René Girard. The Scapegoat. Translated by Yvonne Freccero. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989)

One of the most phenomenal books I have ever read, The Scapegoat by René Girard came to my attention when I was working at the Fuller Bookstore in Pasadena, which unfortunately, due to the shift toward online purchasing, had to close its doors in 2017. I think it was the intriguing cover art, which is a replica of The Man of Sorrows (1511) by the German artist Albrecht Dürer, that lured me toward the book. Of course, the title The Scapegoat, a direct translation of the title of the French book, Le bouc émissaire, is also quite haunting. Whatever it was that drew me to the book, I am glad it did.

In the book, Girard deals with what he calls ‘texts of persecution’ in which a group of people somehow, in a seemingly miraculous or coincidental way, begin to target an individual or a minority group. Girard observes along the way that all these ‘texts of persecution’ are written from the perspective of the persecutors and serve the underscore the guilt of their victims. However, notes Girard, the only exception to this is in the bible, notably in the four Gospels, which are written from the perspective of the victim and insist vehemently that this victim was not guilty.

Girard argues that most, if not all, myths are ironed out ‘texts of persecution’ that betray some actual original violence done in the name of the gods. Girard, therefore, encourages us to see the Gospels, and especially the passion narratives within them, as quite similar to the myths of different provenance. But he insists that there is a crucial difference. The stories about Jesus are the only ones written from the perspective of the victim and as a result they expose the scapegoating mechanism that gets triggered whenever there is a sufficiently serious crisis within any society.

Girard explains this automatic triggering of the scapegoating mechanism in terms of his mimetic theory, in which he argues that we learn to desire my mimicking the desire of others. However, when there is a perception of scarcity, the fact that multiple people now desire the same thing gives rise to the crisis in which everyone else with the same desire is perceived as a threat to be eliminated. This crisis could and would destroy the society were it not for the scapegoating mechanism by which warring parties find an individual or minority group as a common enemy whom they blame for the crisis.

The book is just over 200 pages long but took me quite a while to finish. Since the English version of the book is a translation from the French, it is difficult for me – since I do not know French – to determine what makes the book such a difficult read. Girard’s hypotheses are quite nuanced and unique, which certainly does contribute to the difficulty of reading. But whether the original style or that of the translator is what contributes to the difficulty, The Scapegoat is a groundbreaking book and one that I would highly recommend to anyone who deal with either the interpretation of the bible in general and the Gospels in particular or the study of ancient myths.