You mean has any other religion ever blamed some other people or group for something, prior to the Old Testament? Are you serious? I hope you're not, for your sake.
In the past, under the Jewish Law it was required that the members of the community would lay their hands on a goat (symbolizing laying their sin on the goat) and then let it run free (symbolizing that their sin was now gone). This was done at a certain time and was a type of pact with God. So, when someone takes the blame for anther's wrong they are like the scapegoat.
God originated it;
Lev 16:And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat: 21And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: 22And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
I doubt it, I am sure that other times and beliefs have needed a scapegoat just in case someone had the gall to question what does not make sense. The Abrahamic nonsense stole the idea.
I'm assuming you're referring to the ritual of the Day of Atonement, on which a goat bearing the sins of the Israelites is left in the desert "for Azazel."
This ritual is the origin of the English word "scapegoat."
I am not sure if there are earlier parallels of this ritual in Canaanite and other cultures. It is clear that other cultures had concepts of purity and sin similar to the Israelites, and it would make sense that those cultures had their own rites by which they disposed of their iniquity. Whether or not a goat was involved, I cannot tell you. Perhaps a little research is in order?
GREAT question... way better than you typically get on R&S!
Is Judaism the origin of 'scapegoating'?
