The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

382 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
The only direct support Campbell cites for such a reading within
Romans is that 'Christ is often depicted in priestly and cultic terms'. 16
Earlier, he had referred to such depictions within a characterization
of 'a scarlet thread of Levitical imagery running through Romans'. 17
But the scarlet thread of Christian thought, which conceives of Jesus'
death as a replacement of the imagery of Yom Kippur, runs from
Hebrews 9, not from Paul. 18 Hebrews is the document which—more
than any other in the New Testament—avails itself of cultic language,
and it uses that language to argue that an irrevocable change of the
sacrificial economy has taken place.
Chapter 9 of Hebrews imagines the 'first' scheme of sacrifice,
with the menorah, the table and presented bread in the holy place, and
the holy of holies empty but for the gold censer and the ark. 19 The
mention of the censer as being in the holy of holies fixes the time of
which the author speaks: it can only be the day of atonement (or, as it
is preferable to say, appeasement 20 ), when the high priest made his
1986), pp. 25-37; 'Recent Discussion of the Aqedah', in Targumic Approaches,
pp. 39-49.
16. Cf. Campbell, Rhetoric, p. 132, citing Rom. 5.2; 8.3, 34; 15.8.
17. Cf. Campbell, Rhetoric, p. 17.
18. Similarly, Campbell's emphasis throughout upon 'expiation', as distinct from
'propitiation', is characteristic of debates within Protestantism which are predicated
upon Hebrews, cf. especially pp. 188, 189.
19. For a consideration of the terminological problems, cf. H.W. Attridge, The
Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989), p. 230 and
B.F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews (London: Macmillan, 1909), pp. 244-52.
20. The translation of "ISO has long been a matter of dispute. The traditional
translation, 'to make atonement', is misleading, since it invokes a notion of being at
one with the deity, which ties in with the Reformers in England during the sixteenth
century, but not with the ancient Hebrews, for whom such a notion (even if conceivable)
would be dangerous. G.B. Gray, Sacrifice in the Old Testament (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1925), pp. 67-77, establishes that the quest for a rendering along
the lines of etymology is fruitless, and suggests that in the Priestly source and
Ezekiel the meaning of the term is technical, that is, contextually defined. In contrast,
cf. B.A. Levine, In the Presence of the Lord: A Study of Cult and Some Cultic
Terms in Ancient Israel (SJLA 5; Leiden: Brill, 1974), p. 56. Gray proposes 'to
make expiation' as a better translation, and this is followed in the New English Bible.
The division of sacrificial effects upon the divine into propitiation and expiation,
however, frequently appears artificial, particularly as perpetuated by scholars of the
Hebrew scriptures. It seems wiser to think in terms of appeasement, and to allow that
the mechanism of appeasement is left open. In any case, ISO clearly means this in