Was Day of Atonement Practiced During Time of Jesus?
In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes "There is no one righteous, not even one." (Romans 3:10), paraphrasings Psalms 14 and 53.
Paul goes on in his letter to build an idea that a perfect life, and a perfect life alone is the way to God. That any infraction (even an inherited infraction - Romans 5:17) leads to death, and only in Christ can there be forgiveness (Romans 6:10)
Which is a very odd thing for a highly educated Pharisee (Phillipians 3:4-7) to say: God forgives his people every year on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur - Leviticus 16).
All of the nation's sins, even intentional acts of rebellion (Leviticus 16:21) are forgiven. Every year.
I went looking to see if a sermon of Jesus might shed some light. We see Jesus go to two or three Passovers (1st: John 2:13, 2nd - John 13 through 20), the Feast of Weeks (John 4:5), the Festival of Shelters/Booths (John 7), the newly invented (since the Book of Macabees) celebration - Hanukkah (John 10:22). But the only mention of the Day of Atonement in all of the New Testament is a mention as a calender reference in Acts 27:7-10 to note that the winter bad weather season had set in.
Which is very weird. In John 9:2 "Teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" there is no indication at all that sin was forgiven annually; or, if the Day of Atonement was observed, somehow it had no impact on people's thinking.
So, I went digging a little deeper, and found that there is no clearly recorded observation of the Day of Atonement, either in the Old Testament or New. Josephus doesn't mention any observances of the Day of Atonement (so I read; haven't confirmed) in his exhaustive histories of the Jewish people.
It wouldn't be unusual for God to give a command that was neglected. There's no evidence of the Jubilee (freeing slaves, clearing debts, returning property to original owners) ever being conducted.
So, I want to ask better informed people: is there any evidence of the Day of Atonement being practiced during Jesus' lifetime?
1 answer
The Day of Atonement (in Hebrew, Yom Kippur) is described in detail in Leviticus 16 (see also Numbers 29:7-11). There is abundant evidence that it continued to be practiced until (and after) the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, including in Josephus' writings.
Josephus explicitly describes it in Antiquities of the Jews (which was likely completed near the end of the first century):
On the tenth day of the same lunar month, they fast till the evening; and this day they sacrifice a bull, and two rams, and seven lambs, and a kid of the goats, for sins. And, besides these, they bring two kids of the goats; the one of which is sent alive out of the limits of the camp into the wilderness for the scapegoat, and to be an expiation for the sins of the whole multitude; but the other is brought into a place of great cleanness within the limits of the camp, and is there burnt, with its skin, without any sort of cleansing. With this goat was burnt a bull, not brought by the people, but by the high priest, at his own charges; which, when it was slain, he brought of the blood into the holy place, together with the blood of the kid of the goats, and sprinkled the ceiling with his finger seven times, as also its pavement, and again as often toward the most holy place, and about the golden altar: he also at last brings it into the open court, and sprinkles it about the great altar. Besides this, they set the extremities, and the kidneys, and the fat, with the lobe of the liver upon the altar. The high priest likewise presents a ram to God as a burnt offering.[1]
The Mishna also records a detailed description with evidence of its practice in tractate Yoma,[2] as does the Babylonian Talmud in Yoma 4 (and elsewhere).[3]
Philo (writing in the first century) also discussed Yom Kippur in De Specialibus legibus ("The Special Laws") 1:186–188.[4]
In conclusion, the evidence overwhelmingly confirms that the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) was a significant and actively practiced observance within Judaism during the first century, the period in which Jesus lived. The explicit descriptions provided by the contemporary historian Josephus, coupled with the later but still relevant detailed accounts in the Mishna and Babylonian Talmud, and the first-century discussions by the philosopher Philo, leave little doubt about the established and ongoing observance of this central religious ritual. These independent sources, spanning historical narrative, legal tradition, and philosophical commentary, collectively underscore the deeply ingrained nature of Yom Kippur in the religious landscape of Jesus' time.
Given the clear evidence for the practice of Yom Kippur during Jesus' lifetime, I think it's more likely the questioner's (mis)understanding of its significance within Judaism and early Christianity is influenced by later theological developments. Perhaps the apparent tension they perceive between Paul's writings and the annual forgiveness of Yom Kippur stems from an anachronistic application of concepts that became central to later Protestant dogma but were understood differently within the first-century Jewish context, including by early followers of Jesus who themselves were Jewish. But to elaborate further would need to be in response to an entirely different question.
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Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 95 (Antiquities of the Jews 3.10.3, 240-243). ↩︎
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Jacob Neusner, The Mishnah : A New Translation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 265–279. ↩︎
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Michael L. Rodkinson, trans., The Babylonian Talmud: Original Text, Edited, Corrected, Formulated, and Translated into English, vol. 6a (Boston, MA: The Talmud Society, 1918), 58–68. ↩︎
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Charles Duke Yonge with Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 551. ↩︎
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