The End of Sacrifice: Christ Against the Holocaust of the Innocent. By Dr Chapman Chen
- Chapman Chen
- 7 hours ago
- 2 min read
In the language of the Septuagint, the term holokauston (ὁλόκαυστον) denotes the “whole burnt offering,” translating the Hebrew ʿōlāh (עֹלָה), a sacrifice in which the victim is entirely consumed upon the altar.¹ Such offerings, prescribed in the ancient Temple cult, required the total destruction of innocent life in the name of devotion.
Yet the Christ whom we encounter here does not perpetuate this system. In liberating the animals from the Temple, and in calling the Temple-turned-butcher-shop "a den of robbers/murderers (parits)" (Mark 11:16), Jesus disrupted the chief priests' and scribes' lucrative revenue stream. Immediately afterwards, they conspired to destroy Him (Mark 11:15-18), eventually leading to His arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection at Easter (cf. Keith Akers 2000, pp.113-134).
The moral gravity of such systems has been expressed with striking clarity by Isaac Bashevis Singer, who wrote:
“For the animals, all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.”²
Likewise, Alex Hershaft—a survivor of the Nazi era—has repeatedly drawn parallels between the treatment of animals and the atrocities he witnessed, arguing that institutionalised violence against the vulnerable can become normalised within society.³
In contemporary activism, this moral concern is often expressed in stark terms. Tash Peterson, for example, has described the industrialised killing of animals as “the largest holocaust in history,” and frequently claims that “approximately three trillion non-human people” are “brutally murdered every year” for human consumption⁴. In other words, what unfolds on a vast scale is a regime of sacrifice—indeed, a continual holocaust in its biblical sense—in which countless innocent creatures of God are offered up to the human “belly-idol.”
One need not collapse historical distinctions to perceive the ethical question that confronts us: can a system built upon the destruction of the innocent ever be reconciled with the God of compassion?
In an age where such destruction continues on an industrial scale, the image of Christ saving rather than demanding victims invites us to reconsider what true worship requires—not death, but compassion; not offering, but liberation.
Notes
¹ See Leviticus 1:3–9; cf. Septuagint (LXX), where Hebrew עֹלָה (ʿōlāh) is rendered as ὁλόκαυστον (holokauston), meaning “that which is wholly burned.”
² Isaac Bashevis Singer, “The Letter Writer,” in Collected Stories (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982). Variants of this statement also appear in interviews and secondary citations; wording may differ slightly across translations.
³ Alex Hershaft, various lectures and interviews, e.g. “A Holocaust Survivor’s Message” (Farm Animal Rights Movement, 2003; widely circulated video and transcript). Hershaft frequently compares the treatment of animals in industrial agriculture to systems of oppression he witnessed during the Holocaust.
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