: Fraser's "The Golden Bough" (as sourced by Rayelan)
: is not the only source corroborating Jana's information on
: human sacrifices in architectural structures: ...

(Hi, Mel.) Okay - but let me restate this, because I can tell folks are mostly glossing over it:

I'm not saying that it isn't true; I'm saying that I cannot know that it is true.

I'd be inclined to agree with the possibility that prior to the time of Abraham, and probably through at least the end of that generation that was present on earth as Isaac was being spared and a ram was used in his place, sacrifice of human beings continued to be a somewhat "routine" occurrence. I think the story of Abraham and Isaac probably represents the first moment in the world's unfoldment (since The Fall) when human beings began to move out of that pattern of human sacrifice, and into something different.

Still, the "evidence" we have is essentially "words on a page" which have persisted, not been knocked down, by contravening evidence or more persuasive assertions from someone else.

If the words were not on a page, so they we could read them and have the experience of "taking them into our thoughts" for ourselves, we'd say they are "hearsay".

But because we've found them quietly waiting for us, in a book or on a web page, we don't recognize them as hearsay. We tend to think of them as somehow "authoritative".

As I wrote elsewhere, the idea "large amounts of vitamin C contribute to increased risk of forming kidney stones" was an authoritative-sounding notion that was parrotted by many. The more times it showed up in print, the more people believed it must be truth.

Only it wasn't. All the many later assertions of it were resting upon the one original statement, which seemed to know what it was talking about.