Art Contextual Analysis

I was able to study the art of this time period in my art history course so that information was review for me. What I was able to learn quite a bit about was the religions and how their similarities are more than I ever knew. So, the 6 things I learned from this chpt are:
The Roman Empire affected Judaism. Judaism affected Christianity. Christianity affected Islam. We can even take this back that the Egyptians affected the Roman’s. It’s amazing that religion has stood the test of time. I knew there were similarities between Christianity and Islam, but I didn’t realize that some of their practices went as far back as the Egyptians.
This probably sounds absolutely horrible, but I didn’t realize Jesus was born 4BCE, I thought his birth was the
change to CE (previously AD). I was taught in Bible study that BC meant before Christ and AD meant after death. But in typing that now even that doesn’t make sense, because time wouldn’t change to ‘after death’ once Jesus was born.
I didn’t know that the change of the Sabbath to Sunday was due to the resurrection. I was raised in a Christian congregation and we didn’t observe Saturday as the Sabbath. Sunday wasn’t restricted either yet you were expected to be in church. To be honest, I don’t know much about the Sabbath.
I knew December 25th couldn’t have been Jesus’s birthday but I didn’t know why that day was chosen as the day to celebrate.
It’s interesting that it originates from the Roman Empire as they were the ones who crucified him.
I was quite surprised at the Buddhist religion. I always thought the image of Buddha was based upon what Buddha looked like. Because the image seems almost cartoonish I associated it to Buddha like you would a caricature image; close but not really. It was also surprising to learn that the teachings of Confucius lead to civil and cultural dysfunction, which was addressed with the Buddhist teachings.
I’m finding the older I’m getting the more I’m realizing the distortion of ‘facts’ and ‘history’ between religions, and how those distortions have been used for thousands of years to control the masses. Humans have fought wars over holy land since the land became holy, they did it 2000 years ago and they’re still doing it today. If religious organizations would sit down and study the original texts wrote by the prophets and study how those texts have been altered through translations as well as each time a sect branches out maybe they’d see they are more alike than they think. Society also needs to see the similarities; we are fighting amongst ourselves because our God is better than their God. Our church is better than their church. But isn’t God,
God?