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Fainting Goats

Posted by Coturnix on July 31, 2008
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Comments

  1. #1 Constance Reader
    August 1, 2008

    I read somewhere that this breed of goat is the origin of the word “scapegoat”. Does anybody know if that is true?

  2. #2 Peter Wallis
    August 1, 2008

    I highly doubt it. The earliest references to scapegoat I know of are in the Torah, the five “Mosaic” books in the Judaic/Christian Canon, written around 2000 BC (some scholars think the 6th century). The scapegoat would be a goat loaded with the symbolic sins of the community and sent into the wilderness to die.

    Peter