The Allegory of the Olive Tree: The Olive, the Bible, and Jacob 5

by Stephen D. Ricks, John W. Welch

Hardcover, 624 pages Published February 1st 1994 by Deseret Book Co. See a review at

Genres: Lds, Religion, Nonfiction

624 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1994

Reviews

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had no idea there were so many perspectives about one chapter in the Book of Mormon.
I had no idea that the olive tree is mentioned in so many other places in the scriptures.
This book greatly broadened my perspective about Jacob chapter 5.


"Joseph Smith explained the way to understand parables and allegories: “I have a key by which I understand the scriptures. I enquire, what was the question which drew out the answer?”Jacob poses two key questions in his introduction to the allegory, which provide some clues to its meaning. First, Jacob asks: “Why not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him?” (Jacob 4:12). Jacob then points to the Jews’ deliberate efforts to distance God and render him incomprehensible: they sought to create a God who could not be understood (Jacob 4:14). For their self-inflicted blindness God took away “his plainness from them … because they desired it” (Jacob 4:14). Here Jacob asks the second key question: “My beloved, how is it possible that these [the Jews], after having rejected the sure foundation, can ever build upon it, that it may become the head of their corner? Behold, my beloved brethren, I will unfold this mystery unto you” (Jacob 4:17–18). Among other meanings, a mystery is a spiritual truth grasped only through divine revelation. The mystery that Jacob unfolds, therefore, counters the Jews’ deliberate mystification of God and reveals the true nature of Jesus Christ and his divine activity in the lives of even the most intractable of men. Jacob’s two key questions alert the reader that the allegory will deal with grace, atonement, and their relationship to Israel." (Page 11)

"The word atonement first appears in William Tyndale’s 1526 English version of the Bible. He used the word at-one-ment to translate the Greek word for reconciliation (katalagē) (Romans 5:11).æ (Page 11)

Chapter 3 shows Zenos to have been a familiar prophet to Lehi, Nephi, Isaiah, Abinadi, and Jacob. To a lesser extent: Benjamin, Alma, Samuel, Mormon and Moroni.

Chapter 4 - A very interesting analysis of the use of this parable in the early days of the restored church.

Chapter 7
"For example, it is sometimes said that the rhetoric of the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible is finer than that of the originals from which it is translated. Joseph Smith thought the Luther translation superior to the Authorized Version. 2 The sixteenth-century Swedish translation of the Bible is inferior to the Authorized Version. Granted our belief in continuing revelation, we should not confuse language differences in the details of translation with the nineteenth-century doctrine of evolution, certainly not in the sense that things get better and better. A sinful community debases its language, a virtuous community improves it; and English in our time is debased."



Here is the theme of chapter 7
"But enough has been said, I think, to illustrate how packed and rich the Book of Mormon is. It is a quality that cannot be properly appreciated unless the book is read aloud and listened to. We no longer in our culture read slowly, accurately, or aloud to the soul; we skim. We do little repeated reading. We do not read for an experience, let alone for understanding, so much as to read for immediate “comprehension.” If we read aloud, and even more likely if we hear something read aloud, we take it as an experience. If we do analyze, and we must analyze, it must be to have a better whole from the parts after we have completed the analysis. Analysis has no value in itself. It has value insofar as it contributes toward the soul’s being able to experience and understand the whole better in the end." (Page 171)

"The significance of two well-known titles of Jesus—Christ and Messiah—is instructive. Messiah is a transliteration of the Hebrew māshîaḥ, a term meaning “anointed one.” Similarly, Christ is a transliteration of the Greek christós, which also denotes “anointed one.”" (Page 281)

Chapter 11
"It is evident from the biblical writings that both animate objects (priests, prophets, and kings) and inanimate objects (vessels and instruments belonging to the temple) were anointed with olive oil as part of an Israelite religious ritual. The religious symbolism of the anointing rite had four parts. (1) The anointing rite served to sanctify and set apart an object or person for divine service. (2) The anointing was part of a “gesture of approach” rite that qualified the anointed person to approach sacred space. (3) Olive oil, the material utilized in the anointing ritual, signified the Holy Ghost. Those who received the anointing were sanctified through the agency of the Holy Ghost, enabling them to enter the presence of Deity. (4) Anointed priests, prophets, and kings were types or shadows of Jesus Christ, who is the Anointed One. Their anointing echoed the anointing of the Messiah. Certainly the anointing ritual was Christ centered. Metaphorically, Jesus is the “Horn of Salvation” (Luke 1:69), a reference to the horn of oil that is poured upon recipients of the anointing (1 Samuel 16:1; 1 Kings 1:39, 45)." (Page 283)

Chapter 13 - The English translation (in volume 2 of The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha) that this discusses has lots of old testament references in the margin on what looks like every page. This chapter deals a lot with anointing and many references to Pseudo-Philo and other pseudepigrapha.

Chapter 19
"... ‘I have two goodly shoots to engraft [...] on you: Ruth the Moabitess and Naamah the Ammonitess.’” Both of these women belonged to idolatrous nations and were grafted upon the stock of Israel. The former was the ancestress of David and the latter the mother of Rehoboam and his distinguished descendants Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Hezekiah." (Page 469)

Chapter 21 goes into detail about cultivation of olive trees.
"Some evidence indicates that by 3100 B.C., five fruits had been domesticated: olive, grape, date, fig, and pomegranate." (Page 487)

"In this single chapter of the Book of Mormon there are many detailed horticultural practices and procedures that were not likely known by an untrained person, and may not have been fully appreciated by professional botanists or horticulturalists at the time the Book of Mormon was translated. Even today, outside of olive-growing areas, professional horticulturalists may not fully appreciate some of the unique aspects of olive culture. Given the extensive detail about olive culture present in Jacob 5, we must give Zenos much credit for a high degree of horticultural knowledge, which many take for granted." (Page 552)



Contents
Introduction, Stephen D. Ricks and John W. Welch
Part 1: The Meaning of Zenos’s Allegory of the Olive Tree
1. The Olive Press: A Symbol of Christ, Truman G. Madsen
2. Jacob’s Allegory: The Mystery of Christ, M. Catherine Thomas
3. Nephite Uses and Interpretations of Zenos, Noel B. Reynolds
4. Jacob 5 in the Nineteenth Century, Grant Underwood
5. The Allegory of the Olive Tree in Jacob, Paul Y. Hoskisson
Part 2: Textual Analyses of Zenos’s Allegory of the Olive Tree
6. Jacob 4–6: Substantive Textual Variants between Manuscripts and Editions, Royal Skousen
7. Language Themes in Jacob 5: “The Vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel” (Isaiah 5:7), Arthur Henry King
8. Words and Phrases in Jacob 5, John W. Welch
9. Graft and Corruption: On Olives and Olive Culture in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean, John Gee and Daniel C. Peterson
Part 3: Ancient Historical And Religious Backgrounds to the Symbolism of the Olive
10. The Olive in Greco-Roman Religion, John Franklin Hall
11. Ritual Anointing with Olive Oil in Ancient Israelite Religion, Donald W. Parry
12. The Allegory of the Olive Tree and the Use of Related Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East and the Old Testament, David Rolph Seely
Part 4: The Olive in Early Jewish and Christian Texts
13. The Last Words of Cenez and the Book of Mormon, John W. Welch
14. Zenos and the Texts of the Old Testament, David Rolph Seely and John W. Welch
15. The Olive Tree and the Work of God: Jacob 5 and Romans 11, James E. Faulconer
16. Romans 11:17–24: A Bibliography of Commentaries, Gary P. Gillum
17. Borrowings from the Parable of Zenos, John A. Tvedtnes
18. Olive Oil: Symbol of the Holy Ghost, John A. Tvedtnes
19. Olive Culture in the Second Temple Era and Early Rabbinic Period, Stephen D. Ricks
Part 5: The Botany and Horticulture of Olives
20. Vineyard or Olive Orchard?, John A. Tvedtnes
21. Botanical Aspects of Olive Culture Relevant to Jacob 5, Wilford M. Hess and Daniel J. Fairbanks,, John W. Welch and Jonathan K. Driggs

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started this before I left on a trip to Egypt and Israel, hoping to learn about olives, olive trees, and their importance and meaning not only in scripture, but also in the culture of Holy Land.

Then while in Jerusalem, I got to see olive trees, and that made the book even more meaningful when I returned home and was finally able to finish it.

There's an amazing amount of interesting stuff in this book, and I'm very glad I read it.

[Wesley Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was reading several articles on Book of Mormon Central about Jacob 5, and I noticed that many of their references were from this book, so I decided to read the whole thing. About half of the articles are worth reading, and I’ll cite them here, but I don’t think most people should read the whole 600 page book.

The most interesting article is the final one, Botanical Aspects of Olive Culture Relevant to Jacob 5, by botanist Wilford Hess and many co-authors. They give a good summary of the history of olive cultivation, followed by a list of 56 questions relevant to the allegory. There is a great explanation of the difference between tame and wild fruit/branches, which I had wondered. They point out that most of the agricultural descriptions are very accurate, such as the complexity of pruning, grafting, and keeping the equilibrium between the branches and the roots. While a few details are exaggerated, such as the rapid change from tame to wild fruit, this is common in biblical parables to make a point.

Many critics of the Book of Mormon have noted that Joseph Smith may have known quite a bit about pruning and grafting from apple orchards in the Northeast. Hess and his authors believe that there is more detail here than he would have known, such as being able to plant olive trees by simply placing branches in the ground. Furthermore, I have never heard a critic say that the botanical aspects were wrong, which seems to give credence to the idea that whoever wrote the parable knew quite a bit about olive agriculture.

Another point critics often make is addressed in the second-to-last article, Vineyard or Olive Orchard?, written by John Tvedtnes, an expert in Hebrew literature. While they say we should expect a collection of olive trees to be called an orchard, we see that the word “vineyard” is much more commonly used in the Bible to refer to gardens with all sorts of plants, including trees, as shown in Luke 13. Additionally, it was common to grow olives and vines in the same area.

Some critics believe that the Book of Mormon parable is simply a plagiarism of Luke 13 (the barren fig tree), Romans 11 (grafting into an olive tree), and Isaiah 5 (the song of the vineyard). Tvedtnes addresses this, as does James Faulconer. They show that there are many differences between Jacob 5 and those chapters that cannot be easily explained. What’s more, the loose similarities between those parables makes it more likely that they were all drawing on a common story or cultural symbol. David Seely also points out that trees, especially olives, are one of the most common symbols in ancient literature, as seen by Lehi’s dream just a few chapters prior to Jacob.

Seely and John Welch point to another clue that the allegory was well known in the ancient world by referencing Cenez in Pseudo-Philo. During Cenez’s farewell address, his priest Phinehas recounts a story from his father Eleazar, who describes God’s plan to plant a great vineyard and choose a special plant that would be called by his name, unless it did not yield fruit, in which case it would be destroyed. The number of similarities between this and Jacob 5 are remarkable, but Welch says that Cenez’s biography does not match what we know of Zenos, therefore we cannot immediately conclude they are the same person.

Olive oil can be symbolic of the power of the Holy Ghost (Tvedtnes) or of Christ, the “anointed one” (Stephen D. Ricks). This symbolism may have been why olive oil was part of the ancient Israel washing ceremony. Jewish legends say that the tree of life was an olive tree, while the fruit of knowledge came from a vine. There’s even folklore about Seth trying to return to Eden for the Olive Tree, which was later used as the cross of Christ.

There were many more articles about the importance of olive oil in agriculture, literature, economics, and history. In all this, the only relevant fact seemed to be that olives likely originated in northern Palestine, which supports the theory that Zenos was one of the earliest northern prophets. I also thought the story of Athena’s sacred olive tree being reborn after Persian destruction was fascinating. But besides that, I did not need all the extra chapters, including some that literally just counted the different words in Jacob 5 without coming to any meaningful conclusions.

The first two articles in the book, by Truman Madsen and Catherine Thomas, do the best job of explaining the purpose of the allegory, which Jacob tells us in his introduction is to invite us to “be reconciled unto [God] through the atonement of Christ.” I wish more of the book had focused on this. Some chapters explained that there’s disagreement about what time period each tree exactly represents, so it’s hard to do a definitive study. But I still would have liked more explanation of the purpose and message of the parable, rather than mountains of contextual information with only a loose connection.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhat repetitive (with a dozen scholars writing on the same basic theme, this is to be expected), but still a great book. I learned a ton, and look at the allegory differently than I used to. It is not just a history lesson. It is meant to teach us things personally that will improve our lives and the quality of our work in God's kingdom. The final article in the book, questions about the allegory answered by a biologist and a hortculturilist, was worth the price of the book alone.