Giving Up What Is Most Precious

 Genesis 22:2:  And God said to Abraham, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you."

This happened around 1800 BC to 1500 BC.  Abraham worshipped his God.  There were other civilizations scattered all over the world.  The other communities worshipped their own gods.

To appease their gods, and goaded on by their priests, it was normal for the other communities to sacrifice their most precious possessions to their gods.  What were their most precious possessions?  - Their children's lives.  Child sacrifice was not uncommon.  

Abraham would not have been very surprised by God's request.  But it had a happy ending.

Read this excerpt, from the book "VANISHED CIVILIZATIONS", on the ancient ritual of child sacrifice carried out in the defunct civilization at Carthage.  This could be what happened in ancient civilizations:

"Sacrifices took place at night before a great bronze statue of the supreme god Baal Hammon.  The parents brought their sacrificial child to the site - an infant between two and three years old, sometimes older.  The ceremony  included loud music and a great deal of festivities, and at the appropriate moment the child was taken by a priest to have his or her throat slit in a secret ritual.  The body was then placed on the statue's outstretched arms, from which it rolled off into the flames of a fire.  During the crisis in the 4th century when Agathocles besieged Carthage, 200 children are said to have been sacrificed."

In Christ, it was the reverse -  God sent His Son as a sacrifice to die on the cross to save us. Hallelujah!

(Picture:  The Diocletian Palace at Split/Croatia, built for Roman Emperor Diocletian.)

Who Kept The Dead Sea Scrolls

It could be around AD 80 when the Jewish historian Josephus visited Qumran, beside the Dead Sea.

Just a few decades after Christ's ascension, many of his disciples and followers travelled near and far and everywhere to spread the Good News of salvation, first to the Jews and also to the non-Jews.  They were in a hurry because they were expecting Christ's return in a short while.

But the expectation of Christ's return also gave rise to another response - some believers turned to a quiet ascetic lifestyle.

Josephus described the Essene community at Qumran. "After prayers before dawn, each member would set to a task in which he was skilled.  Before noon, they would assemble, washed with cold water to purify themselves to eat a simple meal.  Then they resumed work until the evening meal.  The silence within seems like some dread mystery; it stems from their permanent sobriety and the restriction of their food and drink to the bare necessities."

The study of scriptural law and prayer were among the chief occupations at this Essene community at Qumran.  A common thread of their faith was a sense that the apocalypse was about to strike.  The sect believed that God's vengeance would soon be unleashed on the unfaithful, and that they alone would survive the Day of Judgement.

We need to thank this Essene community for hiding the scriptural scrolls for posterity. 

(Paraphrased and gleaned from the book "Vanished Civilizations")