An Escapegoat Ritual
Recently I had a very interesting experience - something that had never happened before in my ministry. I had preached a sermon on the topic of the Day of Atonement in Ancient Israel which is described in Leviticus 16. If you want a reminder of the basic outline of the day, you can watch this St. Andrew's Stars version of the story: The Day of Atonement In my sermon I put particular emphasis on the Escapegoat portion of the ritual. (I chose to use the word "Escapegoat" because the word "scapegoat" has taken on a very particular meaning in English. The word was invented by William Tyndale when he made the first translation of the Old Testament into English from the original Hebrew. He meant it to mean "the goat that escaped" but he simply dropped the initial "e" due to the very fluid spelling of the time.) My suggestion was that the escapegoat ritual provided a means for the people to release some of the negative energy that builds up ...