Holocaust (sacrifice)

A holocaust is a religious animal sacrifice that is completely consumed by fire, also known as a burnt offering. The word derives from the ancient Greek holokaustos, the form of sacrifice in which the victim was reduced to ash, as distinguished from an animal sacrifice that resulted in a communal meal.

The Greek holocausts were apotropaic rituals, intended to appease the spirits of the Greek Underworld, including the Greek heroes. Holocausts were also given to dangerous powers, such as the Keres and Hecate. The same term was used in the Koine Greek Septuagint to translate the Hebrew olah. This form of sacrifice, in which no meat was left over for anyone, was seen as the greatest form of sacrifice Jewish holocausts was the form of sacrifice permitted to be given solely at the Temple in Jerusalem by both Jews and non-Jews. Most biblical scholars now agree that the intricate details of the whole offering, particularly the types and number of animals on occasion of various feast days, given by the Torah, were of a late origin, as were the intricate directions given in the Talmud. Whole offerings were quite rare in early times, but they became more prominent as the ritual became more fixed and statutory in nature.