Finding Meaning in the Death of Jesus

Jesus as Goat of the Day of Atonement in Recent Synoptic Gospels Research

“…According to the Greek ritual logic, the death of a valued member of society can propitiate a deity (Bremmer 2000: 278). Thus, ‘the scene in which the soldiers mock Jesus seems to be a literary reconfiguration of the ritual in which the pharmakos takes on himself all the impurity, disease, and sin of the community’ (Collins 1998: 196).…”

“…Collins also suggests (1998: 176-78) that Jesus’ death ‘for many’ (ὑπὲρ πολλῶν; Mk 14.24) derives, in part, from the concept of the scapegoat bearing the sin of the people, although this notion is transmitted to Mark by means of Isa. 53.12.…”

“…What is perplexing about Collins’s analysis is that, while she conceives the scapegoat ritual of Leviticus 16 as a substitution rite analogous to the Greek pharmakos (1998: 182), she does not comment on the Levitical ritual as potential background to Mk 15.16-20. This would not be puzzling if Collins had not argued that Mk 14.24 retains cultic imagery pertaining to the scapegoat (i.e., bearing the sins of many).…”

“…DeMaris cursorily mentions Crossan’s work on the PN and does not engage Collins’s (1998) article or Stökl Ben Ezra’s (2003) book. Yet these studies would enhance and bolster his argument.…”

“…If Yom Kippur was a prominent holy day on the Jewish calendar (Stökl Ben Ezra 2012: 167), then we might expect echoes of Leviticus 16 to be significantly informed by its living traditions . Second, modern biblical scholarship has acquired a discomfort with ancient ritual (see Collins 1998: 193-95; Klawans 2006: 17-48). To the contemporary mind, the bloody affair of ritual sacrifice may seem criminal at worst and barbaric at best.…”