If you are ever going to read René Girard, a french philosopher and a peculiar christian, he would say that the biggest accomplishment is that he exposes the scapegoating meschanism that was prominent human cultures all over the world. According to Girard, the bible is the first book that tells a scapegoating narrative from the perspective of the victim instead of the persecutors. For the reader, it's impossible to deny that Jesus was inocent, and the reader gets sympathy with the lamb that is being sacrificed for the good of all instead of the persecutors that believe that they are working for the good of the community.
A scapegoat remains effective as long as we believe in its guilt. Having a scapegoat means not knowing that we have one. Learning that we have a scapegoat is to lose it forever and to expose ourselves to mimetic conflicts with no possible resolution. This is the implacable law of the escalation to extremes. The protective system of scapegoats is finally destroyed by the Crucifixion narratives as they reveal Jesus’ innocence, and, little by little, that of all analogous victims. The process of education away from violent sacrifice is thus underway, but it is going very slowly, making advances that are almost always unconscious.
- Rene Girard, Battling to the End
According to Girard, societies that are familair with the Jesus story, in the new testament, have gradually lost the scapegoating mechanism as a way to resolve innerconflict. And thus society needs to look for new ways to resolve conflict... or as Jesus said:
Matthew 10:34-36: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household”
For these characters can no longer blame all their ills on one person, one community, one sacrificial lamb and slaughter it to reach catharsis, for they are aware that the scapegoat is innocent. That's what Girard recognises as Jesus' his biggest accomplishment.
