Yom Kippur

The scapegoats

In Biblical times, the most distinctive ceremony was the offering of the "emissary goats", or "scapegoats" (Leviticus 16:8-10) which are sent to Azazel. Azazel is an obscure word which occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. The word may come from two root words, aze, meaning goat, and azel, meaning departure. Various attempts have been made to interpret its meaning. Some have taken it for the name of a precipice where the sacrificial goat was killed. Others, take it for the name of an evil spirit; a spirit of this name is mentioned in the Apocryphal Book of Henoch, and later in Jewish literature. On this interpretation the idea of the ceremony would seem to be that the sins were sent back to the evil spirit to whose influence they owed their origin. It has been noted that somewhat similar rites of expiation have prevailed among heathen nations. Modern biblical critics, who refer the above passages to the Priestly code, and to a post-Exilic date, are disposed to regard the sending of the goat to Azazel as an adaptation of a pre-existing ceremony.

Related Topics:
Scapegoat - Hebrew Bible - Apocrypha - Book of Henoch - Modern biblical critics

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Some more conservative biblical scholars have noted that the place the goat would be taken is merely the "wilderness," outside the city, and that there is not a place called Azazel. Their view is that the "goat of departure" was merely "let go."

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