Atonement and Re-creation

Stephen A. Geller offers an intriguing reading of the day of atonement rituals. 

He points out that, for all the attention given to the scapegoat, one of the unique features of this day’s rites, it is not said that the scapegoat atones for sin. What puts the kafar into Yom Kiuppur is blood. Nor is there any reference in Leviticus 16 to forgiveness, as there is in the rituals for individual sacrifice.

Picking up hints from Jacob Milgrom, Geller argues that the point of the day is to cleanse the shrine from the “miasma” that attaches to it. What happens on the day of atonement is a restoration of the tabernacle to its pristine condition, a restoration underscored by allusions back to the strange fire of Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 16:1, referring to chapter 10), which in turn is the tragic climax of the entire sanctuary-construction narrative that begins in Exodus 25. The effect of the day of atonement is to reverse the pollutions of the sanctuary caused by such as Aaron’s sons, and to refresh the sanctuary.

And, since the sanctuary is, Geller says, an architectural recovery of Edenic-creation (he makes this point largely by focusing on the placement of the Sabbath commands in Exodus 31), the re-pristination of the sanctuary is an act of recreation.

Here is his summary: “For the shrine to require rededication implies that it had acquired some taint, for which a “miasma” of impurity is an explanation fully consonant with ancient cultic notions, and P’s method of incorporating them theologically. However, the purgation of the Day of Atonement must not be viewed simply mechanically. Rather, has woven it into history and cosmos as a radically culminating event. In the context of his theology, ‘atonement’ effected by the regular actions of the cult really means ‘attaining forgiveness,’ but that extraordinary degree achieved on the holiest day means even more than ‘restoration.’ The only adequate translation is ‘re-creation’” (109).

To this I would only add that the re-creation extends to the high priest or the priesthood: What is remade on Yom Kippur is not only Eden, but Adam in Eden.

Geller, “Blood Cult: Toward a Literary Theology of the Priestly Work of the Pentateuch,” Prooftexts 12 (1992) 97-124.