Judaism :
The Return of the Dove to the Ark (1851) 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), a sign of life after the Flood and of God's bringing Noah, his family and the animals to land.
Rabbinic literature interpreted the olive leaf as "the young shoots of the Land of Israel" or the dove's preference for bitter food in God's service, rather than sweet food in the service of men. The
Talmud compares
the spirit of God hovering over the waters to a dove that hovers over her young. 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. 29:4). The
Guf, or Treasury of Souls, is sometimes described as a
columbarium, a dove cote. 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). The
Vilna Gaon explicitly declares that a dove is a symbol of the human soul (Commentary to Jonah, 1). The dove is also a symbol of the people Israel (Song of Songs Rabbah 2:14), an image frequently repeated in
Midrash.
Christianity ,
Rome The symbolism of the dove in Christianity is first found in the Old Testament Book of Genesis in the story of Noah's Ark, "And the dove came in to him at eventide; and, lo, in her mouth an olive-leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth". And, also, in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew and Luke, both passages describe after the baptism of Jesus, respectively, as follows, "And Jesus when he was baptized, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him". and, "And the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased". 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 and ).
Jesus's parents sacrificed doves on his behalf after
his circumcision (
Luke 2:24). The "sign of Jonas" in Matthew 16 is related to the "sign of the dove". The use of a dove and olive branch as a symbol of peace originated with the early Christians, who portrayed the act of
baptism accompanied by a dove holding an olive branch in its beak and also used the image on their
sepulchres. Christians derived the symbol of the dove and olive branch from Greek thought, including its use of the symbol of the olive branch, and the story of
Noah and the Flood. Although Jews never used the dove as a symbol of peace, it acquired that meaning among early Christians, confirmed by St
Augustine of Hippo in his book
On Christian Doctrine and became well established. In Christian
Iconography, a dove also symbolizes the
Holy Spirit, in reference to
Matthew 3:16 and
Luke 3:22 where the Holy Spirit is compared to a dove at the
Baptism of Jesus. 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. The dove and olive branch also appeared in Christian images of Noah's ark. The fourth century
Vulgate translated the Hebrew
alay zayit (leaf of olive) in
Genesis 8:11 as Latin
ramum olivae (branch of olive). 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". In the
Hebrew Bible, doves or young pigeons are acceptable burnt offerings for those who cannot afford a more expensive animal. , 1449 In the earliest Christian art, the dove represented the peace of the soul rather than civil peace, but from the third century it began to appear in depictions of conflict in the Old Testament, such as Noah and the Ark, and in the
Apocrypha, such as
Daniel and the lions, the
three young men in the furnace, and
Susannah and the Elders. Before the
Peace of Constantine (313 AD), in which Rome ceased its persecution of Christians following Constantine's conversion, Noah was normally shown in an
attitude of prayer, a dove with an olive branch flying toward him or alighting on his outstretched hand. 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.
Wycliffe's Bible, which translated the Vulgate into English in the 14th century, uses "a braunche of olyue tre with greene leeuys" ("a branch of olive tree with green leaves") in Gen. 8:11. In the Middle Ages, some Jewish illuminated manuscripts also showed Noah's dove with an olive branch, for example, the Golden
Haggadah (about 1420).
Mandaeism In
Mandaeism, white doves, known as
ba in
Mandaic, symbolize the spirit (
ruha in Mandaic). Sacrifices of white doves are also performed during some Mandaean rituals such as the
Ṭabahata Masiqta.
Islam 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. ==Peace and pacifism in politics==