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Where did nativity animals come from?


Still Waters

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From nativity plays to crèche sets to Christmas cards, animals are ubiquitous in our vision of the birth of Christ – but according to the Bible, not a single animal was there. Where did all these animals come from, and why are they now so central to the story?

https://theconversation.com/an-ox-an-ass-a-dragon-sorry-there-were-no-animals-in-the-bibles-nativity-scene-89202

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In the original story there is no Joseph or 3 Persian Magi either. Mary gave birth to Jesus alone under a date palm and God dropped dates to feed her.

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Hey Joe ... where you going ... ?

~

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I guess when the story morphed into Mary giving birth in a stable someone just assumed there had to be animals in the stable. Or, perhaps the original date palm tree was near an outdoor enclosure where domestic animals were kept?

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Well every inn has a stable and every stable has horses in it .....  And there would always be chickens to provide eggs fro breakfast.  Never quite sure what the cattle were doing there though.   But it was midwinter and snowing outside ......

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Perhaps they were actually all just toy animals that Father Christmas brought Jesus?   It was Christmas, after all .....

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Not possible, Coca Cola wasn't available yet then ...

~

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I do know one thing, stables in that part of the world at that time in history were generally outside (behind the dwellings) not barns like we have nowadays.

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1 hour ago, Piney said:

In the original story there is no Joseph or 3 Persian Magi either. Mary gave birth to Jesus alone under a date palm and God dropped dates to feed her.

 

What original story?

 

 

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1 hour ago, Essan said:

Well every inn has a stable and every stable has horses in it .....  And there would always be chickens to provide eggs fro breakfast.  Never quite sure what the cattle were doing there though.   But it was midwinter and snowing outside ......

 

It wasn't midwinter. No one who owns an inn would ever put up their guests outside in the snow in an animal stall.

Jesus was born in the summer.

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Will Due said:

Jesus was born in the summer.

Nope, he was born at the end of fall.

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7 minutes ago, Will Due said:

It wasn't midwinter. No one who owns an inn would ever put up their guests outside in the snow in an animal stall.

Jesus was born in the summer.

You mean he was an Aussie?  :o 

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6 minutes ago, Mystic Crusader said:

Nope, he was born at the end of fall.

 

He was born at noon, August 21st, 7 B.C.

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Essan said:

You mean he was an Aussie?  :o 

 

He is the Creator and ruler of our universe. 

 

 

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An Aussie created the universe?   No wonder it never makes sense :lol:

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26 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

It wasn't midwinter. No one who owns an inn would ever put up their guests outside in the snow in an animal stall.

Jesus was born in the summer.

 

 

It's the rainy season there at this time. 

 

31 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

What original story?

 

 

The original story of Jesus' birth.

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5 minutes ago, Piney said:

The original story of Jesus' birth.

 

Here's it is.

 

Spoiler

The Birth of Jesus

122:8.1

All that night Mary was restless so that neither of them slept much. By the break of day the pangs of childbirth were well in evidence, and at noon, August 21, 7 B.C., with the help and kind ministrations of women fellow travelers, Mary was delivered of a male child. Jesus of Nazareth was born into the world, was wrapped in the clothes which Mary had brought along for such a possible contingency, and laid in a near-by manger.

122:8.2

In just the same manner as all babies before that day and since have come into the world, the promised child was born; and on the eighth day, according to the Jewish practice, he was circumcised and formally named Joshua (Jesus).

122:8.3

The next day after the birth of Jesus, Joseph made his enrollment. Meeting a man they had talked with two nights previously at Jericho, Joseph was taken by him to a well-to-do friend who had a room at the inn, and who said he would gladly exchange quarters with the Nazareth couple. That afternoon they moved up to the inn, where they lived for almost three weeks until they found lodgings in the home of a distant relative of Joseph.

122:8.4

The second day after the birth of Jesus, Mary sent word to Elizabeth that her child had come and received word in return inviting Joseph up to Jerusalem to talk over all their affairs with Zacharias. The following week Joseph went to Jerusalem to confer with Zacharias. Both Zacharias and Elizabeth had become possessed with the sincere conviction that Jesus was indeed to become the Jewish deliverer, the Messiah, and that their son John was to be his chief of aides, his right-hand man of destiny. And since Mary held these same ideas, it was not difficult to prevail upon Joseph to remain in Bethlehem, the City of David, so that Jesus might grow up to become the successor of David on the throne of all Israel. Accordingly, they remained in Bethlehem more than a year, Joseph meantime working some at his carpenter’s trade.

1,352

At the noontide birth of Jesus the seraphim of Urantia, assembled under their directors, did sing anthems of glory over the Bethlehem manger, but these utterances of praise were not heard by human ears. No shepherds nor any other mortal creatures came to pay homage to the babe of Bethlehem until the day of the arrival of certain priests from Ur, who were sent down from Jerusalem by Zacharias.

122:8.6

These priests from Mesopotamia had been told sometime before by a strange religious teacher of their country that he had had a dream in which he was informed that “the light of life” was about to appear on earth as a babe and among the Jews. And thither went these three teachers looking for this “light of life.” After many weeks of futile search in Jerusalem, they were about to return to Ur when Zacharias met them and disclosed his belief that Jesus was the object of their quest and sent them on to Bethlehem, where they found the babe and left their gifts with Mary, his earth mother. The babe was almost three weeks old at the time of their visit.

122:8.7

These wise men saw no star to guide them to Bethlehem. The beautiful legend of the star of Bethlehem originated in this way: Jesus was born August 21 at noon, 7 B.C. On May 29, 7 B.C., there occurred an extraordinary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pisces. And it is a remarkable astronomic fact that similar conjunctions occurred on September 29 and December 5 of the same year. Upon the basis of these extraordinary but wholly natural events the well-meaning zealots of the succeeding generation constructed the appealing legend of the star of Bethlehem and the adoring Magi led thereby to the manger, where they beheld and worshiped the newborn babe. Oriental and near-Oriental minds delight in fairy stories, and they are continually spinning such beautiful myths about the lives of their religious leaders and political heroes. In the absence of printing, when most human knowledge was passed by word of mouth from one generation to another, it was very easy for myths to become traditions and for traditions eventually to become accepted as facts.

 

 

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That's the one that was writen a few hundred years later. Read the Rabbanical stuff and the Quran.

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1 minute ago, Piney said:

That's the one that was writen a few hundred years later.

Nearly 2 thousand years later ;) 

 

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1 minute ago, Piney said:

That's the one that was writen a few hundred years later. Read the Rabbanical stuff and the Quran.

 

The one I quoted is the one written by authority in 1935. Later, it was published in 1955 because he said: 

"I declare to you that there is nothing covered up that is not going to be revealed; there is nothing hidden that shall not be known."

 

 

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30 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

He was born at noon, August 21st, 7 B.C.

 

 

Astrologically, that would make him everything he himself judges and condemns: A dog.

:blink:

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Just now, Mystic Crusader said:

Astrologically, that would make him everything he himself judges and condemns: A dog.

:blink:

 

You need to go stand in the corner.

 

 

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He's a dingo!    Not it all starts to make sense .....

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