Date Posted:07:21:38 01/21/08 Mon Author:Kiernan Subject: Re: Jonah and the Scapegoat In reply to:
Betsy Peters
's message, "Jonah and the Scapegoat" on 04:55:29 01/21/08 Mon
This is an interesting point about the scapegoat mechanism that you bring up, Betsy. Just another thought about that... It seems to me that, even though God takes the side of the victim in the Hebrew scriptures, this is not necessarily because the victim is not sinful. After all, if each human participates in the mechanism of rivalry, by which we compete with our models for our desires, then each human is guilty of something. The arbitrariness in the scapegoat mechanism seems less to be that the scapegoat doesn't deserve his punishment, and more that all the members of the community deserve to be punished because all participate in the mechanism of rivalry.
I suppose that doesn't answer your question about Jonah at all, but it still reminded me of this other issue of innocence in the mechanism.
