Read this if you…
- want the part of the Bible everyone gives up on during their read-it-through attempts
- like the strangeness of the ritual code: which animals to sacrifice for which sins, what fabrics you can't mix, the scapegoat ceremony on the Day of Atonement
- care about anthropological reading — Mary Douglas's 'Purity and Danger' built a career out of the dietary laws in here
Skip this if you…
- don't want to read explicitly religious/Christian texts
Depicted in Art
Smaller variant: a dark-haired goat on the same desolate salt shore beneath a rainbow arching across a stormy sky; the red atonement cloth still binds its horns.
William Holman Hunt, 1854
Moses and Joshua kneel face-down in deep prostration on the floor of the tabernacle's inner sanctum, the gold-curtained Ark of the Covenant rising above them.
James Tissot, 1900
The red-marked goat is driven into a barren wilderness by a robed Israelite, while behind them the high priest and ranks of the people watch the animal carry their sins away from the camp.
James Tissot, 1894
A lone goat with red wool wrapped around its horns stands stranded in the salt-encrusted desolation of the Dead Sea shore at sunset.
William Holman Hunt, 1855
Moses gestures broadly while a vested Aaron stands beside him; ranks of Israelites in striped robes listen in the wilderness before the tabernacle precinct.
James Tissot, 1900
Recommended Editions
King James Version
Oxford University Press · 1611
The most influential and commonly quoted translation in English. The prose rhythm everyone else is responding to, even modern translations.
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Notable Quotes
Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.
- Jonathan Sacks, rabbi & Bible commentator, 1948–2020: "One of the supreme statements of the ethics of the Torah."
- Rabbi Akiva, Tannaitic sage, c. 50–135 CE: "This is a great principle of the Torah."
- Hillel the Elder, rabbinic sage, c. 110 BCE – 10 CE: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah."
- Jesus of Nazareth, founder of Christianity, c. 4 BCE – 30 CE: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."
- Mary Douglas, anthropologist, FBA, 1921–2007: Not the narrow doctrine of a crabbed priesthood but a literary masterpiece — a powerful statement of God's justice and compassion.
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