Historical Origins And Development Of Ritual In Worship

Christian ritual grew out of Jewish ritual-whether the Jewish table rites that provided the setting for Jesus' announcement of his self-sacrifice in what became the Christian Eucharist, or the Jewish ritual of proselyte baptism. Graeco-Roman ritual contributed much of the liturgical ceremony that developed as Christianity was transformed from a persecuted Jewish sect to the cultural center of medieval Europe. Ritual in its most general sense refers to an agreed-upon pattern of action. Religious ritual is a corporate symbolic activity in which people engage when they worship. It has been a part of all human cultures. The earliest actual evidence for religious ritual dates from the third interglacial period (180, 000 to 120, 000 b. c. ) and was left by prehistoric hunters of cave bears, who apparently dedicated the brain and the bone marrow of their kill to the dispenser of hunting fortune. The famous Ice Age cave paintings of large animals (approximately 10, 000 b. c. ) are generall…