Avesta people. The term "Avesta" is from the 9th/10th-century works of Zoroastrian tradition in which the word appears as Zoroastrian Middle Persian "abestāg", Book Pahlavi "ʾp(y)stʾkʼ". In that context, "abestāg" texts are portrayed as received knowledge, and are distinguished from the exegetical commentaries (the "zand") thereof. The literal meaning of the word "abestāg" is uncertain; it is generally acknowledged to be a learned borrowing from Avestan, but none of the suggested etymologies have been universally accepted. The widely repeated derivation from *"upa-stavaka" is from Christian Bartholomae ("Altiranisches Wörterbuch", 1904), who interpreted "abestāg" as a contraction of a hypothetical reconstructed Old Iranian
Violence and the Sacred Brown writes that Girard's purpose in "Violence and the Sacred" is to frighten people into returning to orthodox religion; Brown claims that Pope John Paul II liked the book. The religious studies scholar Catherine Bell writes that Girard uses "Freudian notions of desire, guilt, and an original murder at the hands of the group" to present "a theory of ritual sacrifice as the central act of a cultural system generated by primal violence." Bell finds Girard's views similar to those of the classicist Walter Burkert, as expressed in his book "Homo Necans" (1972). Chris Fleming writes that "Violence and the