Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol between Jews and Christians
David Biale
Abstract
Blood contains extraordinary symbolic power in both Judaism and Christianity — as the blood of sacrifice, of Jesus, of the Jewish martyrs, of menstruation, and more. Yet, though they share the same literary, cultural, and religious origins, on the question of blood the two religions have followed quite different trajectories. For instance, while Judaism rejects the eating or drinking of blood, Christianity mandates its symbolic consumption as a central sacrament. How did these two traditions, both originating in the Hebrew Bible's cult of blood sacrifices, veer off in such different directions ... More
Keywords: blood, symbolic power, Judaism, Christianity, sacrifice, Jesus, Jewish martyrs, menstruation, sacrament, Hebrew Bible's cult
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2007 | Print ISBN-13: 9780520253049 |
| Published to California Scholarship Online: May 2012 | DOI:10.1525/california/9780520253049.001.0001 |
