Jersey Girl wrote:honor,
I'm not understanding the issue you raised regarding Jacob5 and olives/apples. I read through Jacob 5 and I don't understand the peculiarities you were attempting to identify.
But, (and I assure you I mean no one any disrespect here) when I read the Book of Mormon, my brain tends to zone (hypnotic) and so I might not be picking up on what you're telling us here on the thread.
Hi Jersey Girl,
Simple but expanded explanation. I apologize if it seems dumbed down. I’m just wanting to cover what needs covered.
Jacob 5 is purported to be unique parable preserved from an otherwise unknown biblical prophet named Zenos who would have to have lived in the Kingdom of Judah prior to the Babylonian captivity. The Lehite party is claimed to have had his words preserved and brought with them to the Americas in the brass plates which the Book of Mormon describes as the pure form of the Old Testament before it was corrupted. This makes this parable unique in that it is composed by a person living in the middle east at an unknown time but at least before 600 BCE, but his works ultimately only end up being available to the migrated Lehite party living in the Americas. Part of what makes it especially unique is that it includes a description of the Nephites and Lamanites as offshoots of Israel. Were it to be discovered in manuscript form in the Old World, it would be immensely consequential as evidence for the Book of Mormon’s validity as an ancient text.
The parable describes a master of a vineyard that grows olives that are compared to the tribes of Israel. It makes use of olive tree grafting as an analogy for God having a chosen tree (Israel) that alternately bears good or bad fruit along with having healthy or unhealthy root stock which God, the master gardener along with his servants, either grafts from or into other branches in order to produce good fruit. The analogy cumulating with the restoration of Israel with it’s promised blessings being distributed throughout the world’s peoples as all the good fruit bearing trees share root and branch.
So the problem: The practice of grafting olive trees is not attested to among the Israelites in historical records during the timeframe when it could have reasonably made it into the brass plates before Lehi and his family left for the Americas. It is mentioned as a technology very prolifically as Greek influence spread a century or two later but not before this. The Bible may or may not describe grape vine grafting but it isn’t indisputable either. Olea culture among the Israelites would have included cultivating olives but not necessarily the important part for the parable – grafting.
When apologists hold up Jacob 5 as an example of, “How could Joseph have known?” they often point out the accuracy of various techniques used in grafting fruit trees. The grafting of apples was a common practice in the 19th century frontier, and when compared in detail the grafting techniques described in Jacob 5 are comparable to those used when grafting apples. Apples grown from seed are very genetically variable so an apple grown from seed from a parent whose fruit is sweet won’t necessarily be sweet and the grafting of branches from a tree known to bear sweet fruit onto one that bears sour or bitter fruit was very much part of the practice.
In short, Jacob 5 aligns very well with the practices of apple cultivation including grafting which Joseph Smith would have been familiar as his mother describes their family cultivating apples in her biographical works.
Jacob 5 can’t be known as to how well it aligns with the practices of pre-exilic Israelites when it comes to grafting if they did indeed practice olive tree grafting because it isn’t actually described in historical texts from the time period. Apologists who defend it report on later works but these are typically from a period when the practice has expanded out of Greece.
To add to this, the little bit from the Talmud quoted in the Purdue paper I shared earlier suggests that Israelites may not have grafted olive trees after they were familiar with its use as a horticultural technology with grapes or perhaps other fruit.
It appears, based on this, that Jacob 5 is better evidence for the Book of Mormon being a product of the 19th century than it is of ancient origin.