Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

;ASHTORETH—FISH AS SIN-BEARERS 427The origin, the nature, and the worship of Dagon, the fishgod of the Philistines, whose temple stood at Ashdod.i arediscussed in Chapter xxxiii.The Scape-Goat is perhaps the best known of the IsraeUtishofferings to the deity. The annual ceremony of " the drivingaway" became a service of the highest pomp and solemnity.For it two goats were necessary : the first to be drawn by lotwas killed as a Sin Offering unto Yahweh, the second, theScape-Goat, after being laden by the High Priest with all thesins of the people for the past year, was sent away into thewilderness, " to Azazel " (Levit. xvi. 8, 10, R.V.).This symboHc bearing away of the sins of the people issomewhat analogous to that in Lev. xiv. 4 ff,, where for thepurification of the leper one bird is killed, and the other, chargedwith the disease, let loose in the open field. In Zech. v. 5 ff.,Wickedness is carried away bodily into the land of Shinar.The resemblance of this periodic offering 2 and of many otherJewish institutions to those of Babylon is striking. Theletting loose and driving away of the Mashhulduppu, or Scape-Goat, was similarly the occasion of an annual ceremony ofimposing ritual. The first account of this appears in aninscription of the Cassite period, which avows itself merely acopy of an earlier record, the original of which may well haveexisted in the time of Hammurabi.To fish figuring as symboHcal bearers away of sins wehave references, according to Pitra,^ in the Talmud, though notvol. II., p. 177, s.v. Atargatis, " If Atargatis be, as we suppose, originallyidentical with Astarte, and if the latter be the representative of the generativenight-sky—in particular of the Moon—then the representation of the formeras a water and fish deity will be connected with the conception, so wide-spreadin antiquity, of the Moon being the principle of generative moisture."1 I Sam. V. 4.* Frazer, The Golden Bough, I. pp. 14 and 70, gives many instances similarto the periodic offering by the Scape-Goat among the Chinese, Malayans,and Esquimaux.' Pitra, op. cii., p. 515 (who refers to Buxtorf, Synag. Jud., chapter XXIV.),is incorrect, according to the Jewish Ency. (New York, 1906, vol. XII. 66 f.),which states the Tashlik—the propitiatory rite referred to—does not occurin the Talmud or the geonic writers. Fish illustrate man's plight and arousehim to repentance, " As the fishes that are taken in an evil net," Eccl. ix. 12and, as they have no eyebrows and their eyes are always open, they symbolisethe Guardian of Israel, who slumbereth not. See R. I. Harowitz, Shclah,p. 214.2 F