Without the existence of that generally-respected, historical-record, limited-confines-yet-adequately-sufficient assemblage of sixty-six sacred books containing basic required knowledge of such sciences as anthropology, biology and physiology, paleontology and genetics, astronomy and astrophysics, geology and archeology (and, of course, theology) called "The [Judeo-Christian] Holy Bible," it is possible that humans who have never physically heard the actual Voice of God from Heaven (or at least The Voice That Spoke From Above the Mercy Seat Between The Two Cherubim of The Ark of The Covenant), per . . .

Numbers 7:89 And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the LORD, he heard The Voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was upon the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and It spoke to him.

. . . might wonder where that abstraction semantically termed: "sacrifice" ever came to be and what it is supposed to relate to.

In other words, WHY has the concept of "sacrifice" or "offering" (particularly of sheep, goats, lambs, turtledoves, etc.) been associated with expiation or atonement for "sins?"

In fact, apart from The Bible and/or the Actual Voice of God From Heaven informing us humans, would we have ever conceived of such an abstraction as "sin?"

Not only did the perception, awareness, and consciousness of "sin" originate from God Himself and His Word(s), but also so did the perception, awareness, and consciousness of "sacrifice" and "offering" relating to absolution of "sins" come from The Almighty Creator Who Communicated To Humans way back at the beginning of human history.

Even concerning those who do not want to consider the origin of environmental phenomena around us humans relating to a morally-sentient Creator, and who recognize that the word "sin" has not been inscribed on most all phenomena of nature within our present environment here on Earth, there are both natural-disaster and humanly-instigated things which can be done against the human body to cause it to not simply be inconveniently injured but sometimes (if severe enough) even bring about death. Whether or not anyone wants to call those potentially lethal things "sin" or simply "the way things naturally are" is not simply up to them personally and individually, but is also up to others (including and especially that Entity no one in their right mind can deny the existence of, who is: The Creator Himself).

And those Biblical authors who not only are alleged to have spoken (but, for all practical purposes, actually have spoken) for the Creator and are assumed to have been divinely inspired by Him to write the Scripture they did, clearly point that out:

Romans 5:14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

There are many ways to die given the finite environmental parameters we humans have found ourselves consigned to, and humans have already experienced quite a few of them. So, we humanoids are stuck with the given playing field with mostly-non-written natural rules we have been involuntarily placed into for continuing with the game of life.

Getting back to the reality of that strange but very real written source of enlightened information we know as "The Bible," the Creator-incepted idea of "sacrificing" or "offering" anything to God was operational from the start:

Genesis 4:3 In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground,
Genesis 4:4 and Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering,
Genesis 4:5 but for Cain and his offering He had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

It is about that time that human-concocted satanic sacrifices or offerings not authorized nor accepted by God came into being:

Genesis 4:6 The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen?
7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it."
8 Cain said to Abel his brother, "Let us go out to the field." And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.
9 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?"
10 And the LORD said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.
11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.
12 When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength; you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth."
13 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is greater than I can bear.
14 Hey, you have driven me this day away from the ground; and from your face I shall be hidden; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will slay me."
15 Then the LORD said to him, "Not so! If any one slays Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him should kill him.
16 Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

And what "mark" was put upon Cain who went away to "the east?" Slanted eyefolds - typical of current hordes of asians residing in such "Far East" countries as Cambodia, Viet Nam, Mongolia, China, Japan, Korea?

So Cain's demonic self-sacrifice or offering of a devilish type was illicit and non-justified bloodshed [we're not talking acceptable self-defense execution here] which became known as "murder" according to the Torah:

Exodus 20:13 "You shall not murder" [handwritten with the third or whatever Finger of God on The Smoking Mountain]
Deuteronomy 5:17 "You shall not murder."
Matthew 5:21 You have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall not murder; and whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.'
Romans 13:9 The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
First John 3:12 and not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous.

Modern examples of committing murder as a demonic form of self-concocted sacrifice or offering is well known by irresponsible sexually-immoral fornicating or adulterous women attempting to exonerate themselves or compensate for their wrongly-erotic wickedness by allowing pseudo-"doctors" to murder the human babes in their wombs . . . which so-called "medical" butchering certainly involves shedding blood.

The Mafia has had a sordid legacy of attempting to expiate family sins against each other by suddenly gunning each other down without warning, by which - again - blood is shed.

Hatefully-antisemitic arabs impose child-murdering rockets into Israeli territory not their own -- by which blood is shed.

But history has not changed much during the past 2000 years or so when some self-deluded jews crucified Christ Jesus and were glad they did it (even master Jews Matthew and Mark, John and Paul and Peter were also glad, but in a much different sense and for a totally different purpose).

In their Abrahamic-and-Jacobian pride and rebellion, most jews (on the broad and easy road to destruction which their gentile counterparts are also on) have gotten and yet are hung up with (and go off on) beating-around-the-bush tangents "seeking to establish their own righteousness without submitting to God's true righteousness" by fabricating and legalistically insisting upon all sorts of humanly-concocted nitpicky talmudic do's-and-don'ts regulations and stipulations and restrictions not at all found within the bowels of canonical Jewish Scriptures of The Torah, The Prophets, and The Writings of The Old Testament.

Such myopic avoiding-and-disregarding-the-Truth preoccupation with matzoball-soupy/gefilte-fishy "jewishness" touting feminist-sexist wrong-gender geneologies misses the main point of totally submitting themselves to the Lord in Lawful obedience, by religious-ritual deviations they have willfully connived and imposed upon themselves which relegates them to - in pathetic futility - "straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel" while "neglecting the weightier matters of the Law" such as humility, justice, and mercy.

Shall we wild-olive-shoot gentiles, grafted into The Main Vine by our God-given-but-fallibly-human-expressed, sometimes-non-reliable, boasted-about-and-"got-it-made-arrogant" complacent faith and not simply imperfect-human-works self-righteousness get impatient and angry against oracles-of-God-entrusted jews (beloved for the sake of their God-blessed forefathers) who were broken off because of their own disobedient disbelief because they "haven't come around yet" to "wake up and smell the coffee" and thus "get with The Program?"

Rumor has it that Martin Luther (the REAL one) was somewhat irritated by many jews who resisted conversion to Christianity, and Adolf Hitler got overly impatient with disbelieving jews (so much so that he roasted them in concentration-camp ovens), while the German Christian Church helplessly looked on in horror and dismay at the racism-based mortal fate against those ACLU/'Jews-First' type jew tyrants who had suppressed, thwarted, and stifled Christian rights and liberties in The Fatherland prior to der Fuehrer coming to power (which is a major reason Adolf could come to power, along with apostate pseudo-lutheran-and-catholic revisionist "theologians" paving the way).

The only way we humans can be sure that bloodshed sacrifice or bloody offerings of bloody animals was necessary for sin atonement is because we have discovered it so within the confines of The Holy Bible.

In the Old-Testament, bloody animal sacrifices supposedly atoned for or cancelled sins committed because God said they did, ordered our ancestors to do it, and defined such as pertaining to sin absolution:

Exodus 29:36 and every day you shall offer a bull as a sin offering for atonement. Also you shall offer a sin offering for the altar, when you make atonement for it, and shall anoint it, to consecrate it.

Exodus 30:10 Aaron shall make atonement upon its horns once a year; with the blood of the sin offering of atonement he shall make atonement for it once in the year throughout your generations; it is most holy to the LORD."
Exodus 30:15 The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you give the LORD's offering to make atonement for yourselves.
Exodus 30:16 And you shall take the atonement money from the people of Israel, and shall appoint it for the service of the tent of meeting; that it may bring the people of Israel to remembrance before the LORD, so as to make atonement for yourselves.

Leviticus 1:4 he shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
4:20 Thus shall he do with the bull; as he did with the bull of the sin offering, so shall he do with this; and the priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven.
4:26 And all its fat he shall burn on the altar, like the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings; so the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin, and he shall be forgiven.
4:31 And all its fat he shall remove, as the fat is removed from the peace offerings, and the priest shall burn it upon the altar for a pleasing aroma to the LORD; and the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven.
4:35 And all its fat he shall remove as the fat of the lamb is removed from the sacrifice of peace offerings, and the priest shall burn it on the altar, upon the offerings by fire to the LORD; and the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he has committed, and he shall be forgiven.
5:6 and he shall bring his guilt offering to the LORD for the sin which he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.
5:16 He shall also make restitution for what he has done amiss in the holy thing, and shall add a fifth to it and give it to the priest; and the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering, and he shall be forgiven.
5:18 He shall bring to the priest a ram without blemish out of the flock, valued by you at the price for a guilt offering, and the priest shall make atonement for him for the error which he committed unwittingly, and he shall be forgiven.
6:7 and the priest shall make atonement for him before the LORD, and he shall be forgiven for any of the things which one may do and thereby become guilty.

8:15 And Moses killed it, and took the blood, and with his finger put it on the horns of the altar round about, and purified the altar, and poured out the blood at the base of the altar, and consecrated it, to make atonement for it.
16:18 Then he shall go out to the altar which is before the LORD and make atonement for it, and shall take some of the blood of the bull and of the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar round about.

16:24 and he shall bathe his body in water in a holy place, and put on his garments, and come forth, and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people, and make atonement for himself and for the people.
16:30 for on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins you shall be clean before the LORD.

16:33 he shall make atonement for the sanctuary, and he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting and for the altar, and he shall make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly.

16:34 And this shall be an everlasting statute for you, that atonement may be made for the people of Israel once in the year because of all their sins." And Moses did as the LORD commanded him.

17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it for you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement, because of the life.

19:22 And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the LORD for his sin which he has committed; and the sin which he has committed shall be forgiven him.

23:27 On the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present an offering by fire to the LORD.
23:28 And you shall do no work on this same day; for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before the LORD your God.

Numbers 5:8 But if the man has no relative to whom restitution may be made for the wrong, the restitution for wrong shall go to the LORD for the priest, in addition to the ram of atonement with which atonement is made for him.

6:11 and the priest shall offer one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering, and make atonement for him, because he sinned because of the dead body. And he shall consecrate his head that same day

8:12 Then the Levites shall lay their hands upon the heads of the bulls; and you shall offer the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering to the LORD, to make atonement for the Levites.
8:19 And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the people of Israel, to do the service for the people of Israel at the tent of meeting, and to make atonement for the people of Israel, that there may be no plague among the people of Israel in case the people of Israel should come near the sanctuary.

8:21 And the Levites purified themselves from sin, and washed their clothes; and Aaron offered them as a wave offering before the LORD, and Aaron made atonement for them to cleanse them.

15:25 And the priest shall make atonement for all the congregation of the people of Israel, and they shall be forgiven; because it was an error, and they have brought their offering, an offering by fire to the LORD, and their sin offering before the LORD, for their error.

15:28 And the priest shall make atonement before the LORD for the person who commits an error, when he sins unwittingly, to make atonement for him; and he shall be forgiven.

Notice that certain verses of Leviticus chapters 8 through 16 states that even altars and sanctuaries must be atoned for - whatever that means.

So why do not Jews nowadays engage in bloody animal sacrifices for sins? Does it really matter that many Jews worldwide are not currently situated in some temple in Jerusalem or wherever over in the Middle East in some special place in some special temple building to engage in bloody animal killings for sin sacrifices and sin offerings for sin atonements? Are most synagogues in suburbia right here in America adequate for the bloody butcherings?

I suppose the Animal Rights Activists or Society for The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would get into much more than a mere tizzy about slaughtering animals. They are uptight enough about cows and pigs being slaughtered within slaughterhouses for beef steaks, hamburgers, pork chops, bacon, and so forth. And fur coats are an abomination for those content with dacron and polyester, or (better yet) soft cotton.

But (and this is both strange and eerie) perhaps also Christians-influenced Jews realize that bloody animal sacrifices are not even necessary anymore, being that they all were simply a cumbersome and expensive-livestock-decimating foreshadowing (according to Old-Testament Scripture) of The One-and-Only Ultimate Bloody Sacrifice who would be The Final Culmination of Perpetual Atonement and Forgiveness:

Hebrews 7:11 Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron?
12 For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.
13 For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar.
14 For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.
15 This becomes even more evident when another Priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek,
16 who has become a priest, not according to a legal requirement regarding bodily descent but by the power of an indestructible life.
17 For it is witnessed of Him, "You are a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek."
18 On the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness
19 (for the Law made nothing perfect); on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.
20 And it was not without an oath.
21 Those who formerly became priests took their office without an oath, but this one was addressed with an oath, "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest forever.'"
22 This makes Jesus the guarantee of a better covenant.
23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office;
24 but He holds His priesthood permanently, because He continues forever. [Christ was resurrected and ascended up]
25 Consequently He is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through Him [NOT the virgin Mary], because He [not the virgin Mary nor any other dead human saint] always lives to make intercession for them.
26 For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens.
27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for His own sins and then for those of the people; He did this once for all when He offered up Himself.
28 Indeed, the law appoints men [NOT women] in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.
8:1 Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a High Priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in Heaven,
2 a Minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is set up not by humans but by the Lord.
3 For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for This Priest also to have something to offer.
4 Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, because there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.
5 They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary; for when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, "See that you make everything according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain."
6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant He mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.
7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second.
8 For He finds fault with them when He says: "The days will come," says the Lord, "when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;
9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they did not continue in my covenant, and so I paid no heed to them," says the Lord.
10 "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
11 And they shall not teach every one his fellow or every one his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more."
13 In speaking of a new covenant He treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
9:1 Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary.
2 For a tent was prepared, the outer one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence; it is called the Holy Place.
6 These preparations having thus been made, the priests go continually into the outer tent, performing their ritual duties;
7 but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people.
8 By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary is not yet opened as long as the outer tent is still standing
9 (which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper,
10 but deal only with food and drink and various ablutions, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.
11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation)
12 He entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
13 For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh,
14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
15 Therefore He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred which redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant.
16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.
17 For a will takes effect only at death, because it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive.
18 Hence even the first covenant was not ratified without blood.
19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,
20 saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you."
21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship.
22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
24 For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
25 Nor was it to offer Himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the Holy Place yearly with blood not his own;
26 for then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, He has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
27 And just as it is appointed for humans to die once, and after that comes judgment,
28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time without sin, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him.
10:1 For because the Law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near.
2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered? If the worshipers had once been cleansed, they would no longer have any consciousness of sin.
3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year.
4 For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.
5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, He said, "Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me;
6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.
7 Then I said, 'Wow, I have come to do your will, God,' as it is written of me in the roll of the book."
8 When He said above, "You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings" (these are offered according to the law),
9 then He added, "Wow, I have come to do your will." He abolishes the first in order to establish the second.
10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God,
13 then to wait until His enemies should be made a stool for His feet.
14 For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
16 "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days," says the Lord: "I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,"
17 then He adds, "I will remember their sins and their misdeeds no more."
18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
19 Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,
20 by the new and living way which He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh,
21 and because we have a Great Priest over the house of God,
22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;
24 and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
26 For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
27 but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries.
28 A man who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses.
29 How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace?
30 For we know Him who said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." And again, "The Lord will judge His people."
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.