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What Is The Meaning of ‘Holocaust’ in the Bible?
The use of the word HOLOCAUST in contemporaneous time
has sparked controversy in at least one group of people
claiming that “holocaust” has a meaning associated with
Scripture and not with the murder of millions of Jews and
other people during the Nazi era and thus, we ought to
respect the real meaning of the word. Jews prefer the user
of the word “Shoah” to describe the 20th century murder of
European Jews.
"Shoah" is the Hebrew term used since the 1940s to describe
the Holocaust.
Shoah is a 1985 French documentary film about the Holocaust,
directed by Claude Lanzmann. Over nine hours long and 11 years in the
making, the film presents Lanzmann's interviews with survivors,
witnesses and perpetrators during visits to German Holocaust sites
across Poland, including extermination camps.
The word “Holocaust” for the last four thousand years had a different meaning. It originally referred to the
offering, the burnt offering this is, prescribed by God through Moses. We can find this in the book of Leviticus,
Leviticus 1:1 And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the
tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
Leviticus 1:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man
of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the
cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.
Leviticus 1:3 If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a
male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of
the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD.
Leviticus 1:4 And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering;
and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
H5930
עולה עלה
‛ôlâh ‛ôlâh
o-law', o-law'
Feminine active participle of H5927; a step or (collectively stairs,
as ascending); usually a holocaust (as going up in smoke): -
ascent, burnt offering (sacrifice), go up to. See also H5766.
In the Septuagint translation of the Bible, the expression “burnt offering” was “holocaust” taken from two words:
Holos – meaning “whole” and Kaustos – meaning “burnt”
Why is it called the Septuagint Translation?
The Septuagint (from the Latin septuaginta, "seventy") is a Koine Greek translation of a
Hebraic textual tradition that included certain texts which were later included in the canonical
Hebrew Bible and other related texts which were not.
Septuagint, abbreviation LXX, the earliest extant Greek translation of the Old Testament from
the original Hebrew. The Septuagint was presumably made for the Jewish community in Egypt
when Greek was the common language throughout the region. Analysis of the language has
established that the Torah, or Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), was
translated near the middle of the 3rd century BCE and that the rest of the Old Testament was
translated in the 2nd century BCE.
The name Septuagint (from the Latin septuaginta, “70”) was derived later from the legend
that there were 72 translators, 6 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, who worked
independently to translate the whole and ultimately produced identical versions. Another
legend holds that the translators were sent to Alexandria by Eleazar, the chief priest at
Jerusalem, at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 bce), though its source, the
Letter of Aristeas, is unreliable. Despite the tradition that it was perfectly translated, there are
large differences in style and usage between the Septuagint’s translation of the Torah and its
translations of the later books in the Old Testament. In the 3rd century ce Origen attempted
to clear up copyists’ errors that had crept into the text of the Septuagint, which by then varied
widely from copy to copy, and a number of other scholars consulted the Hebrew texts in
order to make the Septuagint more accurate.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Septuagint
The Vulgate is usually credited as being the first translation of the Old Testament into Latin
directly from the Hebrew Tanakh rather than from the Greek Septuagint.
There is a direct correspondence between the Greek translation to a Hebrew
term meaning “that which ascends”, the term is “hola” and a second term
meaning “whole” or “complete”, the term is “kalil” – holakalil. Holokautein
means an offering that is completely consumed, destroyed.
Important to say that there is another term, thyesthai, which indicated a
sacrificial victim and a meal made of the victim’s flesh.
Also important to observe is the fact that this “thyesthai” kind of sacrifice
became related with the Holy Eucharist. In the history of the Roman Catholic
Church, when Saint Jerome translated the Sacred Scriptures into Latin, he
preserved the term in Latin and translated the “burnt offering” as holocaustum
and it enters English in this form.
Holocaust in the Old Testament.
First there were two daily holocausts at the tabernacle, one in the morning and one in the evening. These two
holocausts correspond to the Catholic practice of praying Lauds (morning prayer) and Vespers (evening prayer).
These holocausts were combined with a wheat offering and a wine offering (typical of the Holy Eucharist). See Ex
29:38-42 and Nm 28:3-8.
Secondly, there was a holocaust appointed for the Sabbath which was a more elaborate version of the daily double
holocaust.
Third, there was the monthly New Moon holocaust and those associated with annual feasts of the Passover,
Trumpets, Tabernacles, and Atonement.
Lastly, there were personal holocausts prescribed for various liturgical rites, such as the ordination of priests,
purification of women, cleansing of lepers, purifying unclean persons, and the completion of a Nazarite vow.
