Nadene Goldfoot
Consumption of human flesh has occurred on all continents over the ages, yet never in a systematic or continuous manner. It declined from the third millennium BCE, with the emergence of the great civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus valley. Although it continued on the American continent and in Oceania until the 16th century, the practice has now become rare and a cultural taboo.
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, both in ancient and in recent times.
Cannibalism was even reported to have happened in 70 CE in Jerusalem with the attack of the Romans who caused a great famine to happen in Jerusalem first before they burned down the Temple. The story of Mary of Bethezuba is a story of cannibalism told by Josephus in his “Jewish War” (VI,193) which occurred as a consequence of famine and starvation during the siege of Jerusalem in August AD 70 by Roman legions commanded by Titus. Such an act of cannibalism is highly repugnant to most all of the civilized societies. One would rather die themselves than eat another human, even one who had just died. If it happened, the person would have to be delirious and faint from hunger.
Cannibalism has occasionally been practiced as a last resort by people suffering from famine, even in modern times. Famous examples include the ill-fated Donner Party (1846–47) and, more recently, the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 (1972), after which some survivors ate the bodies of the dead. Additionally, there are cases of people suffering from mental illness engaging in cannibalism for sexual pleasure, such as Jeffrey Dahmer, Issei Sagawa, and Albert Fish. There is resistance to formally labeling cannibalism a mental disorder.
In some societies, cannibalism is a cultural norm. Consumption of a person from within the same community is called 1. endocannibalism; ritual cannibalism of the recently deceased can be part of the grieving process or be seen as a way of guiding the souls of the dead into the bodies of living descendants.2. Exocannibalism is the consumption of a person from outside the community, usually as a celebration of victory against a rival tribe. Both types of cannibalism can also be fueled by the belief that eating a person's flesh or internal organs will endow the cannibal with some of the characteristics of the deceased.
Yet, According to Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "The Eucharist is the very sacrifice of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus which he instituted to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until his return in glory. You must believe in transubstantiation, which means that the bread and wine are actually transformed into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. The offerings only appear as bread and wine, but are believed to actually be parts of Christ himself.
These are concepts added by the Romans in and around their meeting in about 325 BCE to the original Christian practices which would have no concept close to cannibalism in their practices. It was the First Council of Nicaea, (325), the first ecumenical council of the Christian church, meeting in ancient Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey), called by the emperor Constantine I, an unbaptized catechumen, who presided over the opening session and took part in the discussions.
According to the New Testament, the rite was instituted by Jesus Christ during the Last Supper; giving his disciples bread and wine during a Passover meal, he commanded them to "do this in memory of me" while referring to the bread as "my body" and the cup of wine as "the blood of my covenant, which is poured out for ...The Eucharist (from the Greek eucharistia for “thanksgiving”) is the central act of Christian worship and is practiced by most Christian churches in some form. Along with baptism it is one of the two sacraments most clearly found in the New Testament.
There was no such allowance of referencing human body parts in connection with food in Judaism, the religion with the highest of standards of what goes into the mouths and when. Only certain animals are allowed to function as food ingested. Where did Jesus, a Jew according to his story, get such an idea if it was he? Even the early Christians were said to be Jews. They were at a Passover table at the time this was said, evidently. Jews never were to even imagine eating a piece of a person, and were definitely never to eat blood of any kind of animal.Jews don't even eat pigs, let alone a bite of human flesh in our imagination or for real. Everyone else ate pigs, the common table meat.Jews, those people with all the laws they must follow, follow the Law of Kashrut-about food. By doing this, I notice, we practice impulse control, control of our senses in other areas other than eating. We develop empathy for animals and people. Many have even turned out to be vegetarians.
Scholars continue to debate and examine the rationale for Constantine’s conversion to Christianity. One element involves attempts to determine the demographics of the Roman Empire c. 300 CE. Christianity had grown steadily since the 1st century CE, and by 300 CE, there are estimates that out of a total population of 60 million, 3 million were Christians. (Jews still numbered 11 million).today we have about 6 million in the USA, 6 million in Israel, and 2 million scattered in other places. We are 0.02% of the world population. He still followed his heart which was in Roman beliefs of polytheism, though, but went along with his mother, Helena, who was a believer in Christianity.
Among modern humans, cannibalism has been practiced by various groups. It was practiced by humans in Prehistoric Europe, Mesoamerica, South America, among Iroquoian peoples in North America, Māori in New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, parts of West Africa and Central Africa, some of the islands of Polynesia, New Guinea, Sumatra, and Fiji. Evidence of cannibalism has been found in ruins associated with the Ancestral Puebloans of the Southwestern United States as well as (at Cowboy Wash in Colorado).
Abraham's ending of human sacrifice happened when he was an adult, about to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham lived in the 2nd millennium, about 1948 BCE. No mention was found of cannibalism during that period in Ur on the Euphrates River.
Update: 7:08pm:Jeremiah 19:9 I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh because their enemies will press the siege so hard against them to destroy them.’Lived in 7th to 6th century BCE. When Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylonia in 605 BCE, Jeremiah forecast that he would conquer Judah. King Jehoiakim of Judah feared to have this mentioned because of the effect on the people, ordered him arrested, so he went into hiding. More is mentioned in Ezekiel 5:10, Leviticus 26:29, 2 Kings 6:28-29, Lamentations 4:10 and 2:20, Deuteronomy 28:53-57, Why did the prophets write about cannibalism? It's the ultimate fear; a horror that should change their behavior to prevent such a thing from happening.
In the 1980s, Médecins Sans Frontières, the international medical charity, documented “ritualized cannibal feasts” among soldiers in Liberia. Since then, the ritual has become more common. By the early 2000s, sacred cannibalism was a common practice in this near-anarchic country, where violence, rape, and drug abuse are widespread. Cannibalism has also been documented in the Congo, in Sierra Leone, and in Uganda, where it was infamously practiced among the child soldiers of Joseph Kony’s army. In such war-torn areas, participants in ritual cannibalism are often happy to make their motivations clear. They draw spiritual and physical power from the consumption of human flesh. The practice serves an obvious propagandistic value as well, striking fear into the hearts of enemies. And in child armies, cannibalism is an initiation ritual, an ordeal that transforms a boy into a man and makes him feel sanctified, empowered, and safe under the hails of bullets. They really need to check that statistic out and see how many have died under that hail of bullets showing no protection at all.
Resource:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_of_Bethezuba#:~:text=The%20story%
20of%20Mary%20of,Roman%20legions%20commanded%20by%20Titus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cannibalism
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1737/constantines-conversion-to-
christianity/
https://www.alimentarium.org/en/knowledge/anthropophagy
Update: https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-
verses-about-cannibalism/
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