idk -- my sense is that the "Nativity scene" as we know it started in art from the European Middle Ages
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Replying to @arthur_affect @classicpoodle
wanting to cram all the cool images from the Bible into one painting
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Replying to @arthur_affect @classicpoodle
a lot of these traditions that aren't in the Bible come from artwork, like there being "three Wise Men"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @classicpoodle
it doesn't say how many guys there were but it does name three gifts, "gold, frankincense, and myrrh"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @classicpoodle
so they made up a tradition of painting three specific guys, each one holding one of the three gifts
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Replying to @arthur_affect @classicpoodle
and they probably were meant to all come from the same place but in artwork they were drawn as three different races
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Replying to @arthur_affect @classicpoodle
and made into the "Three Kings" of different countries to make the scene more interesting
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Replying to @arthur_affect @classicpoodle
somehow it became "canon" that the Three Kings were an old white man, a middle-aged Arab man and a young black man
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Replying to @classicpoodle
it's just interesting how these things develop out of whole cloth -- their names are Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar
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when ppl say medieval Europe had no contact w PoC Balthasar is a common example to show they knew what black folk looked like
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