The Scapegoat Ritual—Between Biblical and Tannaitic Law

From Atonement for the Temple to Atonement for the People

Yosef Marcus The ritual of atonement and purification in the tabernacle on Yom Kippur is described in detail in Leviticus chapter 16. The order of the ritual was widely interpreted in Jewish sources from the Second Temple period, in the literature of the Sages, and in the ancient work orders compiled by the bards for the purpose of saying them in prayer. A perusal of the various sources shows significant differences in how the case was interpreted in each of them. At the center of this essay is the question: "How did it develop? What were the stages of its development? What happened to it from the Bible to its final formulation in Tannaitic literature?" This book outlines the ways in which the ritual of the High Priest took shape in the Tannaitic literature, from the Bible, through pre-Tannaitic sources to the Yeshivot of Yavneh and Babylon. The book focuses on the building blocks of the order of the work as it appears before us in the Mishnah and other biblical sources, and reveals the interpretive processes, the textual and extra-textual considerations, and the traditions from the time of the Second Temple that led the sages to design the ritual and its purpose. Dr. Yosef Marcus is a lecturer in the Bible and Oral Torah classes at Herzog Academic College and serves as rabbi at the Beit Midrash for Women in Migdal Oz, Gush Etzion. His research deals with the history of conditional halacha, the study of the mishna and other fields related to the study of Talmudic literature.