Scapegoat - Wikipedia Scapegoat From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search This article is about "scapegoat" in its religious and ritualistic sense. For the social-psychological sense of a person or group singled out for blame, see Scapegoating. For other uses, see Scapegoat (disambiguation). The Scapegoat, by William Holman Hunt, 1854 In the Bible, a scapegoat is one of two kid goats. As a pair, one goat was sacrificed (not a scapegoat) and the living “scapegoat” was released into the wilderness, taking with it all sins and impurities. The concept first appears in Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert to carry away the sins of the community. Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness. — Leviticus 16:21–22, New Revised Standard Version Practices with some similarities to the scapegoat ritual also appear in Ancient Greece and Ebla. Contents 1 Etymology 2 Ancient Judaism 3 Christian perspectives 4 Similar practices 4.1 Ancient Syria 4.2 Ancient Greece 5 In Literature 6 References 7 External links Etymology[edit] Main article: Azazel The word "scapegoat" is an English translation of the Hebrew ‘ăzāzêl (Hebrew: עזאזל‎), which occurs in Leviticus 16:8: ונתן אהרן על שני השעירם גרלות גורל אחד ליהוה וגורל אחד לעזאזל And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for Azazel. (JPS) The Brown–Driver–Briggs Hebrew Lexicon[1] gives la-azazel (Hebrew: לעזאזל‎) as a reduplicative intensive of the stem ‘-Z-L "remove", hence la-‘ăzāzêl, "for entire removal". This reading is supported by the Greek Old Testament translation as "the sender away (of sins)". The lexicographer Gesenius takes azazel to mean "averter", which he theorized was the name of a deity, to be appeased with the sacrifice of the goat.[2] Alternatively, broadly contemporary with the Septuagint, the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch may preserve Azazel as the name of a fallen angel.[3][4][5] And Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures. — Enoch 8:1[6] Early English Christian Bible versions follow the translation of the Septuagint and Latin Vulgate, which interpret azazel as "the goat that departs" (Greek tragos apopompaios, "goat sent out", Latin caper emissarius, "emissary goat"). William Tyndale rendered the Latin as "(e)scape goat" in his 1530 Bible. This translation was followed by subsequent versions up through the King James Version of the Bible in 1611: "And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat."[7] Several modern versions however either leave it as the proper noun Azazel, or footnote "for Azazel" as an alternative reading. Jewish sources in the Talmud (Yoma 6:4,67b) give the etymology of azazel as a compound of az, strong or rough, and el, mighty, that the goat was sent from the most rugged or strongest of mountains.[8] From the Targums onwards the term azazel was also seen by some rabbinical commentators as the name of a Hebrew demon, angelic force, or pagan deity.[9] The two readings are still disputed today.[10] Ancient Judaism[edit] Main article: Azazel The scapegoat was a goat that was designated (Hebrew: לַעֲזָאזֵֽל‎) la-'aza'zeyl; "for absolute removal" (for symbolic removal of the people's sins with the literal removal of the goat), and outcast in the desert as part of the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement, that began during the Exodus with the original Tabernacle and continued through the times of the temples in Jerusalem. Once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Cohen Gadol sacrificed a bull as a sin offering to atone for sins he may have committed unintentionally throughout the year. Subsequently he took two goats and presented them at the door of the tabernacle. Two goats were chosen by lot: one to be "for YHWH", which was offered as a blood sacrifice, and the other to be the scapegoat to be sent away into the wilderness. The blood of the slain goat was taken into the Holy of Holies behind the sacred veil and sprinkled on the mercy seat, the lid of the ark of the covenant. Later in the ceremonies of the day, the High Priest confessed the intentional sins of the Israelites to God placing them figuratively on the head of the other goat, the Azazel scapegoat, who would symbolically "take them away". Christian perspectives[edit] See also: Victim soul and Lamb of God Agnus-Dei: The Scapegoat (Agnus-Dei. Le bouc émissaire), by James Tissot In Christianity, this process prefigures the sacrifice of Christ on the cross through which God has been propitiated and sins can be expiated. Jesus Christ is seen to have fulfilled all of the biblical "types"—the High Priest who officiates at the ceremony, the Lord's goat that deals with the pollution of sin and the scapegoat that removes the "burden of sin". Christians believe that sinners who own their guilt and confess their sins, exercising faith and trust in the person and sacrifice of Jesus, are forgiven of their sins. Since the second goat was sent away to perish,[11] the word "scapegoat" has developed to indicate a person who is blamed and punished for the sins of others. Similar practices[edit] Ancient Syria[edit] A concept superficially similar to the biblical scapegoat is attested in two ritual texts in archives at Ebla of the 24th century BC.[12] They were connected with ritual purification on the occasion of the king's wedding. In them, a she-goat with a silver bracelet hung from her neck was driven forth into the wasteland of "Alini"; "we" in the report of the ritual involves the whole community. Such "elimination rites", in which an animal, without confession of sins, is the vehicle of evils (not sins) that are chased from the community are widely attested in the Ancient Near East.[13] Ancient Greece[edit] Ancient Greeks practiced scapegoating rituals in exceptional times based on the belief that the repudiation of one or two individuals would save the whole community.[14][15] Scapegoating was practiced with different rituals across ancient Greece for different reasons but was mainly used during extraordinary circumstances such as famine, drought, or plague.[14][15] The scapegoat would usually be an individual of lower society such as a criminal, slave, or poor person and was referred to as the pharmakos, katharma or peripsima.[14][15] There is a dichotomy, however, in the individuals used as scapegoats in mythical tales and the ones used in the actual rituals. In mythical tales, it was stressed that someone of high importance had to be sacrificed if the whole society were to benefit from the aversion of catastrophe (usually a king or the king's children).[14][15] However, since no king or person of importance would be willing to sacrifice himself or his children, the scapegoat in actual rituals would be someone of lower society who would be given value through special treatment such as fine clothes and dining before the sacrificial ceremony.[14] Sacrificial ceremonies varied across Greece depending on the festival and type of catastrophe. In Abdera, for example, a poor man was feasted and led around the walls of the city once before being chased out with stones.[14] In Massilia, a poor man was feasted for a year and then cast out of the city in order to stop a plague.[14] The scholia refer to the pharmakos being killed, but many scholars reject this and argue that the earliest evidence (the fragments of the iambic satirist Hipponax) show the pharmakos being only stoned, beaten, and driven from the community. In Literature[edit] J. M. Coetzee's work is permeated by the scapegoat problematic as well as the scapegoating practice in the social and psychological sense. Animals are connected to phenomena of scapegoating.[16] The scapegoat, as a religious and ritualistic practice and a metaphor for social exclusion, is one of the major preoccupations in Dimitris Lyacos's Poena Damni trilogy.[17][18] In the first book, Z213: Exit, the narrator sets out on a voyage in the midst of a dystopian landscape that is reminiscent of the desert mentioned in Leviticus (16, 22). The text also contains references to the ancient Greek pharmakos.[19][20] In the second book, With the People from the Bridge, the male and female characters are treated apotropaically as vampires and are cast out from both the world of the living and that of the dead.[21] In the third book, The First Death, the main character appears irrevocably marooned on a desert island as a personification of miasma expelled to a geographical point of no return.[22][23] References[edit] ^ p. 736. ^ Gesenius. "I have no doubt that it should be rendered 'averter'". ^ Archie T. Wright The Origin of Evil Spirits: The Reception of Genesis 6.1–4 Page 111. 2005. "However, the corresponding Aramaic fragment of / Enoch 10.4 does not use the name Azazel; instead, the name has been reconstructed by Milik to read Asa'el. Stuckenbruck suggests the presence of the biblical form Azazel in the Ethiopic. ^ Wright, David P. "Azazel". Pages 1:536–537 in Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman et al. New York: Doubleday, 1992. ^ The Symbolism of the Azazel Goat. Ralph D. Levy. 1998. "This is still fairly straightforward, and is translated by the majority of the versions as "for Azazel" (Targums Onkelos and Pseudo-Jonathan follow this understanding, as do the RSV, NRSV, REB, and Tanakh). KJV and NKJV have "to be the scapegoat". ^ Enoch 8:1, translation by R. H. Charles. Online. ^ The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories. Merriam-Webster. 1991. pp. 411–412. ISBN 978-0-87779-603-9. ^ "AZAZEL". JewishEncyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2013-07-04. ^ The JPS guide to Jewish traditions. Page 224. Ronald L. Eisenberg, Jewish Publication Society – 2004. "(Leviticus 16:8–10). In talmudic times, a popular rabbinic interpretation was that Azazel referred to the place to which the goat was sent, the eretz g'zera (inaccessible region) of Leviticus (16:22). Later, Azazel became associated with another..." ^ The JPS Torah Commentary: Leviticus Nahum M. Sarna, Chaim Potok, Jewish Publication Society – 1989. "According to the first, Azazel is the name of the place in the wilderness to which the scapegoat was dispatched; ... According to the second line of interpretation, Azazel describes the goat. The word 'aza'zel is a contraction. ^ The Golden Bough, p. 569. Sir James Frazer, Worsworth Reference. ISBN 1-85326-310-9. ^ Zatelli, Ida (April 1998). "The Origin of the Biblical Scapegoat Ritual: The Evidence of Two Eblaite Text". Vetus Testamentum. 48 (2): 254–263. doi:10.1163/1568533982721604. ^ David P. Wright, The Disposal of the Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature (Atlanta: Scholars Press) 1987:15-74. ^ a b c d e f g Bremmer, Jan (1983). "Scapegoat Rituals in Ancient Greece" (PDF). Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. 87: 299–320. doi:10.2307/311262. JSTOR 311262. ^ a b c d Westbrook, Raymond. "Who Led the Scapegoat in Leviticus 16:21?". Journal of Biblical Literature. ^ https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1715344 ^ The Precarious Destitute: A Possible Commentary on the Lives of Unwanted Immigrants by Michael O'Sullivan. Cha Magazine, Reviews / June 2015 (Issue 28).https://www.asiancha.com/content/view/2105/505/ ^ https://www.berfrois.com/2018/11/berfrois-interviews-dimitris-lyacos/ ^ Dimitris Lyacos, Z213: Exit, Shoestring Press 2016 ^ https://www.pangyrus.com/review/dimitris-lyacos-poena-damni-i-z213-exit-ii-with-the-people-from-the-bridge-iii-the-first-death/ ^ Dimitris Lyacos, With the People from the Bridge, Shoestring Press 2018 ^ Dimitris Lyacos, The First Death, Shoestring Press 2017 ^ http://poeticsresearch.com/article/a-column-of-cloud-and-a-column-of-fire-dimitris-lyacos-poena-damni-by-robert-zaller/ External links[edit] The dictionary definition of scapegoat at Wiktionary Wikimedia Commons has media related to Scapegoats. Wikiquote has quotations related to: Scapegoat eScapegoat: Virtual scapegoat website for Yom Kippur Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scapegoat&oldid=995139254" Categories: Persecution Jewish animal sacrifice Hebrew Bible words and phrases Yom Kippur Book of Leviticus Metaphors referring to animals Goats Hidden categories: Articles containing Hebrew-language text Articles containing Latin-language text Commons category link is on Wikidata Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Languages العربية Български Brezhoneg Català Čeština Dansk Deutsch Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Français Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית Latina Lëtzebuergesch Lietuvių Limburgs Magyar Nederlands Norsk bokmål Norsk nynorsk Occitan Português Română Русский Slovenščina Suomi Svenska Türkçe Українська Tiếng Việt 粵語 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 19 December 2020, at 12:58 (UTC). 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