Two centuries later, Israel destroyed 50,000 olive trees in
Palestine, also located in North Africa like the city
of
Carthage, to prevent the Palestinian nation from enjoying the
fruit and wealth of the olive orchards.
The
Hebrew Bible, in the book of Genesis, records that the first
fruits eaten by Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden; however,
they
were forbidden to eat the fruit from the tree in the center
of the garden, that was growing on the tree of knowledge about
good
and evil, but they ate the fruit anyway. Many Bible
translators suspect that this fruit was the apple, but other
botanists
say that the fruit of the apple was not known then-that
the quince was the most likely forbidden fruit, the most ancient
relative
of the apple. After eating this controversial fruit,
Adam and Eve were expelled from their paradise on Earth, and
after
realizing their nakedness, they covered their bodies with
leaves from the fig tree. King Solomon of Israel spoke poetically
and
in songs about his gardens growing lushly with fruits of the
Earth. Figs and fig trees are often mentioned in Hebrew
Scriptures,
most profoundly when Jesus cursed a barren fig tree
that instantly became dead, when it didn't provide figs to eat
as
he passed by.
Ezekiel 47-12: "All kinds of fruit trees will grow along the
river banks, the leaves will never turn
brown and fall, and there
will always be fruit. There will be a new crop every month-
without fail! For they are watered
by the river flowing from the
Temple. The fruit will be for food and the leaves for medicine."
Olive oil was used
to anoint the Kings of Israel. Olive trees are
often mentioned in the Scriptures-the most memorable story, the
Mount
Olive trees, underneath which Jesus prayed before his
arrest in the garden of Gethsemane that led to his conviction by
the
Governor Pilate, and the resulting infamous crucifixion by
the Romans. Pomegranates were well known and revered by the
Israelites
who carved images of the pomegranate fruit, that were
used to decorate pillars at the Temple in Jerusalem. Perhaps the
most
famous fruit of the Bible was the grape that grew in
vineyards and was highly prized to eat fresh, to dry as raisins
and
to ferment into wine and further into vinegar. Numerous
references are made in the Bible to grapes, the products of
grapes
and the wealth provided them from the grape vineyards to
the property owners. Many tropical fruit trees such as citrus
trees,
jujube trees, banana trees, and loquat trees probably
originated from Oriental origins such as China and India. It is
also
probable that the stone-fruits, such as peach trees, cherry
trees, apricot trees, nectarine trees (smooth skin peach),
and
plum trees containing a large seed in the center, originated in
the Orient. Many botanists speculate that the fruits
of mulberry
trees, fig trees, pomegranate trees, and crabapples may have
originated in the mid-East territories.
There is little doubt that Oriental persimmons originated in
China and was spread to the Japanese mainland.
Several
fruits are native to America and after the discovery of
mayhaw trees, red mulberry trees, guava trees, pawpaw trees,
Chickasaw
plum trees, and Ogeechee lime trees, considerable
efforts have been made to improve these fruits by the selection
of
superior cultivars and grafting them onto various cold hardy
rootstocks.
To those interested in the natural history
of fruit trees, it is
clear that many fruits exist today, because those ancient
gardeners selected the seed of favorable
fruits and planted the
seed gradually resulting in fruit improvements. Some of these
fruit trees could be increased
by vegetative rooting of twigs and
branches or by increasing multiple trunked plants by division and
replanting them
in gardens for cultivation. Some fruit trees
could not be increased by rooting or division and the planting of
the seed
gave unpredictable results. Some delicious sweet peaches
with large juicy fruits might produce seed that when planted,
the
trees would produce a wide assortment of flavors, shapes, and
sizes; some bitter or sour, some irregularly shaped,
some large
or small. This unpredictable outcome of planting seed of superior
fruit trees was finally overcome by the
art of grafting, which
was well known and practiced as evidenced by the ancient Romans'
historical accounts.
By
examining the historical record of fruit trees in the Hebrew
Bible, we discover that fruit trees fed the first earthly
man and
woman in a fruitful garden of paradise at the site and birthplace
of civilization-the Tigris and Euphrates Valleys
near the modern
nation of Iraq. For an extended period of history, man was
expelled from his earthly paradise, but today
a gardener can buy
his own wish list of fruit trees, and experience his own man-made
heaven beneath the ageless, ancient,
delightful sky.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Written by:
Patrick Malcolm. Learn more about various trees
by visiting the author's website:
http://www.tytyga.com
