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scapegoat
(redirected from Scape-goat)

   Also found in: Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.07 sec.

scapegoat

In the Old Testament, a goat that was symbolically burdened with the sins of the people and then killed on Yom Kippur to rid Jerusalem of its iniquities. Similar rituals were held elsewhere in the ancient world to transfer guilt or blame. In ancient Greece, human scapegoats were beaten and driven out of cities to mitigate calamities. In early Roman law, an innocent person was allowed to assume the penalty of another; Christianity reflects this notion in its belief that Jesus died to atone for the sins of mankind.


scapegoat
Old Testament a goat used in the ritual of Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16); it was symbolically laden with the sins of the Israelites and sent into the wilderness to be destroyed

scapegoat
sent into wilderness bearing sins of Israelites. [O.T.: Leviticus 16:8–22]
See : Penitence


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Ant Hetty is herself excited over the candidates, especially "that reformed scape-goat of a husban' of Rachel Lee's," who now faces reunion with the community from which evidently he had been alienated (155).
In Hate Never Dispelled Hate: No Place for the Pharmakos (Revelation 22:15), Mark Bredin exposes the pattern of blame and revenge in the scape-goat practice that helped explain the violent death of Jesus.
Gay Catholics as well as a number of Catholic scholars immediately denounced Navarro-Valls's recommendations, calling them theologically unsound, probably impossible to implement, a desperate effort to scape-goat gays, and--if a purge is attempted--a severe blow to Catholicism.
 
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