Interpreting Interpreter: Fish of Birth and Rebirth

This post is a summary of the article “Birth and Rebirth: The Fish in Mesoamerican Art and Its Implication on Stela 5, Izapa, Chiapas, Mexico” by Diane E. Wirth in Volume 63 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. All of the Interpreting Interpreter articles may be seen at https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/summaries/. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.

The Takeaway

Wirth provides an analysis of Mesoamerican fish iconography as included in the famous “Tree of Life” Stela (i.e., Stela 5) in connection with the purported figures of Lehi and Saraiah, showing its ties to the ideas of pre-mortal life, birth, and rebirth, with parallels to Hebrew and Egyptian traditions. Assuming the Stela represents a distant remembrance of Lehi’s dream, these images may represent Lehi and Sariah’s resurrection and immortality .

The Summary

In this article, Diane E. Wirth examines a specific aspect of Stela 5, Izapa, believed by some to have connections to Nephi and Lehi’s dreams of the Tree of Life. The Stela contains imagery featuring two fish, each featuring “breath beads” which are usually used to identify the spirits of the deceased. Wirth hypothesizes that these fish represent two deceased human personages–perhaps connected to the figures that some identify as Sariah and Lehi, situated below the fish–detailing how fish were used to represent birth. Some scholars believe that this iconography depicted “fish before they became humans”, and Wirth provides several visceral examples, including imagery of fish emerging from shells in connection with children emerging from the womb. Fish could also be used to represent death and rebirth, with individuals shown as being resurrected using similar shell and fish-based imagery, including in prominent stories from the Popul Vuh.

The use of this imagery extended beyond Mesoamerica, being incorporated in examples from the American Southwest, but also in Egyptian and Hebrew cultures. The Egyptian hieroglyph for a body or corpse contained a fish sign, and the Egyptians held a belief that the “the deceased swim bymbolically in the waters as fish before the resurrection”. Jewish gravestones also at times had fish carved on them to represent hope for rebirth. With Egyptian language—and possibly Egyptian traditions—making their way to the new world through Lehi and Nephi, this correspondence between Hebrew, Egyptian, and Mesoamerican archeology becomes relevant, including in the context of Stela 5. According to Wirth:

“Lehi and Sariah were of the tribe of Manasseh, and they are in a direct line of the fish hanging in the celestial band of Sela 5, Izapa, representing their rebirth/resurrection and immortality. The evidence presented here is not just speculation, but a very strong possibility that Stela 5, Izapa, is a distant remembrance of Lehi’s dream of the Tree of Life.”

The Reflection

In my view, Stela 5 is an undeniably interesting piece of archaeology, and though I understand considered opinions can and do vary, I don’t think it’s possible to completely rule out potential Lehite influence given the purported timing and location of the find. In that context, whatever we can learn about the iconography of the stela should garner some attention. What I would love to learn more about is what else fish tended to symbolize in both Mesoamerican and Semitic cultures. If thematic parallels represent the overlapping space in a Venn diagram, it’s hard to get a sense of the importance of those parallels without a better understanding of the space that doesn’t overlap. It would also be interesting to know how common the fish-rebirth connection is in the ancient world more broadly. If fish were used almost exclusively as a symbol of birth/rebirth, and that connection is unique to Mesoamerican, Egyptian, and Hebrew usage, such would greatly strengthen the parallel and, with it, Wirth’s hypothesis.

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