Passover Lamb vs Scapegoat - thought-provoking article, WDYT?

[NHInsider]

Read this article by Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio this morning and found it interesting. I will admit that I have believed the scapegoat-as-well-as-Paschal-Lamb theory, for precisely the reasons he mentions. And I am not entirely sure that he has thoroughly disproved it. (The article is written in a homeletic form, no references or citations, which leaves me feeling like it’s just one man’s opinion - and I don’t know if that’s the case.)

What do you think? And is there background on this that I have missed? Is the Scapegoat version a leftover from my Evangelical upbringing and really not a Catholic understanding at all?

 

[Ruthie_again]

In the OT, lambs were given as a “sin offering.” When someone realized he had sinned, he brought an unblemished animal to be sacrificed. (Lev. 4:27-29)

Being animals, these lambs were not sinners. Sacrificing them did not turn them in to sinners. It was atonement for sin; a penance regulated by the Law.

The Passover lamb is a sacrifice that prevented God’s destroyer from killing the sons of the Jews. It is continued to this day. (Ex 12:21-27)

Our Lord suffered His Passion both as an atonement for our sin, and to offer us the Graces to keep us from Hell.

Our Lord was unblemished by sin. He offered Himself for us in the same way both the “sin offering” and the Passover lamb were offered under the Law.

He was not forced into hell; he went there to bring the good news to the prisoners.

A prison chaplain is not an incarcerated criminal; neither is a lawyer who comes to tell a prisoner they are going to be released.

Hope this helps, and God bless you,

Ruthie

 

[Mintaka]

A scapegoat isn’t a sacrifice, except insofar as Mr. Goatfarmer isn’t going to get to breed off a goat that’s running around in the desert. It’s an animal being given to God, who then goes on to perform a symbolic service for God while prominently not dying.

The animal never sins and never is regarded by anybody, much less God, as having sinned. It just is sent out to carry the sins of Israel away, as a sort of living prayer for repentance and living answer of mercy from God. (This is why it’s called “the emissary goat” in the old translations from the Latin. The Hebrew means “goat of departure”.)

A truck carrying apples may start to smell like apples, but nobody says, “What’s that 18-wheeled apple rolling down the highway?”

If you want to compare the scapegoat to anybody in the Bible, it’s probably a reference to Cain, running around the world with his brother’s blood on his hands, and with a special mark on him to protect him as belonging only to God. You could compare Saul to Cain in that way, at least until Saul repented and was baptized. You could compare him to Judas; nobody killed him or stopped him from running outside the city. (And of course, Gibson did run some visual comparison in Passion of the Christ.) Heck, you could compare any wilderness-living prophet, or the children of Israel during the 40 years in the desert, more closely to the scapegoat than Jesus on the cross could ever be compared.

Jesus with the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt, or Jesus praying and fasting in the wilderness, are much more like the scapegoat than Jesus on the Cross. The whole point of the scapegoat was that it was taken outside the human, settled world by a man and sent out into the wilderness alone, and that there no human hurt it, touched it, or affected its fate.

Everybody was hurting and touching Jesus on his trip out of the city and on Golgotha, so he’d better be a lamb and not a scapegoat. Otherwise, the human race violated the scapegoat ritual, the scapegoat didn’t carry the sins away, and we’re all going to die eternally.

Hope this helped, and that it didn’t convince you that we’re all going to die eternally.

 

[NHInsider]

A scapegoat isn’t a sacrifice, except insofar as Mr. Goatfarmer isn’t going to get to breed off a goat that’s running around in the desert. It’s an animal being given to God, who then goes on to perform a symbolic service for God while prominently not dying.

The animal never sins and never is regarded by anybody, much less God, as having sinned. It just is sent out to carry the sins of Israel away, as a sort of living prayer for repentance and living answer of mercy from God. (This is why it’s called “the emissary goat” in the old translations from the Latin. The Hebrew means “goat of departure”.)

Agreed, so far. Except that I don’t believe anyone imagined that goat wasn’t going to be dead within 24 hours. Sacrifices didn’t always involve slaughter. The libation poured out on the altar, the wheat and oil that eventually wound up on the table of the priests - those were sacrifices, too.

If you want to compare the scapegoat to anybody in the Bible, it’s probably a reference to Cain, running around the world with his brother’s blood on his hands, and with a special mark on him to protect him as belonging only to God. You could compare Saul to Cain in that way, at least until Saul repented and was baptized. You could compare him to Judas; nobody killed him or stopped him from running outside the city. (And of course, Gibson did run some visual comparison in Passion of the Christ.) Heck, you could compare any wilderness-living prophet, or the children of Israel during the 40 years in the desert, more closely to the scapegoat than Jesus on the cross could ever be compared.

Jesus with the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt, or Jesus praying and fasting in the wilderness, are much more like the scapegoat than Jesus on the Cross. The whole point of the scapegoat was that it was taken outside the human, settled world by a man and sent out into the wilderness alone, and that there no human hurt it, touched it, or affected its fate.

Here we part ways. I **don’t **think the exile is the point, I think it is the carrying away of the sins of the people.

The more I think about this the more I believe that in fact Jesus is in fact prefigured in and fulfills both the Pascal sacrifice and the scapegoat, just as He is both the Victim and the Priest. Still not sure why Dr. D’Ambrosio thinks that’s incorrect - wish he had cited some sources . . .

 

[Chesster]

What do you think? And is there background on this that I have missed? Is the Scapegoat version a leftover from my Evangelical upbringing and really not a Catholic understanding at all?

There are Catholic theologians that compare Jesus to the scapegoat however the NT never compares Jesus to the scapegoat. In fact the book of Hebrews specifically compares Jesus to the other goat on the Day of Atonement.

 

[budgie2]

In the OT, lambs were given as a “sin offering.” When someone realized he had sinned, he brought an unblemished animal to be sacrificed. (Lev. 4:27-29)

Being animals, these lambs were not sinners. Sacrificing them did not turn them in to sinners. It was atonement for sin; a penance regulated by the Law.

The Passover lamb is a sacrifice that prevented God’s destroyer from killing the sons of the Jews. It is continued to this day. (Ex 12:21-27)

Our Lord suffered His Passion both as an atonement for our sin, and to offer us the Graces to keep us from Hell.

Our Lord was unblemished by sin. He offered Himself for us in the same way both the “sin offering” and the Passover lamb were offered under the Law.

He was not forced into hell; he went there to bring the good news to the prisoners.

A prison chaplain is not an incarcerated criminal; neither is a lawyer who comes to tell a prisoner they are going to be released.

Hope this helps, and God bless you,

Ruthie

Interestingly enough the word embryo comes from embruon meaning new born lamb or new born goat in Homeric Greek and abortion is a sacrificial pagan offering. The word embryo comes from Chapter 9 (the Cyclops) line 245, 309 and 342 in the Odyssey. It also appears elsewhere in the text. The Odyssey is the second oldest book in Greek, the Ilyiad is the oldest.

perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/searchresults?q=embryo