why sacrifice?

[Torrere]

I was thinking about sacrifice, and how the New Testament abolished sacrifice while the Old Testament required it. (Okay, I confess, I was reading yet another religion thread. Someone was describing about sacrifice as the priests saying: "Absolve yourself of your wrongs! Bring your cow to the temple, and we'll slaughter it for you and clean up afterwards".)

I came upon an idea: perhaps a large part of (animal) sacrifice was bringing meat to the priests. The priests get all of the best food (after all, it was significant and encouraged to bring your best animals to sacrifice). This can be corrupt, so Jesus the Reformer abolished it.