The Day of Atonement, with its impressive ritual, is held on the 10th day of the 7th month (Tishi) of the Jewish calendar, and is both the culmination and the crowning of sacrificial worship in the Old Testament. Described in detail in the Pentateuch Book of Leviticus, the ceremony involves both fasting and the slaying of two goats. One is offered as a blood sacrifice to cleanse the "Holy Place" in the Temple and the altar of Burnt Offering. The second becomes the scapegoat for the nation's sins.

   There are three stages to the ritual. In the last of these, the sins of the nation are transferred by the officiating priest to the head of the goat in a manner deemed to be actual and not just symbolic.

   In ancient times the goat was allowed to escape to the wilderness as an offering to Azazel, the demonic spirit of wilderness. In New Testament times, this "scape goat" is taken to a cliff 12 miles east of Jerusalem, where it is thrown over to be dashed to pieces on the rocks below.

  The Atonement, known also as "the Fast," is still the most solemn and most strongly attended religious ceremony of the Jewish religious year. (Source: Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, Hendrickson, 1996 printing)

   The curious among us may wonder about the accumulated effect of the blood of hundreds of goats sacrificed and sprinkled around in the Holy Place over the years. Is it cleaned up, and what effect does such cleaning have on its sacred "cleansing" properties? In a somewhat similar type of ceremony, practiced by the ancient Aztecs, the problem of accumulating llama blood was overcome by a captured slave who was forced to lick it up. After that, he was dispatched at a more hygienic location.

   The fact that the atonement concept has lasted for something in the order of three thousand years or more indicates just how deeply ingrained in the human psyche is the presumption of the necessity of God's revenge for offences against his personage, or some acceptable atonement offering in its place.

   The early Christian movement was almost entirely Jewish. Its first and primary theologian was Paul who, prior to his conversion, was a traditionalist of the deepest kind.

   Authorship for the New testament "Epistle to the Hebrews" is disputed, but often credited to Paul-- or at least with having been strongly influenced by his thinking. It has close affinities with  Stephen's speech in Acts 3. Its language is extremely elegant and cultured Greek, the best in the New Testament. In it we find a close connection to Old Testament and "Atonement" thought on the necessity for atonement offerings to God for the forgiveness of sin.

   "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption [for us]." (Hebrews 9: 12)

   " How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9: 14)

    "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission." (Hebrews 9: 22)

   This concept is repeated in Paul's various epistles such as:

   "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." (Ephesians 1: 7)

   "In whom we have redemption through his blood, [even] the forgiveness of sins." (Col. 1: 14)

   Paul's writing preceded the writing of the gospels. Hence it is not too surprising that this theme of atonement persisted in Christianity.

   Its great attraction is that it lets us "off the hook" for our nastiness with a minimum of fuss and bother. Hence its continuing popularity.