Is Blood Atonement Necessary?

Let me apologize at the beginning of this article for its length. I wanted to be somewhat thorough. A shorter article which covers similar ground is “Does Your Rabbi Teach What Moses Taught?”

The issue covered here has to be the greatest flaw in the rabbinic position. The power that the rabbis have in the Jewish community is based upon the abolishment of the Temple/sacrificial system. If the sacrificial system returns, there will no longer be a need for the rabbis. The priests will again lead the people of Israel.

The basic flaw in rabbinic Judaism is this: rabbinic Judaism does not follow its own Torah. Central to the Torah is the practice of blood sacrifice. If you asked a rabbi now why this is no longer done, the first reply would be, “Because we have no Temple.” But this is a copout. Neither did Moses, Samuel, or David have a Temple. They offered sacrifices in a Tabernacle which moved around. A rabbi might reply to this, “A Temple would have to be in Jerusalem and we cannot build one there.” This also is false, for 400 years the Israelites offered sacrifices in different places until David moved the Tabernacle to Jerusalem. God never said that Jerusalem had to be the place.

The real reason that sacrifices are not considered necessary in Judaism is because the rabbis, by their own authority, not by the word of God, abolished them and replaced them with prayer, repentance, and good deeds. The very first rabbi who did this (he did it in order to preserve Judaism after the Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E.) was R. Yochanan ben Zakkai. Did he hear from a prophet? Were there miracle to back up this change in God’s commandments? No, he based it on his own authority and his interpretation of Hosea 6:6. At the end of his life, R. Yochanan was not so sure he was right. You can read his story from the Talmud.

The truth is, blood atonement has always been necessary and always will be until we are in the kingdom of Messiah. Followers of Yeshua (Jesus) believe that his offering of himself on a Roman cross was the fulfillment of the blood sacrifices and that his offering surpassed the offerings of animals which were only temporary. Regardless of whether or not you accept this, you have to ask yourself, “Would Moses consider modern Judaism to be following the Torah?”

Below are some verses commonly used by the rabbis and by counter-missionaries (people who seek to prepare people against and spiritually inoculate them from the influence of the Christian gospel or the message of faith in Yeshua):

Verses Used to Support the Rabbinic Position

Exo 30:12 “When you take a census of the Israelites to register them, at registration all of them shall give a ransom for their lives to the LORD, so that no plague may come upon them for being registered.” –

Num 16:47 (17:12 in Hebrew text) “So Aaron took it as Moses had ordered, and ran into the middle of the assembly, where the plague had already begun among the people. He put on the incense, and made atonement for the people.” –

Num 25:13 “It shall be for him and for his descendants after him a covenant of perpetual priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the Israelites.” –

Isa 1:11 “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.” –

Isa 6:7 “The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.'” –

Isa 27:9 “Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be expiated, and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin: when he makes all the stones of the altars like chalkstones crushed to pieces, no sacred poles or incense altars will remain standing.” –

Hosea 6:6 “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” –

Psa 50:14 “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High.” –

Psa 51:16 “For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.” –

Prov 16:6 “By loyalty and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the LORD one avoids evil.” –

Verses which speak of a ransom for the value of a life.

In Exodus 30:12, the Torah commands the sanctuary tax. This half-shekel tax was to be used for the service of the sanctuary. The tax is said to provide a ransom for the life of each Israelite who is numbered. The implication which some read from this is that almsgiving can atone for sin. In the first place, this is not almsgiving, it is a tax levied by a theocratic government for religious use. This does not mean that the Jewish man or woman today who gives money to a charity or who gives money to homeless people is buying forgiveness of sins. In the second place, the sanctuary tax is not said to atone for the sins of the people, but to be a ransom for their life, kofer nafsho. The idea is that each Israelite owed their very life to Adonai, who brought them out of slavery in Egypt and who made a covenant with them. The sanctuary tax did not bring forgiveness of sin, but was a payment of ransom for the value of their life. Nor did this sanctuary tax eliminate blood sacrifice, but rather it was used to finance the services in which those blood sacrifices were offered.

Verses which are mistranslated.

Numbers 16:47 (17:12 in the Hebrew text) is usually translated such that Aaron, by lighting the incense, “makes atonement” for the people. However, the word translated “makes atonement” is kafar, a very common Hebrew word and the same root word as in Kippur in the Holy Day known as Yom Kippur. One of the basic meanings of the word is “to cover”. For example, in Genesis 6:14, Noah is told to coat this inside and outside of the ark with pitch. The word used is kafar. Is God telling Noah to make atonement for the inside and outside of the ark with pitch? No, the word means “to cover” in general, and in specific contexts can refer to covering sins or “making atonement”. Thus, Aaron is told to “cover” the people with incense. This is one of the purposes of incense in Torah, for those who study the ministrations of the Tabernacle. The incense provides a screen between the priests or the people and the Shekhinah presence of God. In Numbers 16, God has appeared among the people to judge those who rebelled. Aaron “covers” the people by putting up a screen of incense between the people and God.

Verses in which the atonement is a special case.

In Numbers 25:13, Phinehas (Pinchas in the Hebrew) is said to “make atonement for the people” by his act of zeal. In the story which precedes this statement, Adonai’s anger had flared up against the assembly of Israel because they had been visiting the Midianite Temple prostitutes and engaging in idolatry and sexual immoralty. Adonai had announced that the leaders of Israel, assumably the ones leading in this idolatry, were to be hanged. At that time, a plague apparently broke out amongst the people and they started dying. Phinehas saw a man who at that very moment was walking to his tent with a Midianite Temple prostitute. He went into the tent and impaled the man and the prostitute with a spear. His extraordinary act of zeal was accepted by God as a repentance by the people. God stopped the plague, though 24,000 died before he was done.

In what sense did Phinehas make atonement for the people? He made atonement in that he stopped a plague by an act of zeal and repentance before Adonai. Did this mean that all of the sins of the people were forgiven? By no means. It simply meant that in that situation, God stopped his judgment early because of an extraordinary act. No one could use this verse as a prooftext that blood atonement is unnecessary.

Verses which teach that sacrifice apart from devotion to Adonai is worthless.

Isaiah 1:11 and Hosea 6:6 clearly fall into this category. Hosea was a prophet living in the time before the Northern Kingdom of Israel was taken away by the Assyrians. He was addressing the problem of ritualism in his day. Many Israelites were living lives in disobedience to Torah, with total disregard for and no faith in Adonai. Yet, they were making offerings at the sanctuary in Bethel (which was a false Temple) and thinking that this made them alright with God. For them, sacrifices were a way to manipulate God. Hosea said that what God really wanted was their chesed, translated in the NRSV shown above as “steadfast love”. A better translation of this extremely common (and sadly misunderstood) word is “faithfulness” or “devotion”. The word is often used of loyalty to the covenant, the Torah of God.

Similarly, Isaiah addresses this problem of ritualism. Adonai asks in 1:12, “Who asked you to do this?” If he means, “Who asked you to obey my Torah and bring me rightly offered sacrifices in a spirit of Kavanah (devotion)?”, then the answer would be, “Why, you asked us to do this, God.” However, it is clear that God is not denying that he commanded sacrifice. For those who would say that God abolished the sacrifice commandment by Isaiah’s day, I would ask for proof. Isaiah lived before the Babylonian Captivity. Rather, Isaiah means that sacrifices offered without chesed are an abomination to Adonai.

Verses which express a forgiveness already accomplished in the past.

In Isaiah 6:7, the prophet has a vision of Adonai in the Temple. Serafim touch the prophets lips with a burning coal and tell him that his sins are blotted out. Does this mean, as some rabbis have taught, that suffering can bring forgiveness of sin?

First of all, Isaiah is a man of faith who already has chesed (devotion) to Adonai. His sins are already forgiven because of his faith and his continued obedience with regard to the specified blood offerings. The seraf does not say why Isaiah’s sins are blotted out.

Second of all, having ones lips burned by an angel is not directly equatable with human suffering. This analogy is a fiction created by the rabbis.

Third of all, the action of the seraf was highly symbolic and probably did not result in the permanent disfigurement of Isaiah’s face. Isaiah had rightly understood that even he, a righteous prophet, was a sinner and unworthy to stand in the presence of Adonai. He confessed before God a sin of the tongue, that he was a man of unclean lips, and the seraf responded by symbolically purifying his lips. This action by an angelic agent of God is not something that we could repeat or call upon for ourselves. This was a symbolic purification for a man who already was a repentant, devoted followed of Adonai and who presumably obeyed the commandments to offer blood sacrifices.

Verses which speak of national sin and not individual.

In Isaiah 27:9, the prophet addresses the Northern Kingdom of Israel, though he is a prophet in the Southern Kingdom of Judah. He delivers to them a message of restoration from Adonai. God is going to restore the fortunes of the ten tribes of Israel some time after the Assyrians carry them away. As a part of this promise, Adonai says that their sins will be forgiven in response to their removal of idolatrous altars and places of worship.

Does this then mean that personal repentance is a replacement for blood sacrifice as a means of atonement? No, rather it shows that national sin is forgiven when the nation repents. Furthermore, though the Israelites mentioned cease to worship idols, the text does not indicate that they then fail to worship Adonai with the prescribed blood offerings. Thus, even if personal sin were in view here, the text would not support the cessation of blood sacrifices. Repentance has always been a necessary part of atonement. Without repentance the blood sacrifice is meaningless.

Verses in which an act of worship is called a sacrifice.

In Psalm 50:14, the offering of thanksgiving to God is referred to as a “sacrifice”. Does this then mean that prayer or worship can replace the sacrifices? Nonsense. This is simply poetic language. The offering of worship or thanksgiving is analogous to offering animals or grain to God. The verse by no means says that blood offering are to be replaced, only that thanksgiving is also a kind of offering.

Verses which speak of devotion and faithfulness as atoning.

Proverbs 16:6 says that chesed (devotion to Adonai and his covenant) and emmet (faithfulness) will atone for sin. This is certainly true. But can one have chesed or emmet if one does not obey the Torah which commands sacrifice? Within chesed and emmet are included the blood offerings.