Texts in conversation

Compare 4Q180 1 7 and Yoma 39a

Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Interpretation · Rabbinic

Summary

The Dead Sea Scroll 4Q180 portrays Azazel from Leviticus 16 as a leader of fallen angels, drawing on the Enochic Watchers story. Rabbinic tradition in tractate Yoma links Azazel to the scapegoat, tying the ritual to memories of angelic rebellion.

Passages

4Q180 1 7

Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Interpretation · The Ages of the Creation

1 Interpretation concerning the ages that God made: an age to complete […] 2 and will be. Before he created them he set in place [their] workings […] 3 age by age. And it is engraved on […] 4 … the ages of their dominions. This is the order of … […] 5 … fathered Isaac; the ten […] 6 […] 7 Interpretation concerning Azazel and the angels who […] 8 and they bore them mighty ones. And concerning Azazel […] 9 […] iniquity, and to make wickedness an inheritance, all … […] 10 […] … judgments and the judgment of the council of … […]

160–60 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 4Q180

Yoma 39a

Rabbinic · Babylonian Talmud

MISHNA: The High Priest would mix the lots in the lottery receptacle used to hold them and draw the two lots from it, one in each hand. Upon one was written: For God. And upon the other one was written: For Azazel. The deputy High Priest would stand to the High Priest’s right, and the head of the patrilineal family would stand to his left. If the lot for the name of God came up in his right hand, the Deputy would say to him: My master, High Priest, raise your right hand so that all can see with which hand the lot for God was selected. And if the lot for the name of God came up in his left hand, the head of the patrilineal family would say to him: My master, High Priest, raise your left hand. Then he would place the two lots upon the two goats, the lot that arose in his right hand on the goat standing to his right side and the lot in his left hand on the goat to his left. And upon placing the lot for God upon the appropriate goat, he would say: For God, as a sin-offering. Rabbi Yishmael says: He need not say: As a sin-offering. Rather, it is sufficient to say: For God. And upon saying the name of God, the priests and the people respond after him: Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom forever and all time.

450–550 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Yoma

References

"... Several Qumran materials also appear cognizant of this angelological reinterpretation of the scapegoat figure when they choose to depict Azazel as the eschatological leader of the fallen angels, incorporating him into the story of the Watchers’ rebellion. Thus, 4Q180 1:1–10 reads ... Later rabbinic materials also link the sacrificial animal known from the scapegoat ritual to the story of the angelic rebels. Thus, for example, b. Yoma 67b records the following tradition: 'The School of R. Ishmael taught: Azazel — [it was so called] because it obtains atonement for the affair of Uza and Aza’el.' As can be seen, the conceptual link between the scapegoat and the fallen angel is documented in a number of important materials across a substantial span of history. A broad scholarly consensus now recognizes this connection ..."

Andrei Orlov, The Eschatological Yom Kippur in the Apocalypse of Abraham: Part I: The Scapegoat Ritual (Marquette Theology Faculty Research and Publications 85, 2009), 79–111.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Fragment 1

4Q1804 chapters

Compare 4Q180 1 7 and Yoma 39a

Summary

Passages

4Q180 1 7

Yoma 39a

References

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