Fruit in the Bible
Carbonized raisins from Iron Age I (12th to 11th centuries B.C.) Shiloh were published by Israel Finkelstein in BAR in 1986.
Seeds and fruit remains are exciting discoveries for archaeologists. Not only do they provide clues about ancient agriculture and diets, they can also provide radiocarbon data to help date buried strata.
Fruit also plays an important role in the Biblical narrative. If Eve had not eaten the fruit in Genesis 3, the story of Eden would have looked drastically different. What do we know about the creative ways the Israelites used fruit in their writings and everyday culture?
The Hebrew Bible mentions six types of tree fruit, many of which appear dozens of times:
- Grape (גפן)
- Fig (תאנה)
- Olive (זית)
- Pomegranate (רמון)
- Date (תמר)
- Apple (תפוח)
In my view, these six fruits are used in eight different ways in the Bible. First, many people are named after fruit, e.g., Tamar in Genesis 38:6, which means “date,” Tappuah in 1 Chronicles 2:43, which means “apple,” and Rimmon in 2 Samuel 4:2, which means “pomegranate.”
FREE ebook, Recipes from the BAR Test Kitchen Make your own food from recipes handed down from biblical times. Download now.
In this this anonymous 18th-century icon from the National Art Museum in Kiev, Ukraine, Joshua and Caleb carry grapes back from the Promised Land.
Second, fruits are the namesake for a number of cities and towns, e.g., Anab in Joshua 11:21, which means “grape,” Rimmon (pomegranate) in Joshua 15:32 and Tappuah (apple) in Joshua 12:17.
Third, images of fruit are used as decorations, e.g., the blue, purple, and crimson pomegranates on Aaron’s priestly garments (Exodus 28:33-34) and the engraved date palm trees in Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 6:29).
Fourth, fruits are the subjects of laws, e.g., the law in Numbers 6:3 that a Nazirite may not eat or drink grape products or the law in Deuteronomy 24:20 that one may only beat an olive tree once (the remaining olives are for the poor).
Fifth, fruits are used in a number of metaphors and similes such as, “Your breath is like the fragrance of apples” in Song of Songs 7:9 and “I found Israel [as pleasing] as grapes in the wilderness” in Hosea 9:10.
Sixth, fruits appear in curses and blessings such as “Your olives shall drop off [the tree]” in Deuteronomy 28:40 and “[Israel is a blessed] land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey” in Deuteronomy 8:8.
A team from the Tell Halif archaeological excavation made their own tannur, a traditional oven referenced in the Hebrew Bible, and baked bread in it. Read all about the experiment in “Biblical Bread: Baking Like the Ancient Israelites.”
Seventh, fruits are used pedagogically in proverbs such as “He who tends to a fig tree will enjoy its fruit” in Proverbs 27:18 and “Parents eat sour grapes and their children’s teeth are blunted” in Ezekiel 18:2.
Eighth, and perhaps most obvious, fruits appear as objects in narratives, such as in Numbers 13:23, where the spies of Moses examine the grapes, pomegranates and figs of the land, and in Genesis 3, where Eve eats the forbidden fruit and is cast from Eden.
While these eight categories are neither rigid nor mutually exclusive, they illustrate the diverse treatment of fruit in the Hebrew Bible. Fruit was much more than a food for the ancient Israelites. It was a symbol that appeared prominently in the culture’s names, laws, proverbs and traditions.
When archaeologists uncover seeds, they find much more than radiocarbon data. The Biblical narrative provides a social and symbolic significance for these important foodstuffs, reminding archaeologists that there is much more to these seeds than meets the eye.
Fruit-producing gardens were some of the most luxurious parts of ancient palaces, yet there is no archaeological evidence of the most famous example–the Hanging Gardens–at Babylon. Discover why archaeologists believe this World Wonder was actually located at Assyrian Nineveh.
David Z. Moster, PhD, is a Research Fellow in Hebrew Bible at Brooklyn College and a Lecturer in Rabbinics at Nyack College. He is the author of the upcoming book Etrog: How a Chinese Fruit Became a Jewish Symbol (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). His websites are www.929chapters.com and brooklyn-cuny.academia.edu/DavidMoster.
This Bible History Daily article was originally published on January 27, 2014.
Related reading in Bible History Daily
10 Great Biblical Artifacts at the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem
Ancient Bread: 14,400-Year-Old Flatbreads Unearthed in Jordan
Become a BAS All-Access Member Now!
Read Biblical Archaeology Review online, explore 50 years of BAR, watch videos, attend talks, and more
Related Posts
Must-Read Free eBooks
Want more Bible history?
Sign up to receive our email newsletter and never miss an update.
Unlock Unlimited Access to the Bible's Past
Unlock Unlimited Access to the Bible's Past
Become an All-Access Member to explore the Bible's rich history. Get Biblical Archaeology Review in print, full online access, and FREE online talks. Plus, enjoy special Travel/Study discounts. Don't miss out—begin your journey today!
Loved this article with some details!
Nice article.
Extremely enlightening. David really has a way of making the Bible come to life!
Well done, David, very enlightening and useful both to scientists and Bible students!
Tappuah, meaning fragrance, was more likely to be an apricot or a quince than an apple, since the Levant is not amenable to growing apples. They are native to Afghanistan, and would have been found exclusively there at that time in history.
Apricot trees are wonderfully fragrant, so that would be my guess.
The trees of knowledge and of life were no trees in the traditional sence. Thats also why Adam and Eve dit not physicly eat a piece of fruit from the “tree of knowledge” (lucifer) after which we became slaves.
Is it true that it was not an apple but a fig the real fruit in ,Genesis that the snake gave Eve? Because there were not apples there at the time it was written. Thanks
“Take Care of This Vine”!
The 12 spies walked the length and breadth of the Promised Land. Moses had told them to observe the inhabitants and to bring back samples of the land’s produce. Which product particularly attracted their attention? Not far from Hebron, they found a vineyard where the grapes were so large that it took two of the spies to carry just one cluster. So impressive was the crop that the spies named the fertile area “the torrent valley of Eshcol,” or “Cluster of Grapes.”—Numbers 13:21-24; footnote.
During the 19th century, a visitor to Palestine reported: “Eshcol, or Grape valley, . . . is still clad with vines, and the grapes are the finest and largest in Palestine.” Although the vines of Eshcol excelled, much of Palestine produced fine grapes in Bible times. Egyptian records indicate that the Pharaohs imported wine from Canaan.
“The rocky hill-sides [of Palestine], with their light gravelly soil and sunny exposures, the heat of summer, and the rapid drainage of the winter rains, all combine to render it peculiarly a land of vines,” explains the book The Natural History of the Bible. Isaiah indicated that some select areas had as many as a thousand vines.—Isaiah 7:23.
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200272981
Nonetheless, for all its simplicity, the test succinctly and admirably expresses the universal truth of God’s sovereignty as well as man’s dependence upon God and his duty toward God. And it must be said that, while simple, the account of Eden’s events presents matters on an infinitely higher level than those theories that would place man’s start, not in a garden, but in a cave, representing him as both crudely ignorant and without moral sense. The simplicity of the test in Eden illustrates the principle stated millenniums later by God’s Son, that “the person faithful in what is least is faithful also in much, and the person unrighteous in what is least is unrighteous also in much.”—Lu 16:10. http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200001256#h=8:180-8:383
(The Bible never identifies the actual fruit)
In the movie “Experimenter” (2015) prof. Milgram (from hebrew, pomegranate) spoke about 7 types of fruits in the Bible.
And, olive – is it fruit??
Who is wrong?