Think he said he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.
Hope I don't shock you on these boards when I say I don't know.
I think He represented the final sacrifice, that was suffiicient for all sins, thereby making any further sacrifice unnecessary.
But by doing so, did not indicate the prior sacrifices to have been wrong.
You know, I remember a preacher who gave a pretty convincing teaching(In complete agreement with you, btw) . The "preacher" layed it out that it wasn't God who demanded sacrifices. It was the people who, being exposed to other religions ar the time, thought this is what they were to do.
That same preacher kind of hinted that God let them do their sacrifices, as a way to show them it was, and is, impossible to be redeemed by such practice. And rhen they made all kinds of rules, exceptions, etc. ad nauseum
God did not even want a temple.
Well it's been a while since I have read the Bible but I think they kind of insisted upon a "place" to worship.
But what I liked about that Bible "teacher" is that he mentioned all the extermal influences that were brought in by all of the "new" members of the religion.
Remember they were all practicing some or another religion before they joined this new religion of Abraham. Some were only joined into it by marriage.
Same kind of influences came into our own Western culture.
When Christianity began to be the more predominant religion, many came into the religion the same way. By marriage etc. (Like the roots of people having a Christmas tree during- I will call it a Winter Break)
The old kings would give their people a 2 week break. Not without coincidence, this happened to be the most unproductive time of the year anyway in an agricultural community.
People would each practice their own version of the feast. Just saying each religion was not born in a vacuum, but exposed to many orhers.