... Young goats were not to be cooked in their mother’s milk according to Exodus 23:19b; 34:26b; and Deuteronomy 14:21b, although the reference to prohibited animals in Deuteronomy 14:21 is only incidental. This curious taboo has generally been interpreted as a verdict against a Canaanite fertility rite (see Noth 1961: 156; von Rad 1964: 73; Childs 1974: 485-86). Keel (1980), however, argued that this prohibition was more likely to have been both ethically and religiously motivated. It was rooted in respect for the aspect of divine creation that is present in the loving care of a mother. Milgrom (1991: 741) argued that the prohibition was the result of the simultaneous fusion of life and confusion between the life expressed in the mother’s milk and the death embodied in the cooked kid. The mother’s milk was part of the essence of life and was therefore not to be associated with death. The prohibition originally only applied to official cult activities; however, Deuteronomy rendered it a dietary law to which every household must adhere ...