Text in German. The talk of the atoning death of Jesus is one of the central doctrines of the Christian faith. However, only a few basic terms in the Bible are judged as controversially as the concept of atonement. The present work tries to counter this criticism through traditional and religious-historical studies of the Old Testament atonement statements. Based on etymological and semantic analyzes of the root KPR, the atonement theology written in priests and its reception in the New Testament will be examined. A detailed appendix documents the literature on the topic that has been published since 1983 and once again gives its opinion on individual factual questions.