups in times of crisis.
Thinking about human sacrifice also opens up a space to question the moral tensions inherent in modern forms of sacrifice. While we celebrate those who sacrifice for others, the very structures that demand such sacrifices—war, inequality, systemic violence—merit scrutiny. We might ask ourselves,
- Who decides what constitutes a worthy sacrifice?
- How do societies justify the loss of life in war or other contexts?
- Is sacrifice always noble, or does it sometimes mask exploitation or coercion?
These questions compel us to confront the ways in which modern societies perpetuate sacrificial logic while framing it as progress.
Why, we might ask, does the concept of sacrifice remains so compelling psychologically? One answer is this: Humans seek meaning in suffering and death, and sacrifice offers a framework for transforming loss into something transcendent. Whether through war, activism or self-denial, sacrifice provides a narrative that justifies pain and loss in service of a larger story. Understanding this psychological and social dynamic can deepen our appreciation for the enduring role of sacrifice in human culture.
It’s time, I think, to reconsider the place of sacrifice in contemporary society. Acknowledge its power to unite, inspire and give purpose, but also its potential to perpetuate violence and inequity and, yes, patriarchy. We should view human sacrifice not as a relic of the past but as a continuing force that demands both respect and critical examination.
In an essay written around 1580, entitled “Of Cannibals,” Michel de Montaigne offered a profound critique of how societies define barbarity. In one of the first Western examples of cultural relativity, the French thinker juxtaposes the ritualistic cannibalism of the Tupinambá with Europe’s religious wars, challenging his readers to question the moral superiority they ascribe to their own practices. His insight resonates powerfully today as we reconsider the place of sacrifice in contemporary society.
Modern forms of sacrifice—whether through war, systemic inequalities or the valorization of self-sacrifice—may appear far removed from the ritualistic practices of ancient or so-called savage cultures. Yet they often operate on the same principles: transforming individual suffering and death into symbols of communal meaning, justification or power. Montaigne’s warning that the “civilized” are not so different from those they condemn urges us to critically examine how we frame and justify the sacrifices demanded in the name of progress, security or national identity.
Just as Montaigne reframed cannibalism as an act of honor rather than mere brutality, we must ask whether our own practices of sacrifice, especially in war or systemic exploitation, truly reflect noble ideals—or if they mask a deeper, unexamined barbarity. By confronting these parallels, we can begin to question not only the costs of sacrifice but also the narratives we create to sanctify it. In doing so, we might move closer to a society that no longer perpetuates violence or exploitation under the guise of virtue, but instead seeks to honor life without the need for destruction and abuse.
