Azazel Personification of Impurity. Far from involving the recognition of Azazel as a deity, the sending of the goat was, as stated by Naḥmanides, a symbolic expression of the idea that the people's sins and their evil consequences were to be sent back to the spirit of desolation and ruin, the source of all impurity. The very fact that the two goats were presented before Yhwh before the one was sacrificed and the other sent into the wilderness, was proof that Azazel was not ranked with Yhwh, but regarded simply as the personification of wickedness in contrast with the righteous government of Yhwh. The rite, resembling, on the one hand, the sending off of the epha with the woman embodying wickedness in its midst to the land of Shinar in the vision of Zachariah (v. 6-11), and, on the other, the letting loose of the living bird into the open field in the case of the leper healed from the plague (Lev. xiv. 7), was, indeed, viewed by the people of Jerusalem as a means of ridding themselves of the sins of the year. So would the crowd, called Babylonians or Alexandrians, pull the goat's hair to make it hasten forth, carrying the burden of sins away with it (Yoma vi. 4, 66b; "Epistle of Barnabas," vii.), and the arrival of the shattered animal at the bottom of the valley of the rock of Bet Ḥadudo, twelve miles away from the city, was signalized by the waving of shawls to the people of Jerusalem, who celebrated the event with boisterous hilarity and amid dancing on the hills (Yoma vi. 6, 8; Ta'an. iv. . Evidently the figure of Azazel was an object of general fear and awe rather than, as has been conjectured, a foreign product or the invention of a late lawgiver. Nay, more; as a demon of the desert, it seems to have been closely interwoven with the mountainous region of Jerusalem and of ancient pre-Israelitish origin. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2203-azazel There is more at the link.
Azazel was an angel who took it upon itself to educate mankind in the secrets of heaven, according to Jewish mythology. Azazel, like the ancient Prometheus, brought knowledge of metal working, war, philosophy, astrology, magic and it specifically mentions the making of cosmetics. This wasn't knowledge that man was supposed to have, and furthermore Azazel taught humans to question the natural order of things. It's said that he was one of the angels who bred with the daughters of man to create the Nephilim, the race of giants who, once they had died, became demons. The building of the Tower of Babel is also attributed to Azazel, who attempted to get mankind to rise above its station. It was also said in the Koran that Azazel was prideful and stubborn, refusing to bow to Adam as Azazel was the son of fire (potentially a reference to the Middle Eastern Ifrit, or as a reference to the divine fire of an angel), and Adam was the son of clay. For his crimes Azazel was cast out of heaven (unlike the non-existant Lucifer, which was never the name of Satan), bound in chains and thrown among the sharp peaks and rocks until Armageddon and the Last Judgment come. This punishment was enacted before the Flood, which was meant to wipe away the evil of the world that Azazel had helped to create, and which involved the Archangel Raphael exerting his power to clean away the stain. There are passages in the bible that refer to Azazel in a yearly ritual among the tribes of the desert. In these rituals two goats would be offered for sacrifice; one to Yaweh for sin, and the other driven out into the wastes where it would go to Azazel, upon whom the sins of the world were written. It is this association with goats that lead some to refer to Azazel is a spirit who was depicted as having a goat's head, not unlike the Baphomet which was made up under torture by the Knights Templar. Other opinions refer to Azazel not as an angel or devil, but rather as one of the djinn. There are still others who believe that Azazel refers to a cliff, hinting that the goat was driven over the cliff as a form of sacrifice, and that the demon lived beneath the mountain where it had been cast. Whichever interpretation you choose to go with, Azazel is one of a select number of powerful, evil entities mentioned by name. Named in Leviticus, as well as in the non-canon book of Enoch, Azazel ranks alongside Lilith and her children the Lilim, though not quite as high up on the list as the divine archangels in power, rank and status. Well... not anymore. http://voices.yahoo.com/the-devil-azazel-corruptor-men-leader-of-8905827.html?cat=37
King James Bible And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for the scapegoat. Leviticus 16: 8
I personally have a strong suspicion that the former fallen angel named Azazel will become the metaphorical General Abner of the fallen angelic kingdom who will bring the bulk of the fallen angels back into alignment with the purposes of The G-d of Abraham/YHWH????!!!!
For religions that are SUPPOSEDLY "MONOtheistic"....Judaism and Christianity sure do have a lot of "lesser gods"....they just call them "angels".
Good point Gorn Captain!!! If you have some extra time.... you might just enjoy this??!! http://www.christianforums.com/t7647325/ Yom Kippur/The Rapture connection?! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is just a theory and I may be wrong but after being highly skeptical of the idea of a rapture for most of my life I am now open to the idea that the Rapture could fit in extremely well with the ultimate fulfillment of the Fast of Yom Kippur. I could not get my head around this idea until reading the NDE account of Dr. Richard Eby: He paused as though the joy of that thought had overwhelmed him for the moment. ......My dad, Robert Tate died on January 1, 1990. He had NOT given his heart to Rabbi Jesus/Yahushua so far as I knew. Around that time I ran into the near death experience accounts through an article in Psychology Today. As I read several books by Dr. Raymond Moody I went into something of a philosophical/theological crisis as I encountered evidence that the "soul sleep" doctrine that I had been taught by evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong and his dad had almost certainly been terribly in error! I had been fasting on Yom Kippur since the late 1970's and I had always wondered what this verse could possibly mean:
