Scapegoat: The Origins of the Crimson Thread

Editor’s note: For some discussion of this illness, see Chaim Trachtman, “Tzaraat as Cancer,” TheTorah (2016); Yitzhaq Feder, “Tzaraat in Light of Its Mesopotamian Parallels,” TheTorah (2019).

The same cleansing materials appear in the ritual of the red heifer, which is used to purify a person from contact with a corpse (Num 19). The heifer slaughtered, then burnt to ashes, after which:

^{במדבר יט:ו} וְלָקַח הַכֹּהֵן עֵץ אֶרֶז וְאֵזוֹב וּשְׁנִי תוֹלָעַת וְהִשְׁלִיךְ אֶל תּוֹךְ שְׂרֵפַת הַפָּרָה.

^{Num 19:6} and the priest shall take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool, and throw them into the fire consuming the cow.

In this case, the materials are part of a concoction that will be sprinkled upon the impure person.

Editor’s note: For some discussion of the meaning of this term, see the opening sections of Yitzhaq Feder, “A Sin Offering for Birth Anxiety,” TheTorah (2016), and bibliography in fns 2 and 3.

Cf. ibn Ezra 16:8, 17:7.

As Neusner notes:

Seven of the eight chapters of this tractate consist of a narrative, retelling in the words of Mishna’s storytellers precisely what is related at Leviticus Chapter Sixteen … the sequence of events in the account of Yoma precisely follows the account of Leviticus.

Jacob Neusner, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Appointed Times 5 (Leiden: Brill, 1983), 134. See also Ishay Rosen-Zvi, The Mishnaic Sotah Ritual: Temple, Gender and Midrash, JSJSupp 160 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 240–241.

For a suggestion of the development of this custom in the Second Temple period in relation to the Greek pharmakos ritual, see Mira Balberg, “Omen and Anti-omen: The Rabbinic Hagiography of the Scapegoat’s Scarlet Ribbon,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 17 (2016), 30-31, and the bibliography cited there.

The exact meaning of והקיף להם is unclear. Jacob Epstein offers חבר והגע, קרב זה אל זה, “attached and touching, brought close to one another” as the usual meanings of the verb הקיף in Mishnaic Hebrew. See, Jacob Nahum Epstein, מבוא לנוסח המשנה [Introduction to the Mishnaic Text], 3rd printing (Jerusalem/Tel Aviv: Magnes/Dvir, 2000; repr. of 1948), 446. My translation above follows the first meaning, while the standard translations (Danby, Blackman, Neusner) follow the second, understanding that the wing and tail tips were “brought near to” the wood/hyssop/wool mixture but not attached to it.

Recognizing the similarity between the two rites, the Sages brought the two occasions into alignment: cf. m. Yoma 6:1–2 with m. Neg. 14:5–10. Significantly, however, the pair of birds for the cleansing of the leper are not included in the list of sacrificial pairs in m. Men. 3:6.

Cf. Marc 3.7.7. See Daniel Stökl, “The Christian Exegesis of the Scapegoat between Jews and Pagans,” in Sacrifice in Religious Experience, ed. Albert I. Baumgarten (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 207–232 [209–210, 214 and nn. 26, 30]; idem (Stökl Ben-Ezra), The Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity: The Day of Atonement from Second Temple Judaism to the Fifth Century (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 19, 29, 160–161; Lester L. Grabbe, “The Scapegoat Tradition: A Study in Early Jewish Interpretation,” JSJ 18 (1987): 152–167 [161–165].

Cf. Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Judaean Legal Tradition and the Halakhah of the Mishnah,” 125; David Henshke, שמחת הרגל בתלמודם של תנאים [Festival Joy in Tannaitic Discourse] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2007), 3–13.

See Naphtali Goldstein, “הלשון של זהורית בעבודת יום הכיפורים” [The ‘Crimson Ribbon’ in the Yom Kippur Ritual], Tarbiz 49 (1979–80): 237–245; Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 1022.

Some scholars have also suggested that the crimson thread was a mere decoration of the scapegoat, thus making it attractive to Azazel. See, Moshe Weinfeld, “דברים שהשטן / יצר הרע / אומות העולם משיבין עליהם” [Things Which the Satan / Evil Inclination / Nations Criticize], in עטרה לחיים: מחקרים בספרות התלמודית והרבנית לכבוד פרופסור חיים זלמן דימיטרובסקי [Atara le-Hayim: Studies in Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature in Honor of Professor Haim Zalman Dimitrovsky], ed. Israel M. Ta-Shma, Daniel Boyarin, Menachem Hirschman, Shamma Y. Friedman, and Menachem Schmelzer (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2000), 105–111, 105–111; Jan N. Bremmer, “The Scapegoat between Northern Syria, Hittites, Israelites, Greeks and Early Christians,” in Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible and the Ancient Near East (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 172; Beate Pongratz-Leisten, “Ritual Killing and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East,” in Human Sacrifice in Jewish and Christian Tradition, ed., Karin Finsterbusch, Armin Lange and K.F. Diethard Römheld, Numen Books: Studies in the History of Religions (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 25. Nevertheless, this is difficult to defend since, although Near Eastern rituals emphasize the decoration of sent-away women and animals with metal jewelry, the crimson thread itself is not related to this; see below. While the Second Temple practice was also compared to the Greek pharmakos ritual, it is worth noting that this Greek rite was apparently influenced by Anatolian traditions relating to the sent-away women: see below n. 17.

Birgit Christiansen, Die Ritualtradition der Ambazzi: eine philologische Bearbeitung und entstehungsgeschichtliche Analyse der Ritualtexte CTH 391, CTH 429 und CTH 463, SBT 48 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006), 38–41, and cf. 65–66; idem (ed.), hethiter.net/: CTH 391.1 (INTR 2017-02-07).

Cf. Wright, The Disposal of Impurity, 58. The affinities between this rite and 1 Sam 5–6 have also been noted; there, the golden mice are apparently “disease carriers,” taking the illnesses to the god of the enemy’s land.

For a survey of this rite in its history and social context, see Billie Jean Collins, “Hittite Religion and the West,” in Pax Hethitica: Studies on The Hittites and their Neighbors in Honour of Itamar Singer, ed. Yoram Cohen, Amir Gilan and Jared L. Miller, Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 51, (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), 56–59.

This ritual attributes both substitutionary and sacrificial aspects to the animal, but its original core seems to have consisted of the sending-away ceremony, with the addition of the other facets designed to better guarantee the halting of the plague. For the disparities between the various facets, see Gurney, Some Aspects of Hittite Religion, 52–59. Cf. also Strauss, Reinigungsrituale aus Kizzuwatna, 122–126.

See: A. Chrzanowska (ed.), hethiter.net/: CTH 394 (INTR 2016-07-13).

While the presence of the woman and various victuals is unknown in other Levantine cultures, in contrast to the sent-away animal, they appear to have influenced the Greek pharmakos ritual: see Miller, Studies in the Origins, 446–68.

See: B.-J. Collins (ed.), hethiter.net/: CTH 407 (INTR 2014-07-23).

A third version of this ritual, transmitted by Uḫḫamuwa, is the best preserved (it is unbroken) and gives a detailed description of the way in which the head of the ram is encircled with a wreath of woolen threads before being released (CTH 410); see: S. Görke (ed.), hethiter.net/: CTH 410 (Expl. A, 09.12.2013):

They bring one ram, and weave blue, red, yellow, black, and white wool together, make them into a wreath, and decorate the one ram’s head. They then lead the ram to the road leading to the enemy’s land and say to it thus: “Whichever of the gods of the enemy’s land, who has caused this plague—we have now brought you, O god, this ram with decorated head, in order to make peace with you. Just as this noose is tight and fits this ram, so too you, the god who caused this plague, make peace with the land of Hatti, turning again in friendship to the land of Hatti.” So they lead the wreathed ram to the enemy’s land.

But this version is actually the most distant from the scapegoat ritual. While scholars defined this as a “scapegoat” rite virtually from the moment of the text’s discovery at the beginning of the twentieth century, the animal here serves as a peace offering to the god responsible for the plague rather than carrying off the evil. See Archibald H. Sayce, “The Scapegoat among the Hittites,” Expository Times 31 (1920): 283–284.

See Albrecht Goetze and Edgar H. Sturtevant, The Hittite Ritual of Tunnawi, American Oriental Society 14 (New Haven: Harvard University Press, 1938), 8–11, 12–15. Cf. Hannah Marcuson, “Word of the Old Woman”: Studies in Female Ritual Practice in Hittite Anatolia,” University of Chicago, 2016, 340-345. While, like the previous rituals, this too combines many other acts in between, symbolizing several meanings, the utterance that accompanied by the removing of the wools from the patient expresses the old woman’s understanding of this act.

See Liane Jakob-Rost, Das Ritual der Malli aus Arzawa gegen Behexung (KUB XXIV 9), Texte der Hethiter 2 (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1972), 26–27; A. Mouton (ed.), hethiter.net/: CTH 402 (INTR 2016-03-23).

For the baraita and its occurrence in m. Yoma 6:8 (ed. Princ.) and the Talmudim, see Jacob Nahum Epstein, מבוא לנוסח המשנה [Introduction to the Mishnaic Text] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2001; repr. of 1964), 2.960. Cf. Balberg, “Omen and Anti-Omen.”

See Christiansen, Die Ritualtradition der Ambazzi, 36–39, ll. I 25–29; cf. II 25–30; III 30–33. Cf. idem (ed.), hethiter.net/: CTH 391.1.

See Bawanypeck, Die Rituale der Auguren, 26–27, ll. 39–46. Cf. idem, (ed.), hethiter.net/: CTH 398 (TX 24.03.2016).

See further V. Haas, “Hittite Rituals against Threats and others Diseases,” in: I.J. Finkel and M.J. Geller (eds.), Disease in Babylonia, Leiden 2007, 108.

Cf. Balberg, “Omen and Anti-Omen”.

For the defilement of the sanctuary, See Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, Anchor Bible 3 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 1043–1044; idem, “Israel’s Sanctuary: The Priestly Picture of Dorian Gray,” Revue Biblique 83 (1976): 390–399; David P. Wright, The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 17–21. Scholars concur that the distinction between the atonement of the impurities of the Temple by blood and of the Israelites’ sins by the scapegoat is late, since the people’s transgressions obviously form the cause of the Temple’s defilement. Cf. also Christophe Nihan, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 188–193, and the references cited therein.

Cf. Menachem Kister, “Some Aspects of Qumranic Halakhah,” in The Madrid Qumran Congress, ed. J. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 2:571–88; Vered Noam, מקומראן למהפכה התנאית: היבטים בתפיסת הטומאה [From Qumran to the Rabbinic Revolution: Conceptions of Impurity] (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2010), 323–324. Editor’s note: For additional discussion of some of these practices, see, Shayna Sheinfeld, “Sukkot in the New Testament: From Lulav and Hoshana to Palm Sunday,” TheTorah (2018); René Bloch, “What Sukkot Meant to Jews and Gentiles in Greco-Roman Antiquity,” TheTorah (2018); Zev Farber, “Water Libation: A Sukkot Rain-Making Ritual,” TheTorah (2015); idem, “The Ritual of Hoshanah Rabbah,” TheTorah (2013).

This piece is based on Noga Ayali-Darshan, “The Origin and Meaning of the Crimson Thread in the Mishnaic Scapegoat Ritual in Light of an Ancient Syro-Anatolian Custom,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 44 (2013): 1-23; a more complete argument is found there.

As noted here, the qere of MT reads שתי ידיו (“both his hands”), as does the Samaritan Pentateuch, but the ketiv in MT reads שתי ידו (“both his hand”), which makes no sense, while LXX reads τὰς χεῖρας αὐτου (“his hands”), without the word “both.”

This is also true of some of the Hittite rites; see Moshe Weinfeld, “Traces of Hittite Cult in Shiloh, Bethel and in Jerusalem,” in Religionsgeschichtliche Beziehungen zwischen Kleinasien, Nordsyrien und dem Alten Testament im 2. und 1. Jahrtausend. Akten des Internationalen Symposion, Hamburg 17.–21. März 1990, ed. Bernd Janowski, Klaus Koch and Gernot Wilhelm, OBO 129, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1993), 457; David P. Wright, “The Gesture of Hand Placement in the Hebrew Bible and in Hittite Literature,” JAOS 106 (1986): 433-46; Roy E. Gane, Cult and Character: Purification Offerings, Day of Atonement, and Theodicy (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 53-39. Since other Hittite rites involved the laying of the owner’s hands on a substitutionary object, some scholars have suggested that this is the meaning to be attributed to Lev 16. While no evidence can be adduced for this claim, the possibility that the laying on of both hands in Lev 16:21 constitutes a development of the substitutionary rites practiced in the region cannot be completely ruled out. For a review of the various proposals, see JoAnn Scurlock, “The Techniques of the Sacrifice of Animals,” in Ancient Israel and Ancient Mesopotamia: New Insights through Comparison, Part 1,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 44 (2006): 13–49, esp. 20–26; Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 150–53, 1041–1042.

A similar phenomenon appears in the rite transmitted by Ašḫella (discussed above), in which both the laying on of hands and the tying of a thread play a role—apparently a blending of two diverse customs: see Wright, “The Gesture of Hand Placement in the Hebrew Bible and in Hittite Literature,” 446.