Posted by melissa on March 27, 2001 at 07:44:45:
In Reply to: pagan iconography and the mysterious goat. posted by Jeffry Lee on March 26, 2001 at 09:43:15:
It is not that goats have gone astray but that overzealous early Christians have.Goats are prolific breeders and generally low stress animals. Because of their 'personality' they were associated with the Greek god Pan.Pan symbolised fertility and hedonism (love of pleasure),the newer Christian religions were very much against people enjoying life on earth(how would you ever get people under control unless you could promise them something better in an afterlife,etc,etc.)So Pan became one of the most reviled of the gods,hence the association that anything goatlike was the work of the devil.
Judaism has many positive references to goats. In fact the prohibition for keeping Kosher stems from the line "you will not steep a kid in his mother's milk".