Azazel--Interesting Random Facts

So, as I've been mentioning on my Weekly Reading Vlogs, I'm currently reading through the Book of Leviticus on the Jerusalem Bible Translation.  

And I came across an interesting little passage in Leviticus 16.  It's talking about the sacrifices for the great Day of Atonement, and it says:

He [Aaron] is to draw lots for the two goats and allot one to Yahweh and the other to Azazel.  Aaron is to offer up the goat whose lot was marked 'For Yahweh', and offer it as a sacrifice for sin.  The goat whose lot was marked 'For Azazel' shall be set before Yahweh, still alive, to perform the the rite of atonement over it, sending it out into the desert to Azazel.

There is also footnote, which says that:

Azazel, in ancient Hebrew and Canaanite belief, is a demon of the desert.

...Wait, what?  Hold on a second.  What is the book of Leviticus doing telling the Israelites to give goats to an ancient Canaanite demon?  I don't remember this at all. 

Now, granted, the last time I read the Bible straight through was 30 years ago.  And I've probably forgotten a lot over the years.  But another Canaanite deity sharing the sacrifice with Yahweh?  That seems like the kind of thing I would have remembered.

So I checked the NIV translation (the version I grew up with), to see if it was the same, and I found the same passage translated thus:

7 Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 8 He is to cast lots for the two goats—one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat.[b] 9 Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the Lord and sacrifice it for a sin offering. 10 But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat.

Ah, so in the NIV, "the goat for Azazel" is translated as scapegoat. Now scapegoat I actually remember from Bible school.  (I remember in 6th grade we studied this passage, and my Bible teacher pointed out to us that this ancient Hebrew ritual is where we get the English word scapegoating (W))

But, you can see that there's also a footnote attached to the word scapegoat.  Which reads: 

The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain; also in verses 10 and 26.

Well "uncertain" is one way of putting it.  The word apparently could either mean a scapegoat, or it could mean an ancient Canaanite desert demon.  Was the NIV trying to hide this possibly hint of polytheism with a vaguely worded footnote?

Maybe.  But I went to Wikipedia, and apparently it is genuinely uncertain.  The word could mean scapegoat, or it could refer to the desert demon, or it could refer to some mountains in the desert. Basically nobody really knows.

But, the mythology around Azazel looks really interesting.  According to Wikipedia:

During the late Second Temple period, Azazel came to be viewed as a fallen angel responsible for introducing humans to forbidden knowledge, as described in the Book of Enoch. His role as a fallen angel partly remains in Christian and Islamic traditions.

...and if you keep digging around the Wikipedia article, there's lots of interesting stuff there, about Azazel's role in the Book of Enoch and the Nephilim .

More interesting information can be found by digging further on the web, like this entry from New World Encyclopedia which mentioned Azazel as possibly a member of The Se'irim--

According to the Book of Enoch, Azazel is the chief of the Se'irim ("the hairy ones"). The Se'irim are goat-demons who haunted the desert and to whom most primitive Semitic tribes offered sacrifices. Jeroboam may have appointed priests for the Se'irim (2 Chron 11:15), but that Josiah destroyed the places of their worship (2 Kgs 23:19).

The Se'irim are mentioned in Leviticus 17:7 and 2 Chronicles 11:15. Additionally, Isaiah 34:14 says that the Se'irim greet each other among the ruins of Edom along with Lilith and other wild beasts.

Yes, speaking of Leviticus 17, that's another interesting footnote in The Jerusalem Bible, where the text reads that the priests "must no longer offer their sacrifices to to the satyrs in whose services they once prostituted themselves" and then the footnote for satyrs reads " 'goats' contemptuously used of the demons in animal-form thought to live in the deserts and ruins, eg. Azazel"

It looks like there's a lot more to explore here if one were inclined to dive further.  I'm going to stop writing here, but feel free to check out some of those links, and do your own research.