how or when did goats become evil?

How or when did goats become evil? In OT, goats were acceptable for sacrifices, and shepherds apparently also ate them, since they met kosher criterion along with sheep and cows. But in Matthew 25, goats are going to hell; and in medieval times (?) the devil was pictured as goat. What changed?

Well, the distinction between sheep (relatively docile) and goats (relatively aggressive) has been known to farmers for centuries.

Our own Scylla had firsthand experience: Goat Porn

The New Testament was written after the Jews had a lot more experience with the Greeks and Romans and had become aware of their mythology. So they would have become familiar with Pan and fauns and the association of goats with uncontrolled sexuality.

Goats were associated with paganism by the Christian church in order to convert the heathens to Christianity.

The concept of goats as the bearers of sins long pre-dates Christianity or the Hebrews’ contact with the Greeks.

Leviticus records that two goats were presented to Aaron, the first High Priest. Lots were cast, and one goat was chosen as blood sacrifice, for the sins of the people. The other goat was symbolically loaded with the sins of the people and driven into the wilderness: the scapegoat for the people.

The ritual continued on the Day of Atonement

From being the bearers of sins to being considered unlucky or evil doesn’t seem much of a stretch.

A few goats are benign but after awhile their true depravity begins to show, so specimens A and B can be quite normal, but Goat C does things quite against nature.

Having tanned a bunch of goat scrotums, I can attest these animals have massive testicles per body size. It must not have helped, image-wise.

I bet you’ve waited a long time to bring that up in conversation.:slight_smile:

:eek:

as part of a whole goatskin, or separately? If the latter, I have to ask… why? As a bag? For something particular?

Tell me it’s for nuts.

Wow, glad you posted that, I had missed it!

  • DB, owner of two evil goats (but not as bad as Scylla’s)

No, I think it’s for mini-bagpipes. :smiley:

Not an answer to the question but, the opening line of Othello is “Welcome to Cypress. Goats and monkeys!”
Shakespeare is basically calling the Cypriots sex-crazed perverts.

The parable of the sheep and the goats does not imply that goats are necessarily evil just that they are different animals that live together and need to be separated at certain time.

…with one of the animals being separated into Heaven, and the other one into Hell. Yeah, that pretty much does imply evil.

And it’s not just the size of their balls: Sheep balls are huge, too.

Little Nemo, goats aren’t associated with uncontrolled sexuality because of Pan. Pan is part-goat because goats are associated with uncontrolled sexuality. For reasons that would be obvious to anyone who’s ever worked with goats.

I have worked with goats. Nasty animals.

But the question seemed to be why the Judeo-Christian view of goats changed from them being seen as just another animal to them being seen as a symbol of the devil.

A friend of mine is a goat farmer. During rut season, he won’t go into his breeding buck’s enclosure without a baseball bat, lest things go all The Witch* on him.

*In The Witch, a buck attacks and kills his owner. My farmer friend says that scene is no joke.

I’ve had goats, including males. Female goats are only in estrus for a very short period, once a year. The bucks check the females ass constantly. I guess he doesn’t want to miss his chance…

Our goats seem to be pretty well behaved. I think because we never had more than 4, they were pretty well socialized, with people. Only thing is, if they get into the garden, it’s pretty well toast.

Pouches for tea. :wink:

I’d probably go with this, minus any further evidence or better hypothesis.

Even if we assume that the Ancient Hebrews were aware of the nature of goats, that doesn’t mean that they dwelled on it very much. They’re animals, they’re just food, there’s no reason to read any symbolism into their activities. And, I believe, that ancient Israel may have been sufficiently dependent on goat herding for sustenance, that it might not have been feasible for them to really hold anything like a negative view of goats, regardless of whether the animals are horrible creatures or not.

But then, once a second culture comes along and makes an explicit connection between goats as the symbol for rampant, free sexuality, it would be reasonable for a religion that has a hard “sex is only for procreation and only between lawfully married couples” rule to take a more negative view of goats as the symbology is popularized. And, of course, the country had become less rural and more urban, with hydraulic infrastructure and trade allowing for a more diverse diet and less dependence on goats.

Ignoring all of that, though…

I would suggest that it’s possible that there could have been different breeds of goat and that the central European goat was - for example - larger with more meat but also more sexually aggressive than the type that had been available in the Middle Eastern area. If that sort of difference existed, you could imagine the breed being exported from central Europe to the greater Mediterranean and shaping their view of goats.

You would need to look at the genetics of the animal to try and figure out if it looked like there might have been any significant change to the species’ genetics in the Middle East during that time period. Though, that wouldn’t mean that the hypothesized difference existed, simply that there was some sort of cross-breeding with central European goats.