Evidence #381 | November 23, 2022

Book of Mormon Evidence: Botany and Jacob 5 (Harvesting)

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Scripture Central

Abstract

The allegory of the olive tree, recorded in Jacob 5, contains many details that are consistent with known botanical principles and horticultural practices.

Zenos’s allegory of the olive tree recorded in Jacob 5 contains, by far, the most extensive discussion of olive horticulture found anywhere in scripture. While some of its olive-related details can also be found in biblical texts, many others couldn’t have been derived from any biblical source or combination of sources.1 This provides a unique opportunity to test the Book of Mormon’s content, in this case on botanical grounds.

In 1990, Wilford M. Hess, a professor of botany, compared Zenos’s allegory with known facts and principles pertaining to the cultivation of olive trees.2 Several years later, Hess, along with additional researchers, significantly expanded upon his original work.3 They concluded that “Nearly all of the allegory in Jacob 5 corresponds exceptionally well with both ancient and modern botanical principles and horticultural practices.”4 The following sections present just a sampling of such correspondences, most of which relate to the harvesting of olives.

A Long Time Passed Away

After the Lord of the vineyard grafted, planted, and tended to his trees, the narrator states that “a long time passed away” before the Lord and the servant returned to the vineyard (Jacob 5:15, 29). Although healthy and productive olive orchards need fairly regular care, “they do not require constant attention.”5 As noted by Hess, et al., “The olive requires only a little seasonal attention, and it can be cultivated in areas where cereals and pulses will not grow. If properly managed, olive groves only need to be worked twice or three times in the winter and usually ‘one (occasionally two)’ cultivations in the summer, in addition to the usual pruning and fertilizing.”6

All Kinds of Fruit

Concerning the tree planted on the “good spot of ground,” the Lord declared that “only a part of the tree hath brought forth tame fruit, and the other part of the tree hath brought forth wild fruit” (Jacob 5:25). Furthermore, when the Lord of the vineyard and his servant returned to the tame olive tree after “a long time had passed away,” they discovered that “all sorts of fruit did cumber the tree” (Jacob 5:30). Unfortunately, after tasting it, they discovered that “there is none of it which is good. And behold, there are all kinds of bad fruit” (v. 32).

Olives. Image via mediterraneangardensociety.org.

Because successfully grafted branches will bear fruit that is genetically identical to their parent trees, it is indeed possible for a single tree to bear multiple, distinct types of fruit.7 While the wild branches that were initially grafted into the tame tree appear to have been from a single wild tree, the Lord’s question in Jacob 5:47 (“Who is it that has corrupted my vineyard?”) suggests that perhaps another individual had inserted unauthorized grafts into the trees of the vineyard.8 If so, that would further explain the assortment of bad fruit.9

Bitter Olives

The notion presented in Zenos’s allegory that olives can have a “bitter” taste and that those olives that are the “most bitter” are undesirable is botanically correct (Jacob 5:52, 57, 65). “Olives as picked from the tree are very bitter,” write Hess, et al. “They cannot be eaten because of a bitter glucoside in the raw fruits called oleuropein.”10 Wild olives and those from domesticated trees that haven’t been well tended are comparatively more bitter and therefore undesirable, compared to healthy olives from domesticated trees.11

Additional Laborers

In preparation for the final harvest, the Lord of the vineyard told his servant to call additional “servants” (Jacob 5:61) to help. Although relatively “few” in number (v. 61), they were able to successfully complete some final grafting, pruning, and caretaking activities. This fits the regular practice of modern pruning teams, in which a foreman supervises less skilled laborers as they tend an orchard.12 “The point that only a few laborers were engaged by the Lord of the vineyard (v. 70) appears to be necessary for the message of the allegory, but it is also relevant to olive culture. A fairly small crew of pruners and workers can maintain a vineyard or plantation.”13

Allegory of the Olive Tree, by Brad Teare. 

Joy in the Fruit

The Lord of the vineyard promised his servants that “if ye labor with your might with me ye shall have joy in the fruit which I shall lay up” (Jacob 5:71). 

In the ancient world, where cash currency was not always available, wages for workers hired for the season would have been paid by giving them part of the harvest. … In Zenos’s allegory, labor seems to be organized at first by the day (Jacob 5:47) and then for the final season (Jacob 5:70-77). Labor contracts could be made by the day (Deuteronomy 24:15), possibly by the harvest season (Ruth 2:3), or by the year (Leviticus 25:50, 53; Isaiah 16:14; 21:16). It was a mark of great generosity for a master to furnish his workers, in the end, not just with money but “liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy [threshing] floor, and out of thy winepress” (Deuteronomy 15:14). Therefore, in Zenos’s allegory, when the Lord of the vineyard promised his workers a share of the crop, he should probably be understood as being very generous (Jacob 5:72).14

Laying Up Fruit against the Season

The Lord of the vineyard stated that he engaged in his grafting and planting activities so that he could “lay up fruit thereof against the season, unto myself” (Jacob 5:13).15 This phrasing suggests that the Lord wanted to store the fruit in preparation for some future time or season.16 The olive industry was integral to ancient Israel, and storage facilities and containers for olive oil have indeed been located at various Mediterranean and Near Eastern locations.17

Ancient Minoan pots for storing olive oil. Image via the-past.com.

Conclusion

“In this single chapter of the Book of Mormon,” write Hess and his associates, “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.”18 Thus it is “hard to imagine” that whoever wrote Jacob 5 “was not personally familiar with the minute details and practices involved in raising good olives in a Mediterranean climate.”19

As an ancient Israelite prophet, Zenos would be a plausible candidate for the text’s authorship, seeing that olives were such an important crop in Israel.20 It is harder to ascribe the contents of this allegory to Joseph Smith, who “probably had little knowledge of olive trees in New York, as they will not grow in the northeastern United States.”21

Further Reading
Appendix
Endnotes
Science
Botany and Jacob 5
Botany and Jacob 5 (Harvesting)
Book of Mormon