Blood and Symbols. The History of Human Sacrifices

The book «Blood and Symbols» is an overview of the tradition of human sacrifices, the roots of which go back to ancient times, and numerous echoes in the form of various bloodless rituals are preserved to this day.
The authors immediately warn those readers who want to thrill themselves with bloody scenes that they tried to minimize the description of atrocities. Moreover, not all sacrifices were bloody. In many religions of the world, there are traditions of dedicating living people to the gods, who continued to live and thrive, but were already the «property» or «spouse» of the deity. The authors aimed to show the connection between human sacrifices and the spiritual and cultural development of human communities; to trace how humanity slowly but surely progressed over thousands of years towards replacing bloody rituals with spiritual ones. And how, finally, the very failed human sacrifice — Abraham's sacrifice of his son Isaac — became the foundation of three great religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.