The Scapegoat Ritual and Its Ancient Near Eastern Parallels

For the transition from an emergency rite to the annual rite celebration of Yom Kippur, see n. 5, below.

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), esp. the bibliography in fns 2 and 3.

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

See Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, Anchor Bible 3 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 887–889; David P. Wright, The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 79–80. Note also the ceremony of the red heifer which also has a crimson thread, cedar wood and hyssop, while taking place outside the sanctuary, is still referred to as a ḥaṭṭāʾt (Num 19:1–10).

The commands in Lev 16:29–34a (appended, apparently, by the Holiness School editors), testify for its local development from an ad-hoc rite to the annual rite celebration of Yom Kippur, independent of human deeds. Cf. Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School, trans. Jackie Feldman and Peretz Rodman (Minneapolis, MN; Fortress Press, 1995); trans. of מקדש הדממה: עיון ברובדי היצירה הכוהנית שבתורה (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1992) 27–28; Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 1061–65; Christophe Nihan, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 345–350; David Frankel, “Recasting the Temple Purification Ritual as the Yom Kippur Service” TheTorah (2014). By this, the Jerusalem Temple priests succeed to reduce some of its ancient magical gestures, turning it into a cult par excellance.

ARET XI, 12, 39–40; cf. Ida Zatelli, “The Origin of the Biblical Scapegoat Ritual: The Evidence of Two Eblaite Texts,” VT 48 (1998): 254–263.

Moshe Weinfeld posits a link between the crimson thread tied to the scapegoat’s head in the Mishnaic ritual (m. Yoma 4:2) and the silver bracelet around the goat’s neck. 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 [p. 111]. Nevertheless, a distinction should be made between the ornamentation with which the living animal is adorned—apparently to make it attractive to those who receive it, men or gods—and the crimson thread.

The translation of nakušši as a “sent-away” animal follows Gurney’s (Oliver R. Gurney, Some Aspects of Hittite Religion, Schweich Lectures 1976 [Oxford: British Academy, 1977] , 51) derivation of the noun from the Hurrian root nakk- = “let go, dispatch.” Support for this is found in the parallelism between the Hurrian nakk- and Hittite tarna- (= “release”) in the bilingual text “The Song of Release” (CTH 789). Having said that, not all the animals designated nakušši were sent away (see Jared L. Miller, Studies in the Origins, Development and Interpretation of the Kizzuwatna Rituals [SBT 46; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004], 465 n. 776). Thus, for example, at a certain point in the rite described by Mastigga (#36 according to Miller), the Old Woman takes the nakušši to herself following its consecration to the Sun-god. In an Alalakh ritual (AIT 126, 10–16; cf. Bernd Janowski and Gernot Wilhelm, “Der Bock, der die Sünden hinausträgt: Zur Religionsgeschichte des Azazel-Ritus Lev 16, 10.21f.,” in Religionsgeschichtliche Beziehungen zwischen Kleinasien, Nordsyrien und dem Alten Testament im 2. und 1. Jahrtausend: Akten des Internationalen Symposion, Hamburg 17.–21. März 1990, OBO 129, ed. Bernd Janowski, Klaus Koch, and Gernot Wilhelm (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993],” 153), the nakušši appears to serve as a sacrifice. These cases, though outliers, demonstrate that the meaning of the term—or at least its precise ritual connotation—remains obscure. Another—less convincing—suggestion adduces an Indo-European etymology linked to the sense of “damage”: see E. Emmanuel Laroch, “Hittite nakkuš-nakkuššiš,” in Kaniššuwar: A Tribute to Hans Güterbock on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday May 27, 1983, ed. Harry A. Hoffner and Gary M. Beckman, Assyriological Studies 23, (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1986), 137–140.

CTH 480. Rene Lebrun, Samuha, foyer religieux de l’empire hittite,‎ Publications de l'Institut orientaliste de Louvain 11 (Louvain-la-Neuve: Institut Orientaliste, 1976), 125, 132, with corrections from CHD L-N 375. Cf. also now: S. Görke – S. Melzer (ed.), hethiter.net/: CTH 480.1 (INTR 2016-02-03).

Jacob Milgrom, “תפקיד קרבן החטאת” [The Function of the Ḥaṭṭāʾt Sacrifice], Tarbiz 40 (1971): 1–8; idem, “Israel’s Sanctuary: The Priestly Picture of Dorian Gray,” Revue Biblique 83 (1976): 390–399.

CTH 391. 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. Cf. Birgit Christiansen (ed.), hethiter.net/: CTH 391.1 (INTR 2017-02-07).

In lines II 34–42, the minor god Alauwaim. We do not know much about these gods.

According to the plain meaning (peshat) of the biblical text in Leviticus (see the cited verses above), Azazel is a counterpart to YHWH; while one goat is dedicated to YHWH and therefore is to be sacrificed in the Temple, the other is dedicated to Azazel and is sent to the wilderness. See, e.g., ibn Ezra for Lev. 16:8 and 17:7; Hans Duhm, Die bösen Geister im Alten Testamemt (Tubingen: Mohr, 1904), 56; Hayim Tawil, “Azazel the Prince of the Steepe: A Comparative Study,” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 92 (1980): 43–59. (The article was published with a typo in the title, “steepe” instead of “steppe.”) For further bibliography and other interpretations of Azazel, see Janowski, “Azazel,” in DDD, 128-131; idem and Wilhelm, “Der Bock, der die Sünden hinausträgt.”

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

See Weinfeld, “Things Which the Satan”; and cf. Noga Ayali-Darshan, “The Origin and Meaning of the Crimson Thread in the Second Temple Period Scapegoat Ritual in Light of an Ancient Syro-Anatolian Custom,” JSJ 44 (2013): 530–552.

KTU 1.127. The rendering “lead” is based on the Arabic root ḥadā: see Manfred Dietrich and Oswald Loretz, Mantik in Ugarit: Keilaphabetische Texte der Opferschau, Omensammlungen, Nekromantie (Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 1990), 32–38. An alternative, but less probable, translation is: “They see afar”: see, e.g., Dennis Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (Atlanta: SBL, 2002), 131.

Perhaps the best-known practice is the purification of the Babylonian temple by a carcass, as part of the “New Year” ceremony. For this and other examples, see Wright, The Disposal of Impurity, 60–74; JoAnn Scurlock, “Animals in Ancient Mesopotamian Religion,” in A History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East, ed. Billie Jean Collins (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 361–387; idem, “Translating Transfers in Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World, ed. Marvin Meyer and Paul Mirecki (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 209–223.

AMT 53/7 + K 6732:2–9 // K2581:21'–24'. Scurlock, “Animals in Ancient Mesopotamian Religion,” 373; idem, “Translating Transfers in Ancient Mesopotamia,” 211.

KAR 33; Erich Ebeling, Tod und Leben nach den Vorstellungen der Babylonier (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1933), 73–75 [#19]; cf. Scurlock, “Animals in Ancient Mesopotamian Religion,” 374–75; idem, “Translating Transfers in Ancient Mesopotamia,” 211–12.

See Weinfeld, “Social and Cultic Institutions in the Priestly Source against their ANE Background,” 113. For an alternative view, see Tawil, “Azazel the Prince of the *Steppe.”

Cf. Itamar Singer, “The Hittites and the Bible Revisited,” in “I Will Speak the Riddles of Ancient Times”: Archaeological and Historical Studies in Honor of Amihai Mazar on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, ed. Aren M. Maeir and Pierre de Miroschedji (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 2:723–756, esp. 744. Cf. also Miller, Studies in the Origins, 461–69. They all agree that a geo-cultural alliance arose between Anatolia and the northern and southern Levant—which also extended to Greece—in the second millennium B.C.E.

For a discussion of the cultus, see e.g., Daniel Schwemer, Akkadische Rituale aus Hattuša: Die Sammeltafel KBo xxxvi 29 und verwandte Fragmente (THeth 23; Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1998), 81–116. For purification via blood, see Yitzhaq Feder, “A Levantine Tradition: The Kizzuwatnean Blood Rite and the Biblical Sin Offering,” in Pax Hethitica: Studies on The Hittites and their Neighbors in Honour of Itamar Singer, SBT 51, ed. Yoram Cohen, Amir Gilan and Jared L. Miller (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), 101–114 [110–114]; idem, “The Expiatory Use of Blood in Hittite and Biblical Ritual”; Volkert Haas, “Ein hurritischer Blutritus und die Deponierung der Ritualrückstände nach hethitischen Quellen,” in Religionsgeschichtliche Beziehungen zwischen Kleinasien, Nordsyrien und dem Alten Testament im 2. und 1. Jahrtausend: Akten des Internationalen Symposion, Hamburg 17.–21. März 1990, OBO 129; ed. Bernd Janowski, Klaus Koch, and Gemot Wilhelm (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 67–85.