When Paul wrote his classic letter to the Romans, he spoke of sacrifices—something that both Jews and Gentiles understood clearly.  Wherever anthropologists have unearthed the remains of a temple, they have found sacrifices of one kind or another.  Temples and sacrifices went together as part and parcel of the same experience: this god, no matter how the deity was defined, had to be worshiped; and because of our shortcomings, of necessity, sacrifices should be offered as an acknowledgment of human frailty.