exaggerated in the early twentieth century, as by Jane Harrison; considerable evidence has also been found of commensal sacrifice offered to heroes.) Jewish sacrifice A "burnt offering" is a type of korban (sacrifice), specifically an animal sacrifice in which the entire sacrifice is consumed totally by fire. When the Jewish scriptures were translated into the Koine Greek Septuagint, the translators used the Greek term holokautein to translate the Hebrew olah. This form of sacrifice, in which no meat was left over for anyone, was seen as the greatest form of sacrifice and was the form of sacrifice permitted to be given solely at the Temple by Jews and non-Jews. The "whole offering" is believed to have evolved as an extreme form of the slaughter offering, in which the portion allocated to the deity increased to all of it. In slaughter offerings, the portion allocated to the deity was mainly the fat, the part which can most easily be burnt. The animals, having first been checked to ensure they were free from disease and unblemished (a requirement of the sacrifice), were brought to the north side of the altar, and killed by either the offeror, or a priest. The animal's blood was carefully collected by priests and sprinkled around the altar. Unless the animal was a bird, its corpse was flayed and the skin given to the priest, who was permitted to keep it. In later times more powerful priests took possession of the skins from the lesser priests, and it was decreed that the skins should be sold, with the proceeds being given to the Temple in Jerusalem (Tosefta 19). The flesh of the animal was divided according to detailed instructions given by the Talmud (Tamid 31), and would then be placed on the wood on the altar (which was constantly alight due to the large number of sacrifices carried out daily), and slowly burnt. After the flesh (including any horns and goats' beards) had been reduced to ashes, usually the following morning, the ashes were taken by the priest to a ritually clean location outside the sanctuary, and dumped there. Most biblical scholars now agree that the intricate details of the whole offering, particularly the types and number of animals on occasion of various feast days, given by the Torah, were of a late origin, as were the intricate directions given in the Talmud. Whole offerings were quite rare