Nazheek my old chum, I thought you had left us, banished yourself to a far flung kingdom of contemplation. Good to see you back in the fold. Redbeck
Ah ha! Azazel appears in older English versions of the Bible, for example the King James Version, usually in association with the scapegoat rite and the word azazel is translated into 'as a scapegoat' . However, in some traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it is the name for a fallen angel. I can relate to that.
Yet in most modern English Bible translations it is normally represented as a name in the text i.e. '6 Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house.'
It is also the name of a Mount in the Judean Desert Mount Azazel (Jabel Munttar) .
Mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls
In the Dead Sea Scrolls the name Azazel occurs in the line 6 of 4Q203,
The Book of Giants, which forms part of the Enochic literature found at Qumran.
According to the
Book of Enoch, which brings Azazel into connection with the Biblical story of the fall of the angels, located on Mount Hermon, an ancient gathering-place for demons, Azazel is one of the leaders of the rebellious Watchers in the time running up to the Flood. He is purported to have taught men the art of warfare, of making swords, knives, shields, and coats of mail, and women the art of deception by ornamenting the body, dyeing their hair, and painting their face and the eyebrows. Furthermore he is also supposed to have revealed to the people the secrets of witchcraft and corrupted their conduct, leading them into wickedness and impurity. In fact behaving badly right up until he was, finally at Yahweh's command, bound hand and foot by the archangel Raphael and chained to the rough and jagged rocks of Dudael ( Beth Hadudo); destined to abide in utter darkness until the great Day of Judgment, when he will be cast into the fire to be consumed forever (
Enoch viii. 1, ix. 6, x. 4–6, liv. 5, lxxxviii. 1; see Geiger, Jud. Zeit. 1864, pp. 196–204).
Anyway, all this fits neatly into that great writer Graham Hancock's theory that the people who knew about such supposed adanced dark arts, described as being Azazel's handiwork above, were the super race based in Atlantis immediately before the Flood. Who, apart from a chosen few dispatched as technical tutor ambassadors to other parts of the then known world looking for a new base, all perished beneath the waves. As the rising waters overflowed from the Mediterranean creating a massive tsunami that broke through the Bosphorus engulfing land and even mid-sized mountains, beneath the Black Sea and onwards to create the Azov Sea in Southern Russia.
Perhaps the 'scape goat' aspect developed from the fact that he taught the people greater skills than those possessed by their then priests, rulers and political classes. Azazel the original anarchist, [certainly contains the word 'christ' and not far off antichrist] and perhaps his view really was there should be no more kingdoms including that of Heaven, just One World.
The Great Red Dragon And The Beast From The Sea - Painting by William Blake
The Whirlwind- Painting by William Blake