Doves as symbols
Doves, typically domestic pigeons white in plumage, are used in many settings as symbols of peace, freedom, or love.
[1][2][4] The ancient Greek word for "dove" was peristerá,[1][2] which may be derived from the Semitic phrase peraḥ Ištar, meaning "bird of Ishtar".
According to the biblical story (Genesis 8:11), a dove was released by Noah after the Flood in order to find land; it came back carrying a freshly plucked olive leaf (Hebrew: עלה זית alay zayit),[8] a sign of life after the Flood and of God's bringing Noah, his family and the animals to land.
[13][14][15] In post-biblical Judaism, souls are envisioned as bird-like (Bahir 119), a concept that may be derived from the Biblical notion that dead spirits "chirp" (Isa.
This connects it to a related legend: the "Palace of the Bird's Nest", the dwelling place of the Messiah's soul until his advent (Zohar II: 8a–9a).
Luke 3:22 The Holy Spirit descending on Jesus and appearing in the bodily form of a dove is mentioned in the other two Gospels as well (see Mark 1:10 and John 1:32).
[22][23] The early Christians in Rome incorporated into their funerary art the image of a dove carrying an olive branch, often accompanied by the word "Peace".
It seems that they derived this image from the simile in the Gospels, combining it with the symbol of the olive branch, which had been used to represent peace by the Greeks and Romans.
By the fifth century, Augustine of Hippo wrote in On Christian Doctrine that "perpetual peace is indicated by the olive branch (oleae ramusculo) which the dove brought with it when it returned to the ark".
According to Graydon Snyder, "The Noah story afforded the early Christian community an opportunity to express piety and peace in a vessel that withstood the threatening environment" of Roman persecution.
[25] According to Ludwig Budde and Pierre Prigent, the dove referred to the descending of the Holy Spirit rather than the peace associated with Noah.
[28] In the Middle Ages, some Jewish illuminated manuscripts also showed Noah's dove with an olive branch, for example, the Golden Haggadah (about 1420).
[31] Doves and the pigeon family in general are respected and favoured because they are believed to have assisted the final Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, in distracting his pursuers outside the cave of Thaw'r, in the great Hijra.
Picasso's lithograph, La Colombe (The Dove), a traditional, realistic picture of a pigeon, without an olive branch, was chosen as the emblem for the World Peace Council in Paris in April 1949.
