Bearing all iniquities

The high priest Aaron was instructed by the Lord to confess the sins of the people over the head of the live goat and then the goat was to be driven into the wilderness bearing all these iniquities.

"And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness." (Leviticus 16:22)

The philosophical anthropologist Rene Girard and others have discoursed about something called mimetic desire which leads to a mimetic contagion contaminating a people with violence, darkness, and sin.  The projection of these sins onto an individual or a beast (the scapegoat) to be cast out is a resolution to this condition.  There are clear analogies to the death on the cross of our Lord.  The difference, as Girard points out, is that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, proving His innocence - and saving those who believe.