Thomas Staubli, «Die Symbolik des Vogelrituals bei der Reinigung von Aussätzigen (Lev 14,4-7)», Vol. 83 (2002) 230-237

The bird ritual for the purification of the leper is usually interpreted as an elimination rite in analogy to the scapegoat rite at Yom Kippur. However, all constitutive elements of an elimination rite are missing: an evil is not mentioned, nor a demonic place for the evil nor a beast, sympathetic with the demon. On the contrary birds in the Bible and elsewhere in the Ancient Near East symbolize in many ways human vitality, just as the other ingredients of the ritual do. So the article argues, that the ritual symbolizes the return of the healed leper from social death to life, as the first act of a threefold ritual for the reintegration of a person into human society.

In den neueren Kommentaren zu Levitikus und religionsgeschichtlichen Studien wird das Vogelritual, wenn überhaupt gedeutet, als Eliminationsritus erklärt². In Analogie zum Ritual des Versöhnungstages stellt man sich vor,