Lesson

#12
The Scapegoat
(Levi&cus 16: 20-22a)

The Scapegoat

All year long Israels sins have been pollu&ng the sanctuary. Although
individuals have brought purica&on oerings to cleanse the sanctuary of
their involuntary sins, their oerings have had no aect on the ac&ons of
the brazen sinner who has refused to repent. His or her sins con&nue to
pollute the sanctuary, seeping ever-deeper into the inner recesses of the
Holy of Holies, posing the very real threat that God will abandon his
sanctuary, leaving the people to fend for themselves, a na&on without God.
Thus, Lesson #11 (Levi&cus 16) introduces the annual Day of Atonement,
Yom Kippur, when the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies, purifying it with
a sin oeringthe blood of a goatand then transferring the pollu&on and
the sins of the people onto the head of a second scapegoat, dispatching
it into the wilderness, bearing the all the sins of all the people.

The Scapegoat

The concept of the scapegoat has a long history in the

religions of the world and in cultural anthropology. Sir
James Frazers monumental 12-volume work, The Golden
Bough, a Study of ComparaAve Religion (3rd edi&on,
1906-1915) devotes all of Volume 9 to The Scapegoat, a
companion to Volume 4, The Dying God.
In Lesson #12 we examine the scapegoat in depth.

The Scapegoat

Recall in Lesson #11 the 7-part

structure of the Day of
Atonement (16: 1-34):
Introduc&on (1-2)
1. Prepara&on (3-10)
2. Purica&on of the sanctuary
(11-19)
3. Rite of the Scapegoat (20-22)
4. A^ermath (23-28)
5. Epilogue (29-31)
Conclusion (32-34)

The Scapegoat

We might easily envision the

chapter schema&cally, with the
A
Rite of the Scapegoat as the
center element, making it the
focal point of the chapter:
A Introduc&on (1-2)
B Prepara&on (3-10)

C Purica&on of the sanctuary (11-19)

D Rite of the Scapegoat (20-22)
C A^ermath (23-28)
B Epilogue (29-31)
A Conclusion (32-34)

The Scapegoat

The idea of the scapegoat has

ancient roots buried deeply
within the collec&ve
consciousness of the human
experience: it is an archetype,
explored by Sir James Frazier in
volume 4 of his 9-volume
anthropological study, The
Golden Bough (1913); Joseph
Campbells seminal study of
compara&ve mythology, The
Hero with a Thousand Faces
(1949); and Carl Jungs classic,
Man and His Symbols (1964).

The Scapegoat

Sir James Frazier denes the

scapegoat in The Golden Bough
In the rst place . . . what I have called the
immediate and the mediate expulsions of evil are
idenAcal in intenAon; in other words, that
whether the evils are conceived of as invisible or
as embodied in a material form, is a circumstance
enArely subordinate to the main object of the
ceremony, which is simply to eect a total
clearance of all the ills that have been infesAng a
people. If any link were wanAng to connect the
two kinds of expulsion, it would be furnished by
such a pracAce as that of sending the evils away
in a liQer or a boat. For here, on the one hand,
the evils are invisible and intangible, on the other
hand, there is a visible and tangible vehicle to
convey them away. And a scapegoat is nothing
more than such a vehicle.
Sir James Frazier (1854-1941)

The Golden Bough, vol. 4, p. 224

The Scapegoat

Furthermore, Frazier goes

on to say:
When a general clearance of evils is
resorted to periodically, the interval
between the celebraAons of the
ceremony is commonly a year, and the
Ame of year when the ceremony takes
place usually coincides with some well-
marked change of season, such as the
beginning or end of winter in the arcAc
and temperate zones, and the
beginning or ending of the rainy
season in the tropics.
The Golden Bough, vol. 4, p. 224.

The Scapegoat

I get it. An intangible evil like sin is

taken away from the community
annually by something tangible, like
an object, an animal or a personin
Not me. Sin
the case of Levi&cus, on the
Day of Atonement, a goat.

Sin
Sin

Sin

Sin

fle
i
l

r
o
o
P
guy!

Sin

Sin

The Scapegoat

But do we nd examples
of the scapegoat outside
me. 16?
of LNot
evi&cus
The cat blames
stu on me all the
&me!

The Scapegoat

10

There are many examples

of the scapegoat apart
from Levi&cus!
For example . . .

The Scapegoat

11

The Roman
Sacra Mamurio
According to John Lydus in De
Mensibus, a 5th-century work on
pagan religious fes&vals, the ancient
Romans celebrated the sacra
mamurio (the rite for Mamurius)
on March 14 or 15, the transi&on of
the old year into the new on the
Roman calendar, by dressing up an
old man in animal skins, bea&ng
him with s&cks and chasing him out
of town!

The 1st month of March (mosaic), c. A.D. 200-250.

Sousse Archaeological Museum, Tunisia.

The Scapegoat

A scapegoat ritual, all the evils of

the previous year were heaped
upon the old man, who was
symbolically banished, paving the
way for a befer new year.
12

The Greek Thargelia [thar-yee-lia] was one of the major

Athenian fes&vals in honor of Apollo and Artemis,
celebrated on their birthdays in the month of Thargelian,
May 6 & 7.
An agricultural feast, the Thargelia included purica&on
oerings and thanksgiving oerings of rst fruits. For the
purica&on oering a sheep was sacriced on the Acropolis,
followed by a scapegoat rite.
The 6th-century B.C. Greek poet Hipponax claims that the
two ugliest men who could be foundone represen&ng the
citys men and the other the womenwere led around with
strings of gs on their necks, whipped with g wood
switches, and driven to the shoreline outside the city.
Hipponaxs lurid imagina&on may well have exaggerated
some of the details of the rite (he claims they were whipped
on the genitals, stoned, burnt and their ashes scafered on
the sea!), but among the Greeks.
Apollo of the Belvedere,
Va&can Museum, Va&can City

Jan Bremmer, Scapegoat Rituals in Ancient Greece, Harvard Studies

in Classical Philology, vol. 87 (1983), p. 306.

The Scapegoat

13

When evening comes, whoever the army commanders

are, each of them prepares a ram . . . then I twine a cord
of white wool, red wool, and green wool, and the ocer
twists it together, and I bring a necklace, a ring, and a
chalcedony stone and I hang them on the rams neck and
horns, and at night they Ae them in front of the tents
and say: Whatever deity is prowling about, whatever
deity has caused this pesAlence, now I have Aed up these
rams for you, be appeased! And in the morning I drive
them out to the plain . . . then the ocers lay their hands
on the rams and say: Whatever deity has caused this
pesAlence, now see! These rams are standing here and
they are very fat in liver, heart, and loins. Let human
esh be hateful to him, let him be appeased by these
rams . . . and the people say: Look! Whatever illness
there was among men, oxen, sheep, horses, mules, and
donkeys in this camp, these rams . . . have carried it
away from the camp.
Seated Deity,
late Hipte Empire, 13th Century.

O.R. Gurney, Some Aspects of Hi_te Religion. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1977, p. 49.

The Scapegoat

14

As Sir James Frazier, Joseph

Campbell and Carl Jung
argue that the scapegoat
is an archetype, a
universally present idea in
every &me and culture that
constantly recurs in
mythology, religion and
literature.
So, we turn now to its
appearance in Levi&cus 16.
The Scapegoat

15

The Day of Atonement

(Leviticus 16: 20-22a)
Scapegoat
When he has finished purging the inner sanctuary, the

tent of meeting and the altar, Aaron shall bring

forward the live goat. Laying both hands on its head,
he shall confess over it all the iniquities of the
Israelites and their trespasses, including all their sins,
and so put them on the goats head. He shall then
have it led into the wilderness by an attendant. The
goat will carry off all their iniquities to an isolated
region.

The Scapegoat

16

After the purgation rite, Aaron moves on

to the scapegoat rite.
The scapegoat is chosen by lot, either
by Aaron using the urim and thummim
contained in the pocket of his breast
piece, or by special lots used for the
occasion, bearing the inscription: 1)
leYHWH (belonging to the Lord) or 2)
laazazel (belonging to Azazel).

The Scapegoat

17

Azazel seems to be a vestigial remnant of

Mesopotamian polytheistic belief emblematic of
chaos and disorder, a hint of its presence still
faintly felt like fading dream in Leviticus.
Azazel is only used in the Bible here in
Leviticus 16, but later Jewish thinking uses
the word as the name of one of the fallen
angels in the Book of Enoch.
(Enoch is not a book of the Bible; it was
written around 200 B.C., and it is part of the
Pseudepigrapha, a collection of 63 works on
biblical themes written between 200 B.C. and
A.D. 200).

The Scapegoat

18

William Tyndale, the Protestant reformer and

Bible translator, first rendered 'aza'zel as
scapegoat, following the Greek Septuagint by
properly translating 'az as goat and 'azel as
a form of the verb to go away; hence
'aza'zel is the go away goat, or
scapegoat.
As we noted in Lesson #11, placing both
hands on the goat, signifies transference,
unlike the one-handed gesture of giving to
God that we have seen in the 5 Great
Sacrifices.

The Scapegoat

19

As we also noted in Lesson #11,

iniquities denote ritual and moral
impurities; trespasses denote sins resulting
from open and wanton rebellion against
God.
Aaron confessing the iniquities and
trespasses of the Israelites is crucial, for
by confessing them, they are transformed
into inadvertences, thus qualifying them
for sacrificial expiation.

The Scapegoat

20

As Jacob Milgrom observesand as we

have seen in our invesAgaAon of the
scapegoat as an archetypethe
an&quity and ubiquity of the Azazel
rite is crystal clear.
In the ancient world purga&on and
elimina&on rites go together. It is not
enough simply to banish impurity; its
power must be nullied by banishing
evil to its place of origin:
to the netherworld;
to enemy territory where its malevolent
power can work to your benet; or
to the wilderness where it can do no
harm.

Hence, the scapegoat is banished to

the wilderness in Levi&cus 16.
The Scapegoat

21

It is clear from our text that

the Israelites are not worshiping Azazel,
for an animal heaped with sins would not
be an acceptable oering for either God or
a demon;
the goat is not a vicarious subs&tute for
Israel, since the goat is not punished or put
to death for the sins it bears.
There is nothing in Scripture to suggest that
the goat is stoned or pushed o a cli.

rather;

the goat is simply a vehicle (as Sir James

Frazier observes) to dispatch Israels sins to
the wilderness, a place of chaos and
disorder where it can do no harm and its
power is nullied.
The Scapegoat

22

But I wonder, what will

happen to the goat
Not
e. to the
when
it m
gets
wilderness?

The Scapegoat

23

William Holman Hunt. The Scapegoat (oil on canvas), 1854.

Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Merseyside, England.
The Scapegoat

24

To this point our examina&on of the

scapegoat has followed a well-trodden
path of anthropological and scriptural
scholarship.
But Id like to turn now to Mary
Douglas original, penetra&ng insights
into the scapegoat, as she presents
them in LeviAcus as Literature (1999).
Doing so will open vistas on Levi&cus 16
and indeed on all of Scripturethat
few have seen before.

So, follow me as we explore

this new trail.

The Scapegoat

25

The basic structural

technique used in Scripture is
parallelism: a statement
made and then restated in an
amplied form, either in like
or in contrast.

The Scapegoat

26

For example, in Psalm 8: 3-4 we

read:
A When I see the heavens, the work of your hands,
the moon and the stars which you arranged,
what is man that you should keep him in mind,
mortal man that you care for him?

We have two parallel structures:

When I see the heavens, the work of your hands,

A



B


A



B
the moon and the stars which you arranged,
what is man that you should keep him in mind,
A



B
A



B
mortal man that you care for him?
The Scapegoat

27

This basic structural technique lies at the

very core of Scripture, from the sentence
level, as in Psalm 8, to the overall
structure of the Chris&an canon.
In The Literary Guide to the Bible,
Cambridge University professor Frank
Kermode observes that the Old
Testament is to the New Testament as A
is to B in Hebrew parallelism. That is,
the Hebrew Scriptures make a statement
that is then stepped up and
transformed in the New Testament.

The Scapegoat

28

Parallelism, by its very nature, posi&ons

pairs (words, phrases, sentences, stories
and even the canon of Scripture itself) in
juxtaposi&on, some&mes to highlight
contrasts, and some&mes to amplify
likenesses.
We see such structural parallelism in may
biblical characters: Cain and Able; Isaac
and Ishmael; Jacob and Esau; Joseph and
his brothers; the Israelites and the rest of
humanity . . . and so on.

Look closely at some examples.

The Scapegoat

29

Peter Paul Rubens. Cain Slaying Abel [Genesis 4: 1-16] (oil on oak panel), 1608-1609.
Courtland Ins&tute of Art, London.

The Scapegoat

30

Pieter Lastman. Hagar and Ishmael Sent Away [Genesis 21: 1-21] (oil on wood panel), 1612.
Kunsthalle Hamburg, Germany

The Scapegoat

31

Hendrick ter Brugghen. Esau Selling His Birthright [Genesis 25: 19-34] (oil on canvas), c. 1627.
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid.

The Scapegoat

32

Giovanni Andrea de Ferrari. Josephs Coat Brought to Jacob [Genesis 37: 1-36] (oil on canvas), c. 1640.
El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Texas.

The Scapegoat

33

These complex and nuanced stories

have several elements in common:
Each story consists of characters in opposiAon:
Cain and Abel; Isaac and Ishmael; Jacob and Esau;
A Joseph and his brothers;
In each story God chooses one character to play a
role in the plan of redemp&on, while the other
characters are free to follow their own des&nies:
Abel wandered the earth and sefled in the land
of Nod, east of Eden;
Ishmael became the founder of the Arab people;
Esau became the founder of the Edomite people;
Josephs brothers became the founders of ten
tribes of Israel;

Gods sovereignty drives the choice of one

character over another, not any inherent quality or
lack of quality in the person himself; and
The character God chooses drives the con&nuing
narra&ve ac&on forward.
The Scapegoat

34

In LeviAcus as Literature Mary Douglas

suggests that Levi&cus embodies a
mode of thought that she calls
analogical, a mode en&rely dierent
from Western linear analy&cal
thinking. Douglas suggests that
Levi&cus views reality as an elaborate
system of correspondences, best
understood through their analogous
rela&onships with all the others.
These stories of pairs that we have just
read, with one character separated from
another based on Gods set purpose,
reect an intricate network of meaning
best understood as part of a larger
pafern.
Mary Douglas (1921-2007).

And so it is with the scapegoat.

And he said . . .

35

It is not coincidental that the

scapegoat forms the culmina&ng
element in a series of purica&on
A rites:
1. childbirth, a^er which a woman oers
two birds, one as a sin oering and the
other as a burnt oering;
2. Saraat, a^er which a person oers 2
clean birds, one of which is killed as a sin
oering and the other set free;
3. Bodily discharges, a^er which a person
oers 2 birds, one as a sin oering and
the other as a burnt oering; and
4. Day of Atonement, during which Aaron
oers 2 goats, one of which is killed as a
sin oering and the other set free, the
scapegoat.
The Scapegoat

36

Read within the larger system of

correspondences:
Two goats are set before the Lord, who chooses
A one as a sin oering and the other as a scapegoat,
just as he chooses Abel over Cain; Isaac over
Ishmael; Jacob over Esau; and Joseph over his
brothers. Each is chosen by Gods sovereignty, not
because of any inherent quali&es they may or may
not possess.
Just as in the cleansing rite for saraat, the bird of
the sin oering is slaughtered and the living bird
(along with cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop)
dipped in the blood of the sacriced bird,
iden&fying it with the sin oering, a^er which it is
set free to y away over the countryside, so is
the scapegoat iden&ed with the sacriced goat
by transferring the sins of the people onto its
head, a^er which it is set free to carry o their
iniqui&es to an isolated region.
The Scapegoat

37

We have no idea what happens to the

bird that is set free a^er the saraat rite,
just as we have no idea what happens to
the scapegoat that is set free a^er the
Day of Atonement rite.
Both the bird and the scapegoat carry
the sins of the people with them as Cain,
Ishmael, Esau and Josephs brothers
carry their own sins with them, each
nding a home apart from the main
narra&ve trajectory of Scripture.
Perhaps the same thing happens to the
scapegoat.

The Scapegoat

38

Viewing the scapegoat as one element

in an elaborate system of
correspondences greatly enriches our
understanding of Scripture.
As we have seen, the scapegoat is
certainly an archetype, a idea
universally present in every &me and
culture that constantly recurs in
mythology, religion and literature. But
the scapegoat also shimmers
luminously within the intricate web of
correspondences woven by parallel
words, phrases, sentences, stories and
the canon itself.
Viewed in this way, the scapegoat is one
&ny &le in the dazzling 3-dimensional
mosaic that is Scripture.
And he said . . .

39

That is a really ne insight! But

if we view the scapegoat in this
way, is there a deeper,
typological correspondence
mie.
with Not
Christ
n t he New
Testament?

The Scapegoat

I though youd
never get there. I
want to hear about
Jesus!.

40

Yes, there is.

As weve said previously, the
Epistle to the Hebrews is in many
ways a gloss on Levi&cus, so we
should expect to nd something
in Hebrews to address the
typological correspondences with
the Day of Atonement and the
scapegoat . . . and we do!

The Scapegoat

41

Isaiah sets the stage

In Isaiah chapters 40-55 (o^en called deutero-
Isaiah, or 2nd Isaiah) we have four servant
A
songs: Isaiah 42: 1-7; 49: 1-6; 50: 1-9; and 52: 13
53:12. In these songs God calls his servant to
lead the na&ons, but the servant is horribly
abused and ul&mately sacrices himself on behalf
of those he was sent to lead.
As we learn in the preface to the songs, the
servant is Israel:
But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
ospring of Abraham my friend
You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth
and summoned from its far-o places,
To whom I have said, You are my servant.

The Scapegoat

(Isaiah 41: 8-9)

42

Viewed typologically through a

Chris&an interpreta&ve lens, the
servant is Christ who fullls three
A roles on the Day of Atonement
(Good Friday in Chris&an terms):
1. He is the great high priest who
represents us before God;
2. He becomes our sin oering, the goat
that is slain; and
3. He becomes the scapegoat who bears our
sin and who takes it away.

Listen to Isaiah

The Scapegoat

43

The Suffering Servant

(Isaiah 53: 4-6)
Yet it was our pain that he bore,
our sufferings he endured.
We thought of him as stricken,
struck down by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our sins,
crushed for our iniquity.
He bore the punishment that makes us whole,
by his wounds we were healed.
We had all gone astray like sheep,
all following our own way;
But the Lord laid upon him
the guilt of us all.

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44

And now we turn to

the Epistle to the
Hebrews

The Scapegoat

45

But when Christ came as high priest of the good

things that have come to be, passing through the
greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by
hands, that is, not belonging to this creation, he
entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the
blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus
obtaining eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats
and bulls and the sprinkling of a heifers ashes can
sanctify those who are defiled so that their flesh is
cleansed, how much more will the blood of Christ, who
through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished
to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to
worship the living God.
(Hebrews 9: 11-14)

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46

Jan van Eyck. Mys&c Lamb, detail of the Ghent Altarpiece (oil on panel), 1432
Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent.

The Scapegoat

47

1. What is an archetype?
2. According to James Frazier, what is a
scapegoat?
3. What happens to the scapegoat a^er it is
dispatched to the wilderness?
4. If people had been making sacrices daily
to address their sins, why was it
necessary to have a separate day of
atonement each year?
5. In what sense is Jesus our scapegoat?
The Scapegoat

48

Copyright 2015 by William C. Creasy

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The Scapegoat

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