...at First Things:
I think the most influential aspect of my work is to show that Judaism and Christianity exist in a continuity with archaic religions. I am fundamentally an anthropologist and a rationalist. What I say is that human societies are very different from what specialists call “animal society” because the former have religion. In archaic society religion and culture are absolutely one, even when they don’t seem to be. Religion, therefore, is a way that human beings learn, without realizing it, how to deal with violence in their midst. Here, sacrifice comes in as the killing of substitute victims. This phenomenon as a scientific entity should be explained in purely anthropological terms. It takes no religious conviction to be understood. It is a complete revolution in the way that even people unfavorable to religion understand archaic religion; to show that they are absolutely indispensable to the survival of man is a very important thing.
In a way, Christianity is the end of archaic religions because it reveals that the victim is innocent. When you understand Christianity correctly in its closeness and distance from archaic religion it is the same structure, the scapegoat phenomenon, that Jesus is victim of. Yet the text is intended to destroy your belief in scapegoat phenomenon instead of using it in order to have sacrifices. The relationship is very central and rational with all archaic religions in the past that may go back tens of thousands of years. This is very important.
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