“ ‘If a person sins unwittingly, then he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin offering.
World English Bible
This verse is examined in more than one Scripture Analysis section. Each lens is shown on its own terms, in the section's own words; GEBible reaches no verdict of its own.
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“ ‘If a person sins unwittingly, then he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin offering.
World English Bible
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Leviticus 17:11 and Numbers 15 and 29 establish blood sacrifice as the divinely-mandated means of atonement — the blood makes atonement for the soul. Hebrews 10:4 and 10:11 flatly declare "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins" and that the daily sacrifices "can never take away sins."
Critical scholarship: Widely regarded as a genuine contradiction.
Theology
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Leviticus 4:3-4 says the individual sin offering for inadvertent sin is an unblemished young bullock. Leviticus 5:15-16 specifies an unblemished ram for inadvertent sin in holy things.
Critical scholarship: Leans toward a genuine contradiction.
Law & ethics
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Each section sets the viewpoints side by side; you weigh the evidence. Here, "critical scholarship" means academic study, not a value judgment. How this is built →
Within each section, grouped by shared field or question type — not a cross-section comparison.
This citation refers to this GEBible page — the verse and the analysis gathered here. To cite the underlying scholarship, cite those sources directly.
"Numbers 15:27 — Scripture Analysis" GEBible, https://gebible.app/analysis/verse/numbers/15/27?version=WEB (retrieved 27 August 2026).