Finlan (Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors) wants to distinguish sharply between sacrifice and the removal ritual of the day of atonement. He is not persuasive.

He claims that “Hebrew sacrifice must be performed in the temple, and it is used to cleanse the temple, which is the center and symbol of the community. The scapegoat concept has nothing to do with the temple, but with expulsion of sin beyond the borders of the community” (82), but Leviticus 16 indicates otherwise. Both the goat offered and the scapegoat are “presented at the doorway of the tent of meeting” (Leviticus 16:7), and the scapegoat is still there after the priest offers a bull and goat (16:21-22). The expulsion begins at the temple; it expels uncleanness from the temple.

Finlan further argues that there is no equivalent to the removal in sacrificial procedures: “Sacrifices are pure offerings made reverently to the deity; expulsion victims are made to be impure and are not directed to the deity but to a wilderness demon. Sacrifices are sent to God. Scapegoats are sent beyond the pale. Sacrifices are perfect offerings, sending up a ‘pleasing odor,’ which means a positive reaction is desired from God. Scapegoats are loathsome things that have nothing to do with God, being merely a sin-bearing mechanism; God is not asked to do anything, is not even called upon to witness the process” (81). 

But this misses the crucial fact that offerings, particular sin offerings, are split in two, at least when they are offered for the sins of the high priest or the sins of the community (Leviticus 4). Some of the flesh is turned to smoke on the altar, but hide, flesh, head, legs, entrails, and refuse are taken outside the camp and destroyed (4:11-12). The rites of Yom Kippur are certainly different, but the split between approach to God and expulsion from God’s presence was part of the ceremony of at least one offering. Leviticus 16 perhaps confirms this by talking about the “two goats” as a single hattat, a sin offering (v. 5).

Finally, he claims that the single-handed gesture of the normal offer differs radically, even metaphysically, from the double-handed gesture of the day of atonement: “while scapegoat ceremony involves a transfer of sin-stuff, sacrifice does not; the one-hand gesture simply identifies the giver. The metaphysical assumptions of sacrifice are different from those of the scapegoat ritual.” 

Quoting Robert Daly, he adds “The scapegoat was considered to be unclean after the imposition of hands on it, the flesh of the hattat, most holy,” and then adds, “most importantly, sacrifice involves a theistic metaphysic; scapegoat is based on a naturalistic or animistic metaphysic where sin is a substance that can be physically transferred and literally banished. Theism assumes the controlling activity of a divine person, and sacrificial texts are constantly making reference to the deity and the deity’s instructions” (87).

The last point is odd, since the whole day of atonement ritual begins with the normal introductory “Yahweh spoke to Moses” (Leviticus 16:1-2), and the entire chapter is presented as divine instruction to Moses, who was to communicate it to the priests. The introduction of distinct metaphysics of sin seem quite arbitrary; it’s a massive conclusion to draw from the distinction between one and two hands on the head of a goat. 

In sum, I still find N. Kiuchi’s (The Purification Offering in the Priestly Literature) explanation much more plausible: Kiuchi sees the day of atonement as an integral part of the entire temple system, the annual “re-boot” for the temple and priesthood. The sins and uncleannesses of Israel accumulate in the sanctuary, and in the living sanctuary, the priest; Yom Kippur scours away the defilements from the priests, and enables a new start.