Flesh Becomes Word: A Lexicography of the Scapegoat or, the History of an Idea
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Flesh Becomes Word: A Lexicography of the Scapegoat or, the History of an Idea
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| ISBN-13: | 9781609173494 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Michigan State University Press |
| Publication date: | 01/01/2013 |
| Series: | Studies in Violence, Mimesis, & Culture |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 220 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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Flesh Becomes Word
A LEXICOGRAPHY OF THE SCAPEGOAT OR, THE HISTORY OF AN IDEABy David Dawson
Michigan State University Press
Copyright © 2013 David DawsonAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61186-063-4
Chapter One
Rites of Riddance and Substitution
The Levitical Scapegoat
Tyndale coins the word "scapegoat" for his version of the Bible with the following translation of Leviticus 16:8: "And Aaron cast lottes ouer the .ii gootes: one lotte for the Lorde, and another for a scapegoote." The precise meaning of the Hebrew [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] or 'aza'zel—which occurs again in verses 10 and 26, but nowhere else in the Bible—has been debated since antiquity and still divides opinion among scholars, a majority of whom favor the proper name of a demon against Tyndale's interpretation, which, like the Septuagint's [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]—"for the one who bears away evil"—and the Vulgate's caper emissarius (whence the French, bouc émissaire), appears to read 'ez meaning "goat," and 'azal, "to go away," for "the goat that goes" or departs or is removed and so (e)scapes. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the Committee for the Revision of the Authorized Version advises a return to the name Azazel, and a number of modern translations follow suit. The JPS rendition of Leviticus 16:5–10 runs as follows:
And [Aaron] shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two he-goats for a sin-offering, and one ram for a burnt-offering.
And Aaron shall present the bullock of the sin-offering, which is for himself, and make atonement for himself, and for his house.
And he shall take the two goats, and set them before HaShem at the door of the tent of meeting.
And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot for HaShem, and the other lot for Azazel.
And Aaron shall present the goat upon which the lot fell for HaShem, and offer him for a sin-offering.
But the goat, on which the lot fell for Azazel, shall be set alive before HaShem, to make atonement over him, to send him away for Azazel into the wilderness.
Aaron dispatches the goat "for HaShem" (literally "the Name," a circumlocution for the ineff able name of God), aspersing its blood upon the horns of the altar as well as inside the Tabernacle, while the goat for Azazel is "set alive before HaShem," in an official way suggesting to some the legitimization of a more ancient, pagan custom that has found its way into the Yahweh festival. Aaron then lays both hands on the goat's head, confessing the sins of the people over it, aft er which a man standing ready leads the beast "into the wilderness" (16:21), to "a land of cutting off" (16:22). Having "let go the goat in the wilderness" (16:22), the man "shall wash his clothes and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he may come into the camp" (16:26). Later tradition includes details of the scapegoat's abuse and killing. The Mishnah Yoma gives the following account:
6:4 A. They made a ramp for it, on account of the Babylonians,
B. who would pull out its hair and say, "Take and go, take and go."
C. The eminent people of Jerusalem used to accompany him to the first booth.
D. There were ten booths from Jerusalem to the ravine, a distance of ninety ris—
E. seven and a half to a mile
6:5 A. At each booth they say to him, "Lo, here is food, here is water."
B. And they accompany him from one booth to the next,
C. except for [the man in] the last [tabernacle] among them,
D. who does not go along with him to the ravine.
E. But he stands from a distance and observes what he does.
6:6 A. Now what did he do?
B. He divided the crimson thread.
C. Half of it he tied to a rock, and half of it he tied between its horns.
D. He then pushed it over backward, and it rolled down the ravine.
E. And it did not reach halfway down the mountain before it broke into pieces.
F. He came and sat himself down under the last tabernacle until it got dark.
This ceremony bears a number of striking resemblances to Hittite and Mesopotamian expulsion rites that some scholars have used to speculate on the meaning of the Leviticus ceremony, suggesting lines of influence and wondering about pre-Israelite antecedents. Note the correspondence between the Mishnah ceremony and the Hittite ritual of Ashella:
1. Thus (says) Ashella, the man of Hapalla:
2. If in the land or in the army a plague occurs
3. I perform this ritual:
4. I take this: When day becomes night,
5. All whoever are the leaders of the army, each
6. One prepares a ram. If the ram(s) are white
7. Or black it does not matter. A cord
8. Of white wool, red wool, (and) green wool I wind together. He weaves them (into) one.
9. I bring together one erimmatu-bead and one ring of iron and lead.
10. I bind them on the necks and horns of the rams.
11. They bind them (i.e., the rams) before the tents at night.
12. They say the following at that time: "Whatever god is moving about,
13. Whatever god has caused this plague, for you, behold, these rams
14. I have tied up. Be herewith appeased!"
15. At morning, I drive them to the open country. With each ram
16. They take a jug of beer, one thick bread, (and) one cup of milk. Before the tent of the king
17. He has a decorated woman sit. He places with the woman one huppar-vessel of beer and three thick breads.
18. Then, the leaders of the army place their hands on the rams.
19. Thereupon, they say the following: "Whatever god has caused this plague,
20. Now, behold, the rams are standing; they are very fat in liver,
21. Heart, and member.
22. Let the flesh of humans be hateful to him. Moreover,
23. Be appeased with these rams." The leaders of the army show reverence
24. To the rams, and the king shows reverence to the decorated woman.
25. Then they bring the rams and the woman, the bread, and The beer out through the army.
26. They drive them to the open country. They go and make them run inside the border of the enemy
27. (So that) they do not arrive at any place of ours.
28. Thereupon in this way they say: "Behold, whatever evil of this army
29. Was among men, cattle, sheep, horses, mules,
30. And donkeys, now, behold,
31. These rams and woman have taken it out from the camp.
32. Whoever finds them, may that land receive this evil plague.
The two goats, the twining of horns, and the mention of food and drink have all excited comparison with the Mishnah scapegoat, although as Bremmer observes, the rite of Ashella "is not tied to a specific place in the calendar, but is executed ad hoc" to ward off pestilence. It also contains an explicit propitiation of malevolent spirits that the Leviticus and Second Temple ceremony do not. Wright mentions that "the feature of an angry deity who needs appeasement" contrasts sharply with the shadowy figure of Azazel in the Bible" and that, while Aaron transfers the sins of the Israelites onto the head of the scapegoat, there is no real sense of the animal having thus become a substitute. The scapegoat is no more than "a transporter of impurity" and there is nothing to indicate it must suffer in place of the people, something visible in the prayer of the Hittite officers that the deity "be satisfied with the rams instead of their human flesh." The Leviticus scholar Jacob Milgrom observes that "the Bible rejects the idea of substitution, which presupposes demonic attack and the appeasement of threatening demons," and there is, of course, no mention of any harm coming to the Leviticus scapegoat. If Ashella gives us an exemplary moment of propitiatory substitution in ancient ritual, it is, curiously, this very same meaning with which the scapegoat will one day be identified; in a late and fateful reading of Leviticus 16 the primordial religious instinct recrudesces. Here we note merely that it structures a Hittite ritual dating to the thirteenth century B.C. and that the Leviticus ritual appears to have different aims.
As a chief proponent of the view that Azazel was "a true demon, perhaps a satyr, who ruled in the wilderness," Milgrom is quick to emphasize the evisceration "of his erstwhile demonic powers by the Priestly legislators," leaving "just a name designating the place to which impurities and sins are banished."
First, the goat sent him is not an offering; it is not treated as a sacrifice, requiring slaughter, blood manipulation, and the like, nor does it have the effect of a sacrifice, namely, propitiation, expiation, and so on ... [Neither can it be] the vicarious substitute for Israel, because there is no indication that it was punished (e.g., put to death) or demonically attacked in Israel's place. Instead of being an offering or a substitute, the goat is simply the vehicle to dispatch Israel's impurities and sins to the wilderness/netherworld. The banishment of evil to an inaccessible place is a form of elimination amply attested in the ancient Near East.
The animal's choice by lot further obviates any sense of the rite as a demonic propitiation by leaving the selection to Yahweh. Like the goat's formal placement "before Yahweh" (16:7), the casting of lots gives "clear evidence of the Priestly efforts to alter what was most likely in its original form a pagan rite." If Azazel is "no longer a personality" in the priestly ritual, the persistence of his name is not surprising, since "demons oft en survive as figures of speech (e.g., 'gremlins') long after they have ceased to be figures of belief." According to Wright, the placement of two hands on the goat's head is a gesture "designating the focus of ritual action" as opposed to "an identification between the offerer and animal," which is indicated with just one hand in biblical and Hittite ritual. If by one hand the offerer affirmed that he "was offering himself by means of the victim," the two-handed gesture "should not even be considered a transfer of sins in the strict sense," as "Aaron never carries or embodies these evils," which cannot, therefore, be "passed from Aaron through his hands to the goat." The two-handed gesture is rather merely indicative; it signifies that this goat "is the recipient of the sins of the people."
A fair number of Midrashic sources read the word "Azazel" as a placename. The Sifra interprets "a hard to access mountain precipice" and Rashi understands a "precipitous and flinty rock." Rashbam observes that the expression was just another name for "desert." The medieval exegete Ibn Ezra reads the "name of a mountain near Mount Sinai" where the goat was chased and then jettisoned, but alludes to a second interpretation: "Now if you can understand the secret of the word after Azazel, you will know its secret and the secret of its name, since it has parallels in the Scriptures. And I will reveal to you part of the secret by hint: when you will be thirty-three, you will know it." Pinker notes that "to count 33 verses from this verse brings us Leviticus 17:7," a proscription of sacrifices to satyrs:
What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat, in the camp, or that killeth it without the camp, and hath not brought it unto the door of the tent of meeting, to present it as an offering unto HaShem before the tabernacle of HaShem, blood shall be imputed unto that man; he has shed blood; and that man shall be cut off from among his people. To the end that the children of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they sacrifice in the open field, even that they may bring them unto HaShem, unto the door of the tent of meeting, unto the priest, and sacrifice them for sacrifices of peace-offerings unto HaShem. And the priest shall dash the blood against the altar of HaShem at the door of the tent of meeting, and make the fat smoke for a sweet savour unto HaShem. And they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices unto the satyrs, after whom they go astray. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations (17:3–7; italics added).
Azazel in the Wilderness
The prevailing opinion in the Midrashim going all the way back to the early postbiblical period, is that Azazel is the name of a supernatural entity or demon. I Enoch portrays him as one of "the watchers" or "children of heaven" who descend upon Mount Hermon, having bound themselves by oaths and imprecations to take wives "from the daughters of earth" after whom they lust. This links the account with the story of human corruption in Genesis 6 and the time of the Nephilim.
And they cohabited with the daughters of the men of the earth, and had intercourse with them, and they were defiled by the females and revealed to them all manner of sins, and taught them to make hate-charms.
And now behold! the daughters of men brought forth from them sons, giants, bastards; and much blood was spilled upon the earth, and the whole earth was filled with wickedness.
These off spring who grew to "3000 cubits" in stature "devoured the entire fruits of men's labour" and soon began to attack "all birds and beasts of the earth and reptiles [that crawl upon the earth], and fish of the sea; and they began to devour their flesh, and they were drinking the blood." The sins of the giants draw an immutable sentence from heaven: God sends word to Noah that "a Deluge is about to come on the whole earth, to destroy all things from the face of the earth." He then orders the archangel Raphael to fetter Azazel "hand and foot" for his crimes, which include the impartation of "mysteries"—knowledge of metalwork and antediluvian fashion design.
Asael taught men to make swords of iron and breast-plates of bronze and every weapon for war; and he showed them the metals of the earth, how to work gold, to fashion [adornments] and about silver, to make bracelets for women; and he instructed them about antimony, and eye-shadow, and all manner of precious stones and about dyes and varieties of adornments; and the children of men fashioned them for themselves and for their daughters and transgressed; and there arose much impiety on the earth and they committed fornication and went astray and corrupted their ways.
God directs Raphael to "make an opening in the desert ... of Dudael and there go and cast him in." He is to "place upon him jagged and rough rocks," language recalling the cliff from which the Mishnah goat is thrown. "Cover him with darkness and let him abide there for all time," God says, "And on the day of great judgment he will be led off to the blazing fire." Because "the whole earth has been devastated by the works of the teaching of Asael," the archangel is to "record against him all sins" and then "announce the healing of the earth which the watchers have ruined." Another text, the Apocalypse of Abraham, depicts the descent of Azazel in the form of a bird who attempts to prevent Abraham from performing a sacrifice undertaken at the behest of an angel:
And I did everything according to the commandment of the angel, and gave the angels, who had come to us, the divided animals, but the angel took the birds. And I waited for the evening sacrifice. And there flew an unclean bird down upon the carcasses, and I drove it away. And the unclean bird spake to me, and said: "What doest thou, Abraham, upon the holy Heights, where no man eateth or drinketh, neither is there upon them (any) food of man, but these consume everything with fire, and (will) burn thee up. Forsake the man, who is with thee, and flee; for if thou ascendest to the Heights they will make an end of thee. And it came to pass when I saw the bird speak, I said to the angel "What is this, my lord?" And he said: This is ungodliness, this is Azazel. And he said to it: "Disgrace upon thee, Azazel! For Abraham's lot is in heaven, but thine upon the earth. Because thou hast chosen and loved this for the dwelling (place) of thine uncleanness, therefore the eternal mighty Lord made thee a dweller upon the earth and through thee every evil spirit of lies, and through thee wrath and trials for the generations of ungodly men.
These accounts point to a widely attested belief in the wilderness as a haunt of evil spirits. W. F. Albright supposed "that popular fancy identified the scapegoat with the class of goat demons, giving rise to objectionable ideas which later ritual eliminated by the expedient of killing the goat." Ida Zatelli suggests that Azazel was at one time a "Canaanite demon connected with the chthonian power expressed by goats," noting that the wilderness is itself "a symbol of the netherworld."
The scapegoat's early Canaanite extraction and later mythologization may explain the punitive additions to the original rite. Stokl says the scapegoat's abuse on its way from Jerusalem should be read as "ritual anticipation of the eschatological purification of God's creation from sin," since "the goat originally sent to 'Az'azel was seen as the personification of 'Az'azel, the demonic source of sin." Grabbe suggests that sins loaded onto the scapegoat as symbol of the archdemon were sent packing, as it were, on the back of their chief instigator. Either way the animal was driven out as though it were the Devil himself. Gerstenberger has written that the scapegoat was killed simply to ensure the "sin-heap" never returned.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Flesh Becomes Word by David Dawson Copyright © 2013 by David Dawson. Excerpted by permission of Michigan State University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Preface ix
Chapter 1 Rites of Riddance and Substitution 1
Chapter 2 Ancient Types and Soteriologies 9
Chapter 3 The Sulfurous and Sublime 23
Chapter 4 Economies of Blood 33
Chapter 5 The Damnation of Christ's Soul 49
Chapter 6 Anthropologies of the Scapegoat 63
Chapter 7 The Goat and the Idol 77
Chapter 8 A Figure in Flux 89
Chapter 9 Early Modern Texts of Persecution 99
Chapter 10 A Latent History of the Modern World 121
Conclusion: The Plowbeam and the Loom 131
Appendix: Katharma and Peripsema Testimonia 135
Notes 143
Bibliography 185