Scapegoat?
1st July 2008
One of the problems that I have in understanding many religious traditions is that such a great gulf of time separates their origins from our present time. The people who witnessed the birth of an ancient religion saw the world very differently than we do. It is difficult for us to understand how they might have experienced the events that have come down to us through the centuries.
The idea that Jesus served as the scapegoat for the whole human race is the center piece of Christianity. What did this mean to the Jewish people of the 1st century?
The scapegoat was a Jewish tradition where they symbolically put the sins of the community on a young and innocent goat or lamb. Then they sacrificed the animal and offered the blood to Yahweh to wash away their sins. The story told in the Christian bible is that Jesus voluntarily went to the cross in sacrifice so his blood would atone for our sins.
In the early part of the 4th century CE, Arius, a presbyter from Alexandria promoted the idea that Jesus was human and was inhabited by the spirit of God. The spirit of God left him as he hung on the cross and he died as a man to atone for our sins. One of the things that Jesus is reported to have said on the cross is “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” which is Aramaic for “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me.” This makes sense in the context of the scapegoat.
His chief opponent was Athanasius, also a churchman of Alexandria. Athanasius argued that Arius was reducing Jesus to a demigod and reintroducing polytheism. The debate got quite heated and caused turbulence in the Roman Empire.
The Roman emperor Constantine finally convened a conclave at Nicea in 323 CE to have the church fathers decide which doctrine would become official canon of the church. The Athanasius faction won the argument and Jesus was declared to be God (without getting into the whole trinity discussion.)
But to claim that Jesus WAS God as Athanasius did makes no sense in the context of the scapegoat tradition. If Jesus was just a mask that God was wearing, then he did not suffer and die on the cross because God cannot die. It also makes no sense that he would say what he is reported as having said. How can you sacrifice God to himself? And how would killing God atone for the sins of Man?
Constantine ordered Euisibus who had published a list of books he thought should be included in the Christian bible to have 50 bibles drafted, bound in fine leather and distributed to the major Christian churches throughout the empire. These bibles became the official canon of the early church and enshrined the doctrine of Athanasius who was made the Bishop of Alexandria. Arius and his followers were declared heretics and banished.
I understand that faith is emphasized over evidence and logic in religion. But I agree with Gopi Krishna who said that a man’s religion should not outrage his reason.