This book celebrates the plants of the Old Testament and New Testament, including the Apocrypha, and of the Quran. From acacia, the wood of the tabernacle, to wormwood, whose bitter leaves cured intestinal worms, 81 fascinating chapters—covering every plant that has a true botanical counterpart—tell the stories of the fruits and grains, grasses and trees, flowers and fragrances of ancient lore. The descriptions include the plants' botanical characteristics, habitat, uses, and literary context. With evocative quotations and revelatory interpretations, this information is all the more critical today as the traditional agrarian societies that knew the plants intimately become urbanized. The unusually broad geographic range of this volume extends beyond Israel to encompass the Holy Land's biblical neighbors from southern Turkey to central Sudan and from Cyprus to the Iraq border. Richly illustrated with extensive color photography and with a foreword by the incomparable Garrison Keillor, this delightful ecumenical botany offers the welcome tonic of a deep look into an enduring, shared natural heritage.
Some stories are considered make-believe while others are considered "real." The question that one must ask is, "What is real?". The conflicts that characters face in all tales are real enough. The choices they make and the outcomes that occur are certainly real. Choices are often contingent upon the current conflicts being faced, and that is undoubtedly real. Jack faced a giant who wanted to eat him while King Arthur faced Saxons who simply wanted to eat. Who is real and
A "brisk and entertaining" (Wall Street Journal) journey into the mystery behind why the forbidden fruit became an apple, upending an explanation that stood for centuries. How did the apple, unmentioned by the Bible, become the dominant symbol of temptation, sin, and the Fall? Temptation Transformed pursues this mystery across art and religious history, uncovering where, when, and why the forbidden fruit became an apple. Azzan Yadin-Israel reveals that Eden’s fruit, once thought to be a fig or a grape, first appears as an apple in twelfth-century French art. He then traces this image back to its source in medieval storytelling. Though scholars often blame theologians for the apple, accounts of the Fall written in commonly spoken languages—French, German, and English—influenced a broader audience than cloistered Latin commentators. Azzan Yadin-Israel shows that, over time, the words for “fruit” in these languages narrowed until an apple in the Garden became self-evident. A wide-ranging study of early Christian thought, Renaissance art, and medieval languages, Temptation Transformed offers an eye-opening revisionist history of a central religious icon.
Serving students and general readers alike, this encyclopedia addresses the myriad and profound ways foods have shaped the world we inhabit, from prehistory to the present. Written with the needs of students in mind, Foods That Changed History: How Foods Shaped Civilization from the Ancient World to the Present presents nearly 100 entries on foods that have shaped history—fascinating topics that are rarely addressed in detail in traditional history texts. In learning about foods and their importance, readers will gain valuable insight into other areas such as religious movements, literature, economics, technology, and the human condition itself. Readers will learn how the potato, for example, changed lives in drastic ways in northern Europe, particularly Ireland; and how the potato famine led to the foundation of the science of plant pathology, which now affects how scientists and governments consider the dangers of genetic uniformity. The entries document how the consumption of tea and spices fostered global exploration, and how citrus fruits led to the prevention of scurvy. This book helps students acquire fundamental information about the role of foods in shaping world history, and it promotes critical thinking about that topic.
This unique encyclopedia enables students to understand the myriad ways that the Columbian Exchange shaped the modern world, covering every major living organism from pathogens and plants to insects and mammals. Most people have only the vaguest notion of how profoundly the world was changed by Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas. Indeed, some of what is commonly regarded as "traditional" Native American life and culture—living in teepees and hunting buffalo from horseback, for example—came from the arrival of Europeans. This encyclopedia helps students acquire fundamental information about the Columbian Exchange through approximately 100 alphabetically arranged entries on animals, plants, diseases, and items that were exchanged, accompanied by sidebars throughout that provide interesting discussions of key people, companies, and other related topics. The work begins with an introductory essay that overviews the Columbian exchange and not only addresses its biological and cultural components but also treats it as a political and economic event. The alphabetically organized entries cover topics ranging from the African slave trade, almonds, and alpacas to watermelon, whooping cough, and yellow fever. The encyclopedia also offers a chronology of the major events of the Columbian Exchange as well as 15 transcribed primary source documents that enable students to "look into history directly," including passages about the exchange that focus on the Irish Potato Famine, the slave trade, and the influenza pandemic of 1918–1919.
This three-volume encyclopedia on the history of American food and beverages serves as an ideal companion resource for social studies and American history courses, covering topics ranging from early American Indian foods to mandatory nutrition information at fast food restaurants. The expression "you are what you eat" certainly applies to Americans, not just in terms of our physical health, but also in the myriad ways that our taste preferences, eating habits, and food culture are intrinsically tied to our society and history. This standout reference work comprises two volumes containing more than 600 alphabetically arranged historical entries on American foods and beverages, as well as dozens of historical recipes for traditional American foods; and a third volume of more than 120 primary source documents. Never before has there been a reference work that coalesces this diverse range of information into a single set. The entries in this set provide information that will transform any American history research project into an engaging learning experience. Examples include explanations of how tuna fish became a staple food product for Americans, how the canning industry emerged from the Civil War, the difference between Americans and people of other countries in terms of what percentage of their income is spent on food and beverages, and how taxation on beverages like tea, rum, and whisky set off important political rebellions in U.S. history.
Readers of this expansive, three-volume encyclopedia will gain scientific, sociological, and demographic insight into the complex relationship between plants and humans across history. Comprising three volumes and approximately half a million words, this work is likely the most comprehensive reference of its kind, providing detailed information not only about specific plants and food crops such as barley, corn, potato, rice, and wheat, but also interdisciplinary content that draws on the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The entries underscore the fascination that humans have long held for plants, identifies the myriad reasons why much of life on earth would be impossible without plants, and points out the intertwined relationship of plants and humans—and how delicate this balance can be. While the majority of the content is dedicated to the food plants that are essential to human existence, material on ornamentals, fiber crops, pharmacological plants, and carnivorous plants is also included.
Climate disasters, tariff wars, extractive technologies, and deepening debts are plummeting American food producers into what is quickly becoming the most severe farm crisis of the last half-century. Yet we are largely unaware of the plight of those whose hands and hearts toil to sustain us. Agrarian and ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan--the "father of the local food movement"--offers a fresh, imaginative look at the parables of Jesus to bring us into a heart of compassion for those in the food economy hit by this unprecedented crisis. Offering palpable scenes from the Sea of Galilee and the fields, orchards, and feasting tables that surrounded it, Nabhan contrasts the profound ways Jesus interacted with those who were the workers of the field and the fishers of the sea with the events currently occurring in American farm country and fishing harbors. Tapping the work of Middle Eastern naturalists, environmental historians, archaeologists, and agro-ecologists, Jesus for Farmers and Fishers is sure to catalyze deeper conversations, moral appraisals, and faith-based social actions in each of our faith-land-water communities.
The dream of paradise and the use of plants in story telling are as old as man. The Bible readers need only turn a few pages before meeting a description of paradise and a whole world of known and unknown plants such as: aloe, barley, bdellium, cedar, fig, frankincense, pomegranate, olive, vine and general terms like the lily of the fields. Not only Bible readers, but everyone interested in botany, archaeology, or vegetation history can find subjects of interest in the book, for references are made both to the rich use of plants in the Bible as well as to use of plants in the surrounding coeval cultures. PLANT WORLD OF THE BIBLE includes a comprehensive list of biblical plants, found in archaeological excavations in Israel and surrounding countries. For the first time it is now possible, for most of the biblical plants, to refer to archaeological finds, dated to the biblical period. "I find that Dr. Jensens work is not only accurate but it is also very interesting. This work should be accepted and enjoyed world wide. Dr Arnold L. Larsen, Director and Professor emeritus, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, Colorado, USA. It is a great pleasure for me to recommend the book PLANT WORLD OF THE BIBLE authored by Hans Arne Jensen. This book is a careful description of all plants mentioned in the Bible. It provides a botanical description of each plant, a discussion of its identification, as well as its occurrences in the Bible. Furthermore, it contains valuable information on archaeological finds of the plants. It is well structured and with beautiful colour illustrations and black/white drawings. The book is a result of the authors thorough botanic knowledge and it is based on recent international scholarly and scientific literature within various fields such as biblical studies, archaeology, and cultural history. Thus, the book is the successful outcome of an interdisciplinary work. It is an important contribution to the study of the cultural history of the plants as well as the cultural background of the Bible. I have no doubt that this book will generate a widespread interest among Biblical readers as well as academics such as botanists, archaeologists, cultural history scholars and biblical scholars. Dr. Bodil Ejrns, Assoc. Professor of the Old Testament, Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. PLANT WORLD OF THE BIBLE is a book of high quality, seriously written with knowledge not only from botany but also from archaeology and theologyThe illustrations deserves a special attention. The whole page plates are from about 100 years BC to about 300 years AC and are in that way uniquePLANT WORLD OF THE BIBLE is written in a language, which is possible to understand without special knowledge in botany or theology, it is possible to read for all .I highly recommend an English publication of the book. Dr. Erik Nymann Eriksen, Professor emeritus, Department of Horticulture, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. a masterpiece that joins the Sacred with Nature and which will delight not only the faithful but also those who have a passion for botany, archaeology and history. Professor Fabio Gorian, Corpo Forestale, Peri, Italia.
Gary Paul Nabhan takes the reader on a vivid and far-ranging journey across time and space in this fascinating look at the relationship between the spice trade and culinary imperialism. Drawing on his own family’s history as spice traders, as well as travel narratives, historical accounts, and his expertise as an ethnobotanist, Nabhan describes the critical roles that Semitic peoples and desert floras had in setting the stage for globalized spice trade. Traveling along four prominent trade routes—the Silk Road, the Frankincense Trail, the Spice Route, and the Camino Real (for chiles and chocolate)—Nabhan follows the caravans of itinerant spice merchants from the frankincense-gathering grounds and ancient harbors of the Arabian Peninsula to the port of Zayton on the China Sea to Santa Fe in the southwest United States. His stories, recipes, and linguistic analyses of cultural diffusion routes reveal the extent to which aromatics such as cumin, cinnamon, saffron, and peppers became adopted worldwide as signature ingredients of diverse cuisines. Cumin, Camels, and Caravans demonstrates that two particular desert cultures often depicted in constant conflict—Arabs and Jews—have spent much of their history collaborating in the spice trade and suggests how a more virtuous multicultural globalized society may be achieved in the future.
