The Invented Animals of the New Testament

                                                   Conversion on the Way to Damascus -- Caravaggio

 We watched the film Tar last week which is a fictional story about a conductor of the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic named Lydia Tar. One critic described this is a film which we can like for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is Cate Blanchett's Golden Globe winning performance, but one which is hard to love. I would agree, although I certainly encourage you to watch it. 

I won't go into the premise of the film but I will share that the opening scene is an on-stage interview of the fictional Lydia Tar by the real life Adam Gopnik who is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. It is one of those intelligent, somewhat reverential interviews we've seen with an already appreciative audience looking on. At one point Gopnik makes a passing allusion to the apostle Paul, although not by name. Paul, the persecutor of early Christians,  has his dramatic  "Road to Damascus" conversion experience, found in Acts, chapter 9, and the reference is to falling off the horse in response to the blinding light of Christ's presence. Except there is no horse in the story of his conversion. Look it up. Through the centuries the church and artists have inserted this equine prop to heighten the drama.

                                                              Opening Scene from Tar

I got thinking about how we have created a veritable ark of New Testament critters which aren't actually in scripture. Magi on camels? Mattthew's gospel doesn't say that there are any. Mary on a donkey to journey to Bethlehem? Nope. Farm animals surrounding the infant Christ in the manger? Not a one, but try to find a Nativity scene without them. When it comes to creatures we embellish like congressman George Santos. 

Maybe we should simply consider it endearing. We want to include creatures in our earthy redemption story and I like that idea. John's gospel does say that God so loved the world that he sent his child. I like wife Ruth's conspiracy theory about all these animals. A secret cabal of veterinarians has been determined to include critters in our Christian story, and they have been successful. 

                                                                             Eritrean Nativity