THE TABLE ON THE ALTAR – Blood or fruits from the field

Whoever controls the people’s fears becomes master of their souls –Niccolo Machiavelli
Aída Reboredo Arroyo

…. fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that ^[^h^]moves on the earth. To subdue and exercise dominion does not mean to abuse, to kill, or to slave; instead it means to guide, to protect, and to take care. The context of Genesis is precise; to dominate creation excluded animals slaughtering because all beings of the alluded Era were vegetarians: I have given you every herb…. and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creepson the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food; and it was so (1).

This peaceful coexistence ended when Adam and Eve, tempted by the most cunning of all the living beings of the field that Yahweh God had made, ate from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, becoming gods. In response Yahweh cursed the entire Earth, and said: Behold, Adam –generic name of humankind- has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever— Immediately … he expelled him from the Garden of Eden and put a cherub to prowl the east of the Garden of Eden with a sharp sword that turned in all directions to guard the way to the tree of life (2).

The first children of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, did not have better luckthan their parents. Abel brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering …Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground…. but He -the Lord- did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. …Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. And He said, What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. So now you are cursed from the earth…. a fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth. Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. The previous account provides the first record of homicide and animal offering dedicated to Yahweh (3).

There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown (4). The New Testament explains from a spiritual perspective this invasion of foreign beings into the planet: For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast themdown to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment (5) …and the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day (6).

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritualhosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (7). Spiritual entities allied with financial, political and

religious hierarchies control the Earth and creation: For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birthpangs for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God (8).

The strategies of these dominant hierarchies are constantly changing, but the purpose of keeping creation prey to vibrations of fear and insecurityremains the same for millennia. Humanity, blinded by itself and ignoring itsliberating role, has not used its intelligence and capabilities to care for creation, but to enslave it. The dominion that was conferred to humankind over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over everyliving thing that moves on the earth (9) resulted in the unlimited generation of suffering which as a consequence of the law of cause-effect, returns like boomerang onto itself. What is given, is received. Giving and receiving constitutes a single relationship.

Humankind is a unit, a body that faces two options: to awaken to the unified conscience or to continue to be fragmented, enslaved and enslaving, paying tribute to gods considered as omnipotent. Believing in a wrathful god generates the perception of helpless women and men under the power of aruthless demiurge. It is comforting to know that this is not the only visionneither the most real.

To prevent the evolution of human consciousness, the dominant hierarchiesapply various strategies with the purpose of keeping humanity blinded to itsown greatness which have been established in the image and likeness of the creative intelligence. From the cradle to the grave, human life tendsto unfold outside Eden, the place of inner peace that is accessed when fragmented consciousness is transformed into unity. And

whoever is blind in this [life] will be blind in the Hereafter and more astray from the path (10). The state in which you live will determine the state in which you will die. The state, in which you change dimensions, is the state you will continue your existence indefinitely, in the Afterlife (11).

It is liberating to move from a fragmented conscience to a unified one because the dualistic vision is then transformed into an integrating one. The fragments tswhich seemed unrelated are then captured as interdependent elements of unity, generating an inclusive universe for the conscience. This can be synthesized in the Mayan greeting In lak’ech, I am another you, Hala ken, you are another me. Affirmations derived from the Abrahamic religions also referto this unit such as: Shema Israel, Adonai eloheinu Adonai ehad —Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one (12); I and my Father are one (13); La ilaha illallah —There is no God, but Allah (Unity) (14).

No deceit, no strategy of the powerful has the ability to destroy the truth; it can only be temporarily veiled. The antidote to fear is truth: And you shallknow the truth, and the truth shall make you free (15). What is the truth? Pontius Pilate asked Jesus. The message of Jesus shows his intertwining with a powerful, personal and intelligent force that he called the Father of all creation. Jesus said: If people ask you: Where are you from? tell them: We come from the light, where the light is born of itself. Where it stands and manifests itself in its image. If they ask: Who are you? tell them: We are hischildren and we are the chosen of the Living Father. If they ask you: What is the sign of your Father that is in you? tell them: It is movement and rest (16).

Genesis interprets the flood —natural catastrophe recorded by divers ancient cultures— as Yahweh’s punishment for the wickedness of humanity. So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them (17). When torrential waters ceased, Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, I will never again curse the groundfor man’s sake, although the imaginationof man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done (18).

A violent humanity conceives a violent god and presents him suffering and death as a suitable offering; it could not be otherwise. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is,its blood. Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man (19).

Non-violence as a practice is the ethical basis for the creation of a just and peaceful society and is within the reach of each individual. We

have the power to free ourselves through the practice of non-violence. Jesus and Buddha Siddhartha Gautama among other spokesmen of the message of unity, took the praxis of non-violence as the axis of their teachings in contrast to the practice of systematic and indiscriminate violence exercised by the dominant spiritual and human hierarchies. Those who choose to free themselves and their environment from these controlling strategies have the power to pacify their thoughts, emotions, intentions, words and actions. The powerful are no longer capable of controlling this quietly and personal power of non-violence which consists in causing no suffering to any creature, with no exceptions. Practicing non-violence requires the awareness of interconnectedness to be stronger than the energies of anger, ambition, and fear. In societies whose governments, religious and financial hierarchies legitimize violence as a way of life, the individual practice of non-violence creates transformative resonances since everything is intertwined and mutually determined as infinite reflections in a mirror.

Parallel to animal sacrifices practiced by the people of Israel, there were also non-bloody rituals such as those performed by the king and priest Melchizedek, who brought out bread and wine, and blessed him saying: Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies intoyour hand. So Abram gave him a tithe of all (20). This significant fact that bears witness to a priesthood free from animal slaughter is only mentioned briefly in Genesis and in Psalms before becoming an important theme of the book of Hebrews, where Jesus self-identify himself as a priest of the Order of Melchizedek: The Lord has sworn and will not relent, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (21).

Years after meeting Melchizedek, Abraham heard a voice asking him to offer hisson Isaac in holocaust, a request that did not surprise him since children offerings to the god Moloch were common. Moloch was the fearsome and powerful deity of Babylon and Ur of the Chaldeans, Abraham’s home city. Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son but the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven: Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anythingto him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me. Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behindhim was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So, Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son (22). These events happened in a place called Mount Moriah, chosen centuries later by King David to build the Temple of Jerusalem.

Animals and humans share a common material origin: both are called in Genesis living souls (nephesh). This similarity could be the cause that allowed the god of Abraham to be pleased with the substitutionary sacrifice of an animal in exchange for human life.… for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul (23).

According to the Qu‘ran, the sacrificial attempt did not happen to Isaac —son of Sarah— but to Ishmael, son of Hagar the Egyptian woman. Every year on Eid al Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, the Islamic world commemorates Abraham’s obedience with animal sacrifices.

Exodus, the liberation of the Hebrew people from Egyptian captivity, markedthe beginning of tribulations towards the land promised to Abraham: I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God (24). Before the exodus, before the tenth and last plague that killed all the first-born Egyptians, the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, ordered Moses: every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household… your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year….the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it….and they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs (25). These sacrifices were reminiscent of the attempted immolation of Isaac by Abraham.

During a period that spanned nearly a thousand years, from the X b.C., date of the founding of the first Temple in Jerusalem by King Solomon, to 70a.d., when it was destroyed by Roman troops, the Temple was an animal slaughterhouse tended by numerous priests from the Levite tradition. The Hebrews did not end animal sacrifices due to doctrinal modifications, but because of the destruction of the Temple and the disappearance of the records concerning the priesthood.

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. ‘And He said to those who sold doves, Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!’ (26).

There are similarities between the teachings of Jesus and the concepts and practices of the Essenes, the ascetic Jewish community settled mostly on the western shore of the Dead Sea between the I b.C. and I a.C. These similarities include aspects concerning the kingdom of God, the baptism, disregard for wealth, duty to help the poor, weak and the elderly; as well as the rejection of the Temple priesthood and animal sacrifices inherent to its priestly function. The Essenes were recognized healers; their diet consisted of fruits, vegetables, and fish. Jesus differed from the Essene community and from the Judaism of his day on issues regarding women to whom he included having a protagonist role in his groundbreaking ministry.

There are several similarities between the ministry of Jesus and that of Melchizedek as described in the 11Q13 Dead Sea Scroll found at Qumran: He will proclaim… deliverance… from all their iniquities… for it is the year of grace (27). Jesus defined his ministry by reading the scroll of the prophet Isaiah in the Nazareth synagogue: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to healthe brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord… and He began to say to them, Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing (28).

At dinner prior to his capture, Jesus offered fruits of the field: Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body.’ Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant (29). The new covenant does not consist of external rituals but of the transformation of conscience. Being disciples of Jesus means believing and doing what he believed and did: Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (30). To believe in Jesus means to practice non-violence, disinterested action, love the neighborin the conscience of unity: that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You (31).

22. At some point, creation will return to its original peaceful state: The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat. The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shalllead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den (32). Let’s contribute to the advent of this moment by renouncing violence in all areas of existence. The great transformation of the planet begins with the pacification of our hearts.

(1) Genesis 1:28-30 New King James Version (NKJV)

(2) Genesis 3:1,5,22-23,24 NKJV
(3) Genesis 4:3,4,5,8,11,12,16 NKJV
(4) Genesis 6:1,2,4 NKJV
(5) 2 Peter 2:4 NKJV
(6) Jude 6 NKJV
(7) Ephesians 6:12 NKJV
(8) Romans 8:20-22 NKJV
(9) Genesis 1:28 NKJV
(10) http://www.quran-wiki.com/ayat-17-72-AlIsra
(11) Ahmed Hulusi The Observing One www.ahmedhulusi.org/en/ p 30
(12) Deuteronomy 6:4 NKJV
(13) John 10:30 NKJV
(14) Shahadah, basic statement of the Islamic faith
(15) John 8:32 NKJV
(16) The Secret Gospel of Thomas In Elaine Pagels Beyond Belief. The Secret Gospel of Thomas Random House 2003, Logion 50
(17) Genesis 6:5-7 NKJV
(18) Genesis 8:20-21 NKJV
(19) Genesis 9:2-5 NKJV
(20) Genesis 14:20 NKJV
(21) Psalm 110:4 NKJV
(22) Genesis 22:1,2,9,12,13 NKJV
(23) Leviticus 17:11 NKJV
(24) Genesis 17:8 NKJV
(25) Exodus 12:3,5-8 NKJV
(26) John 2:13-16 NKJV
(27)https://www.academia.edu/35412797/_La_figura_de_Melquisedec_en_Qumrán_DavarLogos_XVI.2_2017_1-19
(28) Luke 4:18-21 NKJV
(29) Matthew 26:26-28 NKJV
(30) John 8:31-32 NKJV
(31) John 17:21 NKJV
(32) Isaiah 11: 6-8 NKJV

Acerca de la autora

Aída Reboredo Arroyo

Es autora de libros y artículos; cofundadora del primer centro de estudios de la mujer en México. Es Psicóloga Clínica con estudios de maestría y doctorado realizados en Francia y Brasil. Fue profesora universitaria en diversas instituciones académicas de la Ciudad de México y de Veracruz, así como cofundadora de las Agencias Especializadas en Delitos Sexuales.