Omen and Anti-omen: The Rabbinic Hagiography of the Scapegoat’s Scarlet Ribbon
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Mira Balberg
Abstract
This article proposes that the place and meaning of various objects among religious communities can be explored in terms of “hagiography,” that is, through the narratives constructed around sacred objects sometimes long after their physical disappearance. It takes as its point of departure the assumption that in the same way that written accounts of saints’ lives disclose more about the authors of these accounts than about the protagonists, so narratives regarding “things” reveal the concerns and debates of their authors, and in particular their concerns about materiality and divine presence within physical objects. The article explores the rabbinic narratives concerning the scarlet ribbon tied to the scapegoat of the Day of Atonement, its function and its vicissitudes, as developed in the Mishnah and in the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds. Using both a synchronic and a diachronic lens, the article shows how the scarlet ribbon is utilized in the rabbis’ attempts to define their own times vis-à-vis earlier times, and to grapple with pressing religious uncertainties.
© 2016 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Preface
- Inhalt
- The Religious Life of Things A Conference Organized by Ian S. Moyer and Celia Schultz
- Introduction: The Religious Life of Things
- Gold Has Many Uses
- Omen and Anti-omen: The Rabbinic Hagiography of the Scapegoat’s Scarlet Ribbon
- The Furniture of the Gods: The Problem with the Importation of ‘Empty Space and Material Aniconism’ into Greek Religion
- Prostitution and Panhellenism in Aristophanes’ Peace
- Religious Lives of Image-Things, Avodah Zarah, and Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine
- The Religious Life of Greek Automata
- Words with power: from the Getty Hexameters to the Abgar-Jesus Correspondence
- Speech Acts and Embedded Narrative Structure in the Getty Hexameters
- Apotropaic Autographs: Orality and Materiality in the Abgar-Jesus Inscriptions
- Utility and Variance in Late Antique Witnesses to the Abgar-Jesus Correspondence
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Preface
- Inhalt
- The Religious Life of Things A Conference Organized by Ian S. Moyer and Celia Schultz
- Introduction: The Religious Life of Things
- Gold Has Many Uses
- Omen and Anti-omen: The Rabbinic Hagiography of the Scapegoat’s Scarlet Ribbon
- The Furniture of the Gods: The Problem with the Importation of ‘Empty Space and Material Aniconism’ into Greek Religion
- Prostitution and Panhellenism in Aristophanes’ Peace
- Religious Lives of Image-Things, Avodah Zarah, and Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine
- The Religious Life of Greek Automata
- Words with power: from the Getty Hexameters to the Abgar-Jesus Correspondence
- Speech Acts and Embedded Narrative Structure in the Getty Hexameters
- Apotropaic Autographs: Orality and Materiality in the Abgar-Jesus Inscriptions
- Utility and Variance in Late Antique Witnesses to the Abgar-Jesus Correspondence
