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Atonement: The Rite of Healing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Margaret Barker
Margaret Barker
Affiliation:
24 Gordon Road Borrowash Derby DE72 3JX
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Extract

There has recently been a number of books on the Christian understanding of atonement. What has been fascinating for me is the extent to which these books do, or more often do not, use the Old Testament material on atonement as the basis for what they have to say. The New Testament speaks in a variety of ways about atonement and this has become the centre of Christian dogmatics; but this ‘atonement’ is only loosely related to its Old Testament roots. Did the first Christians, then, radically alter what was understood by atonement, or was this radical alteration made by subsequent expositors of their ideas? The latter is more likely; in other words, the original ‘model’ for New Testament theology has been lost.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , February 1996 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1996

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References

1 Steiner, G., The Death of Tragedy, London, 1961, p. 322Google Scholar.

2 Dillistone, F. W., The Christian Understanding of Atonement, Welwyn, 1968, p. 47Google Scholar.

3 Childs, B. S., Exodus, London, 1974, p. 551Google Scholar.

4 See Milgrom, J., Leviticus, New York, 1991, pp. 1079–1084Google Scholar

5 Cheyne, T.K., Jewish Religious Life after the Exile, 1898, pp. 75–76Google Scholar

6 Milgrom, pp.3–12; cf Smith, W.R, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, 3rd edn.London 1927 p.216Google Scholar: ‘The worship of the second temple was an antiquarian resuscitation of forms which had lost their intimate connection with the national life and therefore had lost the greater part of their original significance.’

7 ‘Day of Atonement’ in Jewish Encyclopaedia, p. 286 and ‘Azazel’ p. 365. Cf 3 Enoch 4.6. The name Azazel appears in many forms but the sheer number of these suggests that they are all versions of the same name. The name in Leviticus is ‘Z’ ‘zl’; in b. Yoma 67b ‘Z’Zl and ‘z’t in 4QEn2 it is ‘s’t in 4QEnc it is ‘s’t the Gizeh Greek text has Aseal; Syncellus has Azalzel; the Ethiopic has Asael at 6.7 but Azazel at 69.2, the Similitudes; 4QEn Giants has ‘Z’[Z]1 the same form as Leviticus whereas 4Q 180 has ‘zz’l.

8 P.Hanson ‘Rebellion in Heaven. Azazel and Euhemeristic Heroes in 1 Enoch 6–11’ and Nickelsburg, G.W.E. ‘Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 6–11’ both in JBL 96 (1977)Google Scholar. The origin of both Azazel and Semihazah could be the same: Cheyne ZAW xv 1895 suggested that Azaz'el was ‘zz’l mighty God, and Charles, , The Book of Enoch, Oxford, 1912, p.16Google Scholar suggested that Semihazah was sm ‘zz’, the mighty name.

9 The title of 3 Enoch is ‘The Book of Enoch by Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest’.

10 Murray, R., The Cosmic Covenant, London, 1992Google Scholar The most graphic account of atonement in the second temple period is Wisdom 18.20–25: the high priest held back the wrath and prevented it reaching the living.

11 Douglas, M., ‘Atonement in Leviticus’ JSQ 1 (1993–1994) pp.117–118Google Scholar.

12 See Skehan, P.S., ‘A Fragment of the Song of Moses (Deut 32) from Qumran’ in BASOR 136 (1954)Google Scholar.

13 Philo, Life of Moses II.114; Migration of Abraham 103; Letter ofAristeas 98. A literal reading of the third commandment (Exod 20.7; Deut 5.11) suggests that it applied originally to the high priest: ‘You shall not bear the Name of the LORD your God for evil purposes…’. The description of the high priest Simon coming out of the ‘house of the veil’ is a theophany. (Eccles.50).

14 See my The Gate of Heaven, London, 1991Google Scholar.

15 Milgrom p.1083; cf Smith, W.R., The Old Testament and thejewish Church, London and Edinburgh, 1892, p.381nGoogle Scholar: ‘The most important point (about kpr) is that except in the Priests' Code, it is God not the priest who (atones)…’

16 BDB says that ns used in the sense ‘forgive’ is characteristic of older texts.

17 Contra Smith, W.R.Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, 3rd edn, London 1927, p.349Google Scholar: ‘…the flesh is given to the priests because they minister as the representatives of the sinful people…’

18 Douglas, p. 114.

19 Milgrom, pp. 260–1

20 There are various readings here: the Ethiopic texts have either ‘Heal the earth’ or ‘That I may heal the earth’. The Akhmim Greek offers ‘the earth’ (ge) and Syncellus ‘the plague’ (plege). Either way, the meaning is clear enough.

21 The theme of Hebrews eg 9.11–12; 13.11–12 is that Jesus was the Day of Atonement sacrifice whereas 13.13 implies that he was the scapegoat. The Epistle of Barnabas chapters 5 and 7 compares Jesus to the scapegoat.

22 Targum Ps Jonathan to Lev 16 has ‘Beth Chadure’; m Yoma 6.8 has Beth Haroro (variants Hiddudo, Horon). The Enochic Dudael probably arose from the confusion of the Hebrew letters resh and daleth.

23 Grabbe, L.L. ‘The Scapegoat Tradition. A Study in Early Jewish Interpretation’ J.S.J. xviii 1987Google Scholar concluded thus: ‘The scapegoat was symbolic of this archdemon (ie Azazel) who would eventually be bound and punished and thus prevented from subverting God's people’. In other words, the ritual did not send a goat out to Azazel but as Azazel. Because he only dealt with the scapegoat part of the ritual and therefore with only a part of the evidence, he did not draw the obvious conclusion as to what the other goat must have represented.

24 Nickelsburg, p.402.

25 Azazel himself as the bearer of sins appears in Apocalypse of Abraham 13.14: ‘…the garment in heaven which was formerly yours has been set aside for him (Abraham) and the corruption which was on him has gone over to you’. In 4QEn Giants we find: ‘Then he punished not us but Aza'zel…’ Milik, , The Books of Enoch. Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4, Oxford, 1976, p.313Google Scholar comments: ‘Azazel appears here in his expiatory role (Lev 16.8, 10, 26) for he seems to be punished for the sins of the giants.’ He does not comment on the fact that here again it is Azazel not a goat for Azazel which is the expiation.

26 M.Black The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch Leiden 1985 p.209.

27 The Hebrew is yazzeh, a reading kept in Aquila and Theodotion, ‘rhantisei’.

28 mwsr, chastisement, cf Ezekiel 20.37 masoreth habtrrith, meaning bond of the covenant. Mwsr is found in Ps 2.3, the bonds of the LORD's anointed, specifically in a cosmic covenant context; cfjer 2;20; 5.5. ‘With his stripes we are healed’ might then become ‘by his joining us together we are healed’. This translation would form a parallel to mwsr as ‘covenant bond’ on the grounds that it comes from the root hbr whose primary meaning is ‘unite, join together’. Identical consonants hbrth mean elsewhere something to join together the tabernacle curtains (Exod 26.4, 10).

29 Milgrom, p. 347

30 The recognition motif is common throughout this material; eg. Is 52.13–15; 1 Enoch 62.1; 108.14–15; 2 Esdras 7.37; Wisdom 5.1 ff an adaptation of the theme; 2 Baruch 51.4–6.

31 They shall see him on that day, clad to the ankles in his red woollen robe, and will say, “Is this not he whom we once crucified and mocked and pierced and spat upon?”’ Barnabas 7.