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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums5,000-year-old "nativity scene" reportedly found in Egypt
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/5000-year-old-nativity-scene-reportedly-found-in-egypt/ar-BBxv6b3?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignoutItalian researchers may have discovered the oldest nativity scene ever found, predating Christian nativity art by about three millennia, according to the travel and exploration website Seeker.
The rock painting depicts a newborn between parents, a star in the east, and two animals. It was discovered on the ceiling of a small cavity in the Egyptian Sahara desert, Seeker reported. Researchers believe it dates to the Neolithic or Stone Age.
Its a very evocative scene which indeed resembles the Christmas nativity. But it predates it by some 3,000 years, geologist Marco Morelli, director of the Museum of Planetary Sciences in Prato, Italy, told Seeker. The site reports that Morelli and his team discovered the rock art in 2005, but only now are revealing their findings under the title Cave of the Parents.
yortsed snacilbuper
(7,939 posts)Just asking.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Most Bible stories are retelling of proto Indo-European myths. Look up the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)that Christians adopted from Judaism, and while what you say about Gilganesh is true, this find relates to Christianity alone. Just wanted to clarify that.
Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)The article says this.
There are parts of the Jesus story that are similar to other religions (Mithracism, for instance) that were popular in the Middle East at that time, and many symbolic elements found in other mythologies. The implication of this find is that the symbolism of the nativity is not unique to Christianity, and may have been part of older mythologies found in the area
It is not unusual for new religions to borrow symbolism, sacred places, and even ideas from older ones. One reason for this is that it is easier to gain converts when there are elements of the new religion that feel familiar to people.
Bucky
(53,795 posts)For that matter it predates about half of Egyptian mythology. So you see God had a plan all along
Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)either of those religions, nor of any KNOWN faiths. We cannot know about beliefs for which there is no written record. We can only guess. We must also realize that most faiths, except those that began with a particular person (like Christianity and Islam), did not suddenly spring into existence, but were passed on orally for possibly thousands of years before there is written evidence of them. Most religions are not "pure," either, and will contain traces of older religions. None of this happened (or happens) in a vacuum.
Sanity Claws
(21,822 posts)I would love to learn more about this early mythology.
Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)We will probably never know, though. It could be related to the story of Isis, Osiris, and Horus, though.
milestogo
(16,829 posts)Shopping being the central element of Christmas.
TexasProgresive
(12,148 posts)I am not prone to jumping to quick conclusions. I found the referring article has an uncropped pic that shows more detail
It is very primitive. I see 2 large humanoid figures; one perhaps female and the other male. There's very little difference between them. The 3 figure is like them but smaller and is levitating above and between them. Off to the right is a dot about the size of the adult figure's head. Is that supposed to be a star?
There is a protrusion of stone above this pictograph. Above that ledge is something that looks like a sauce pan with a handle. It maybe a bison the Seeker article calls it a lion, hard to tell without seeing from a better perspective. To the lower right is something I cannot make out. It appears that the same stone flaking that decapitated the "woman" was at work here.
This may be an image of a mother, father and child or it may be something else altogether. There is noway to know without more information.
http://www.seeker.com/5000-year-old-nativity-scene-found-2161058490.html?ftag=MSF0951a18
Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)able to say what it represents with any certainty. It appears to be a nativity (birth) scene, but it could have meant any number of things to the artist(s).
LW1977
(1,227 posts)I see no "3 wise men" in this image. It looks nothing more than a caveman "family portrait".
What exactly am I supposed to be looking for to see this as a definitive "nativity scene"?
Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)"nativity scene" only in relation to Christmas, it really just means "birth scene," so it could still be that, just not in a biblical sense. It could mean something else entirely, but most people will probably see it as depicting a birth or a family in some sense. (I think the writers of the article are deliberately trying to stir up controversy, however.)
elehhhhna
(32,076 posts)Bucky
(53,795 posts)elehhhhna
(32,076 posts)Response to TexasProgresive (Reply #7)
edhopper This message was self-deleted by its author.
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)"... the Virgin Birth story was not new when the Messiah was born. Mythology is full of such stories. An Egyptian Virgin Birth story, told about 2,000 years before the Messiah, had many details identical with those found in the Gospel accounts. ...
"...In Egypt, long before the Christian era, and before any of its doctrine was conceived, the Egyptian people had several messengers of God, who were conceived through Immaculate Conception. Horus was known to all of ancient Egypt as having been born of the virgin Isis and his conception and birth was considered one of the three great mysteries or mystical doctrines of the Egyptian religion..."
Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)that it was found in Egypt--but who knows? We can only make educated guesses.
TexasProgresive
(12,148 posts)Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)oral tradition that cannot be dated.
TexasProgresive
(12,148 posts)I love the social sciences but they are not precise as say, a chemical analysis. As a young man I read, "The Digging of the Weans" by Robert Nathan. The youtube should be Theodore Bikel reading it. I have strict data caps so I did not watch. It is the story of Venusian archaeologists studying the frozen Earth. They happen to be working in the U.S. and have figured out English. Since it was called US the objective case of we they assumed that we are the Weans. Anyway it's lots of fun.
Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)start trying to apply the same precision, as you say, as the hard sciences, that's when we mess things up, often horribly. I don't like to see too many assumptions made, and when we do, they should be clearly stated as assumption, conjecture, etc., and not as fact. We don't KNOW what we can't know.
Sounds like an interesting book. I will have to check it out. Thanks!
TexasProgresive
(12,148 posts)Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)"Jesus" wasn't born in December but Christians incorporated local celebrations and mixed them into their myth. Easter originally was about spring rebirth and fertility before they threw his resurrection myth into the local's celebration.
Wounded Bear
(58,437 posts)is at least in part because civilizations tended to grow in river valleys, where the water is, and where flooding is pretty common: Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus, the Chinese great rivers.
Well that, and the fact that societies were not as insular as we tend to think. Stories got traded like goods did. Good stories are likely to travel well.
Wounded Bear
(58,437 posts)they supposedly thought that the Gods walked among them, and were running around impregnating women all the time.
I know Perseus was supposedly the son of Zeus and a mortal woman.
It's a pretty common theme around the Eastern Mediterranean IIRC.
rusty fender
(3,428 posts)That's why I call Jesus a Greek myth.
okasha
(11,573 posts)Their mums got pregnant by Zeus the good old fashioned way.
Wounded Bear
(58,437 posts)by way of the "holy spirit."
okasha
(11,573 posts)I think you may be overdue for a talk with one of your parents.
In Christian theology, the Holy Spirit has no physical form and no reproductive organs. Mary remains a virgin both before and after the conception of Jesus. His conception is regarded as miraculous, Mary's continuing virginity being one aspect of the miracle.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)Mythology and in recent years has come to believe that Jesus was a real preacher. He, like many Jesus mythology experts, believe in a Q document.
I know of no respected scholar who buys into the Jesus is Horace story. Recent findings, the tablet with Pilots inscription and Ciaphias ossuaury are hard physical evidence.
Whether Jesus was the son of God is debatable, but almost all mainstream researchers believe a man preached around the Sea of Galilee and was crucified by the Romans.
Wounded Bear
(58,437 posts)but any society under foreign occupation is likely to have preachers wandering around calling for a "new kingdom."
IMHO, it is likely that the Jesus myth is an amalgam of several, if not many local preacher activists at the time, including John the Baptist.
The linkages to earlier myths from Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece, all of whom at one time or another invaded and occupied the region are pretty solid in my mind.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)There was no amalgamation needed. The Christ was a fulfillment of the prophets, especially Isiah. What the Christ was supposed to be was very well laid out in the Tora.
As for the myth thing, most of that is kind of a stretch. The leading experts just don't agree with the myth theory.
JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)I know many Christians do not know this but it's true.
Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)traces of earlier myths, whether from the same culture or another nearby. This does not make them lesser or somehow "unholy," though. Regardless, any sacred story (myth) is true to those who believe it. I understand where you're coming from, but unless it is from an isolated culture, there are very few sacred stories that are wholly original. But to the devout, their story is still true.
Donkees
(31,079 posts)Barbara Walker: "The cave was universally identified with the womb of Mother Earth, the logical place for symbolic birth and regeneration" (Barbara Walker, The Women's Encyclopedia Of Myths And Secrets, 1983.
Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)That is one.
Donkees
(31,079 posts)...headless animals representing fertility symbols, death/rebirth initiation ceremonies, etc.
Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)The cave itself may or may not have any symbolic sigficance. It may have just been a matter of convenience for the artist. Or it could have meant any number of things to the artist: a place of home and hearth, an entrance to the underworld, or a place of emergence from the womb, as you point out. We will never know for sure, though, which was my point.
Donkees
(31,079 posts)saviors born in caves, including the cave in the story of Jesus' birth, and the 'cave' of his entombment. It seems almost every year about this time, we have a review of sun-god myths and womb to tomb circle of life symbolism.
Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)Mike Nelson
(9,903 posts)...it's the earliest known depiction of two people playing Backgammon... or maybe Badminton...
Silver Gaia
(4,514 posts)edhopper
(33,191 posts)but those are kinda universal.
The christian nativity is a specific myth.
Seems like a reach.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)Try this:
A supernatural deity impregnates a young woman, who later gives birth to a man/god who is later executed by the government, but rises up from the dead three days later to save the world and make everyone immortal who believes the story.
Now, there's a reach...it seems to me. But, hey, that's just me, a worthless atheist, thinking...
edhopper
(33,191 posts)I did call the Jesus nativity a myth. It is a specific story (though probably borrowing from other myths)
The reach is calling the depiction of a man, woman and child from 5000 years ago having anything to do with the Jesus myth.
Why bother to mention the nativity, except for sensationalism?
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)sort of significance in things, I guess. Look to me like some folks drew some pictures on the wall of the place they lived to me. I don't really care. None of it makes any logical sense, really.
edhopper
(33,191 posts)had significance to those who made and looked at them. they help us understand the cultures of those primitive people. But they shouldn't be looked at for what they actually were, not some ridiculous connection they did not have.
pintobean
(18,101 posts)and not an adult in the distance?
edhopper
(33,191 posts)that they used that type of perspective in cave paintings.
man woman and child would be the more logical explanation.
But hey, maybe they found an artistic first.
pintobean
(18,101 posts)but it still makes more sense than calling it a nativity scene.
edhopper
(33,191 posts)or a smiley.
I wasn't trying to be sarcastic.
ileus
(15,396 posts)Finally we have the visual proof that Christianity is a big load of bunk.
calendargirl
(191 posts)Millions of "Xtian" people feeling love and enjoying family and in the spirit of charity and giving...poor you for having to suffer through it!
DU can be seriously insulting this time of year. I don't see the slams on religious believers here during Ramadan.
TCJ70
(4,387 posts)...it's clearly an alien giving knowledge to our ancestors. The "star" is its home world...duh...
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)TCJ70
(4,387 posts)...unfortunately.
WillowTree
(5,325 posts)By definition, it just refers to birth. Thus, they're interpreting this to possibly be an early depiction of a birth.
Parenthetically, I don't see what they're referring to as a "star in the east", not that it really matters, I suppose.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)I think that is it in the horizon
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)[link:|
WhiteTara
(29,676 posts)from older cultures...the immaculate conception is the story of Isis and Horus, Christmas day is the Pagan Return of the Sun andnow we find the nativity from Neolithic times. It makes one wonder how much of the bible is true.
yortsed snacilbuper
(7,939 posts)It's Adam and Eve, the middle figure is a devil/snake and the spot up on the right is an apple that he /her/it is offering to Eve, the animals are being collected by Adam and Eve for Noah's Ark.
Problem solved to everybody's satisfaction.
your welcome
Al
Blaukraut
(5,689 posts)Nativity is a stretch, but whatever.
Douglas Kawasaki
(51 posts)At first by reading the clickbait I thought this would resemble the setting of the Christmas nativity.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)probably not a whole lot.