When I am writing scenes of life in ancient Israel, I am always trying to transport myself back in time, to be able to picture the details of the scene as though I was there. Historical research and even reenactment have become a vital part of my work on The Eternal Throne Chronicles. When imagining the textures, tastes, sights and smells of life in ancient Palestine, one cannot escape olive oil.
Golden olive oil flowed like blood through the life and economy of ancient Israel. It was an inseparable part of everyday activities. In Psalm 128 the psalmist says of blessed families: "Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots around your table." The Promised Land was sometimes called 'a land of olive oil' (Deuteronomy 8:8). A Hebrew idiom complimented a good man by calling him "pure olive oil."
An olive tree planted more than fifteen centuries ago
Few people would consider the olive tree beautiful: Its bark is tortuously gnarled; its leaves spiky and dull green. Like most trees, it is at its most beautiful in the spring when white blossoms cover it and then carpet the ground beneath like falling snow (Job 15:33).
Domesticated olive trees were often grown by cutting down a wild tree and grafting a cultivated shoot onto the stump. Fifteen years later the tree would begin to produce harvestable fruit. This may seem like a long time from our fast-paced perspective, but olive trees were frequently planted next to the ancestral family home. That property would stay in the family for hundreds of years--and the tree would continue to produce all of that time. There are ancient olive trees outside Jerusalem that were being harvested before the days of Christ.
The fruit is ready by late September or early October. Women and children would spread cloth around the trunk and use poles to beat the branches, knocking the olives free. The Torah required that any olives that refused to fall be left on the tree; orphans, widows, and other landless poor could come after and glean them for themselves. This harvesting technique was not gentle--new shoots were likely destroyed by the beating. This resulted in a good crop often being followed the next year by a poor crop.
Olives were eaten raw (olives and barley bread may have been a standard breakfast) or preserved by immersion in salt water. The far majority, though, were used for oil. A number of early Iron Age olive presses have been uncovered in excavations--some small enough to put in one's lap, some so large they were undoubtedly turned by pairs of mules or oxen. Larger presses used a rolling stone wheel to crush the olives. Smaller presses operated much like cider presses today, utilizing a lever and a lid to squeeze a basket of olives so that the oil ran out between the gaps in the basket weave.
Olive oil was used for cooking, as a condiment, as fuel for lamps, as a medicine, to make soap, lotion, hair products and for ceremonial purposes. Religious objects, prophets, priests, and kings were anointed with oil. Warriors oiled the leather surfaces of their shields to keep the leather supple and make it slicker so that an enemy's blows would slide easily off. Sandals, belts, and other leather objects would be similarly treated.
In Iron Age Palestine the smell of olive oil must have been everywhere. In the hot, dry climate a person might rub their face, arms, and legs with olive oil twice a day or more. Every household object would pick up this oil from the skin of those who handled it. Wooden handles of tools and implements absorbed it; it rubbed off on clothing and bedding. The scarcity of water meant that people did not bathe as frequently as they do today; an alternative was to rub the hair with oil to keep it healthy and presentable looking.
Olive oil thus became a symbol of wealth, health, and times of plenty. To the people of ancient Israel these were all inseparably connected to God's blessing. It is not surprising, then, that in the Scriptures olive oil is frequently used as a religious symbol and continued to be so right into the early days of Christianity.
For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novels Prophet of Israel and Judge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.
Having never traveled to Palestine myself, I have often enjoyed reading descriptions of the land by those who have traveled extensively there. I have compiled a few of my favorites for this blog post. Enjoy!
The Historical Geography of the Holy Land” by George Adam Smith (1966, Harper & Row):
“There is the excellency of Carmel itself: wheat-fields from Esdraelon to the first bare rocks, then thick bush and scrub, young ilex, wild olives and pines, with undergrowth of purple thistles, mallows with blossoms like pelargoniums, stocks of hollyhock, golden broom, honeysuckle and convolvulus; then, between the shoulders of the mountain, olive-groves, their dull green mass banked by the lighter forest trees, and on the flanks broad lawns, where in the shadow of oaks you look far out to sea” (p.80).
“Even in the barest provinces you get many a little picture that lives with you—a chocolate-coloured bank with red poppies against the green of the prickly-pear hedge above it, and a yellow lizard darting across; a river-bed of pink oleanders flush with the plain; a gorge in Judea, where you look up between limestone walls picked out with tufts of grass and black-and-tan goats cropping at them, the blue sky over all, on the edge of the only shadow, a well, a trough, and a solitary herdsman” (p.81).
“In the days of the pride of the land, what a plunge through nature it must have been, when one came down from oaks, through olives sycamores and walnuts, to palms with roots washed by the Lake [of Gennesaret]…Even now one sees proof of that luxuriance in the rich patches of garden upon Gennesaret, in the wealth of flowers on the surrounding slopes, and in the maidenhair fern that springs up wherever a stream gives water and a ruin throws shade” (p.289).
“[In Edom] elow 3000 feet flourish laurels, oleanders and tamarisks…Nubk or thorn and retem or broom abound and, in wadies running into the Arabah and Wadi Hesa, thick bush and reeds. Honeysuckle, caper, and other trailers are also found, and a flowering aloe in Wady Musa…On the limestone the olive, fig, and vine flourish…with the less frequent pomegranate, carob, and mulberry” (p.363).
“[In Damascus] you pass between orchards of figs and apricots. For hedges there are the briar rose, and for a canopy the walnut. Pomegranate blossoms glow through the shade; vine-boughs trail across the briar; a little waterfall breaks on the edge of the road. To the left the river, thirty feet of dark green water with white curls, shoots down a steep, smooth bed…For two miles more you ride between trees, through a village, over a bridge, between high banks of gardens, road and river together, flecked with light” (p.429-30).
“You do not have to be a specially religious man to feel cleansed by Palestine; it is a country where sky and earth seem to meet; the heavens brood so closely over the hills that you feel you could stretch up your hands and just manage to touch the golden gates.
And I wanted the flowers. Unless you have roamed through Palestine in the spring you have never seen wild flowers; like rivers of blood the scarlet anemones tumble down from the highlands that lead to the Jordan; near Nazareth there are fields so thick with crocuses that you would say the hills were draped with tapestries of blue; and only a few miles from Jerusalem there are quiet places where the little violet sword-lily—gladiolus atroviolaceus—grows so freely that you can pick an armful of it in a couple of minutes.
And always, as you walk, you remember that on these same flowers the shadow of Jesus might have fallen, the poppy that you pluck for your buttonhole may be a direct descendant of some flower that His hands had touched as He wandered through the cornfields. Even the anemones, that riot so profusely throughout the land, may be the ‘lilies of the field’ which He made to shine so brightly in the loveliest of the parables. So, at least, maintain the majority of the scholars, and they quote the Song of Solomon to prove their contention—“My love is like a lily among the thorns.” For the tallest of the anemones, which are indeed of the lily family, are always to be found among the thorn bushes, struggling towards the light.”
For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novels Prophet of Israel and Judge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.
Partridge to Pistachios: Food in Old Testament Times
By Timothy S. Wilkinson
www.timothywilkinson.net
Our modern preoccupation with food would have been foreign to all but the wealthiest people of ancient Palestine. As it is for subsistence farmers and pastoral people today, food was a means of sustenance, not pleasure. This is one of the reasons harvest times were so exciting: they were the only times of the year when food and drink flowed freely.
The Israelites ate two meals each day—a light breakfast during a pause in the morning’s labor, and a heavier dinner at home after the air had cooled in the evening. Breakfast foods were simple and quick: bread from the day before, fruits, and perhaps milk or cheese. During harvest season workers would simply eat the raw grain by the handfuls or parch it over a small fire. Families would expect to eat the same meal everyday for weeks or even months—until the next crop was harvested.
The evening meal, though, allowed the housewife and her daughters to exercise their culinary talents--within the limits of their budget, of course. Bread (leavened and unleavened) was the staple, made from freshly milled barley (for the poor), millet, or wheat, and baked into thin, flat loaves in charcoal-fired ovens. Hebrews did not use utensils at the table; they used pieces of bread to scoop food from the communal pot. The bread might be smeared with a little fresh butter, made by placing cream in a skin bag and shaking and squeezing it.
The common people at meat only rarely. Animals were valuable sources of milk and wool, and their flesh was hard to preserve; they were slaughtered only for special occasions. (The Philistines had an alternative solution to the preservation problem—they would cut off one or two of the animal’s legs and bind the wounds, keeping them alive until they were ready to eat the rest). When the occasion did call for it, though, there were a variety of meats available: veal, beef, mutton, goat, partridge, quail, geese, pigeons, fish, and lamb. The wealthy may also have had access to deer, gazelle, roebucks, and other birds. The Torah forbade the eating of fat, so the meat (already lean by our standards) would have been carefully trimmed and then boiled (in water or milk) or roasted with onions, garlic, or herbs.
Water was drunk when available, but this was not often. Most water that the common people had access to was not fit for drinking. Women had to laboriously draw clean water from deep wells, and it was often tepid and full of silt. Milk was the drink of choice, whether from camels, sheep, goats, or (les commonly) cows. The Bible only rarely uses the Hebrew word for fresh milk. The common practice was to put milk into a goat-skin bottle, where it thickened slightly and went sour; to the Israelite palette, nothing was better for quenching thirst. Milk was also used to make cheese (probably in the form of curds) and yoghurt.
In the spring, greens like lettuce, endive, horseradish, parsley and watercress appeared on tables as salads, perhaps blended with mint or chopped cucumbers and onions. Housewives flavored bean or lentil stews with leeks and garlic. Most meals featured raisins or dates (often pressed into cakes like pemmican) and whatever fruits were in season: grapes, pomegranates, figs, olives, apples, and others.
Dessert was also reserved for special occasions, and fruit was sweet enough to be a treat to the ancient palette. But locust beans (carob pods) could be stewed and prepared as sweetmeats, or confections made from honey, dates, almonds, pistachios, and gum Arabic. Wine chilled with snow from Mount Hermon or expensive, imported melons might have finished off the meal.
For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novelsProphet of Israel andJudge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.
The Calendar of Ancient Israel
By Timothy S. Wilkinson
www.timothywilkinson.net
A book could be written describing the characteristics of the agricultural year in Iron Age Palestine. The Israelites, like their neighbor nations, were agrarian and marked the passing of time by weather, harvest, and planting. The famous “Gezer Calendar” (believed by most experts to be a schoolboy’s writing exercise) is a small limestone tablet found in the city of Gezer in 1908. It provides us with some information regarding the rituals of the year. In combination with information from the Bible and other sources, we can get an overall picture of the passing of the seasons.
Abib (March/April)
The name of the month means “green ears,” referring to the ripe but soft heads of barley that marked the start of the agricultural year. It was cool still (50-85° F) and people would have lit fires at night for warmth. The Bible calls this the “latter rains,” when an inch or so of precipitation (snow in the hills) ripened the grain for harvest. Snowmelt and this rain brought the Jordan and other rives to flood stage.
Lentils are harvested. Flax was harvested and the stalks lain on rooftops or in streambeds where moisture would rot the stems and release the inner fibers that were harvested to make linen. In Philistia and Sharon, along the coastal plain, the barley harvest begins. Herb gardens, grown within the courtyards of houses, are also harvested. Calves frolic in the new grass and the smell of lanolin is everywhere as sheep are shorn. Storax trees explode in clusters of white blossoms.
Abib was a month of celebrations: the Passover, the Festival of Unfermented Cakes, and the offering of the firstfruits of the barley harvest.
Ziv (April/May)
Ziv means “brightness”—not referring to the light but to the blossoms and flowers that blanketed the country. Rainfall drops to three-quarters of an inch as the dry season begins; plants rely on the dew for their survival. Morning clouds burn off to clear skies and 60-90° temperatures.
The barley harvest spreads into the terraced hills, and sickles flash among the wheat fields in the valleys. The hills of Galilee are ablaze with flowers: lily, anemone, gladiolus, hyacinths, tulips, irises. Farmers plant millet and women harvest the cucumbers grown in courtyards or near the town walls. When fig trees begin to get their leaves, everyone knows that summer is near.
Sivan (May/June)
The dry season arrives in force. The quarter-of-an-inch of rain that falls this month will be the last until the end of summer. A hot, dry southeasterly wind spreads a fine layer of dust over everything and temperatures climb to 70-90°.
Spring is over. Under the heat of the sun harvesters bring in the wheat and on hills all around the land it is winnowed and threshed, filling the air with blowing chaff. Figs are “nipped” (pierced with a sharp instrument to speed ripening) and leaves are plucked from grapevines to expose the fruit to direct sunlight.
Tammuz (June/July)
Weeks of clear skies keep temperatures between 70 and 90°; the heavy dews of morning are all the moisture that plants get. The hillsides turn a reddish-brown as vegetation and springs dry up. Millet and lentils are harvested and the first grapes are tasted to correctly schedule the vintage.
Ab (July/August)
Heat soars to 95° Fahrenheit. No rain falls. The early grape harvest and the harvest of summer fruits yield refreshing fruit juices that replace scarce water at mealtimes.
Elul (August/September)
At last, summer draws to a close, although temperatures remain between 70 and 90° and heavy dews every morning remind the people that no rain will fall this month, either. Dates and figs are harvested. The general vintage gets underway and, by the end of the month, the new wine is flowing.
Ethanim (September/October)
Summer is ending; by mid-month it is autumn and preparations are underway for winter. Approximately half an inch of rain softens the ground for plowing even while parching, oppressive winds blow in from the southeast. Temperatures drop to 65-88°.
Long-handled hooks are used to shake the carob pods from the trees; these are used as animal food and for making sweetmeats. Harvesting is complete, and it is a month of festivals. On the first day of the month a trumpet blast commemorates Noah’s first look out the windows of the Ark following the Great Flood. The most sacred day of the year, the annual Day of Atonement, is celebrated on the 10th, closely followed by the week-long Festival of Booths, where Israelites remember their nomadic roots by living in tents on their rooftops.
Heshvan (October/November)
“Heshvan” means “yield.” The rainy season begins with about an inch falling during the month, and temperatures drop considerably to the 55-75° range. Plowing continues, and barley and wheat are sown in the fields. In regions where olive trees flourish, harvesters beat the limbs and collect the fallen fruit, then pressed to extract their oil. (Alternatively, the crushed olives can be thrown into water and the oil skimmed off of the top).
As the weather turns more harsh, shepherds bring their flocks in from the fields to the cover of barns and pens. Delicate saffron is harvested by hand and the fragile threads are pressed into cakes for storage.
Chislev (November/December)
Winter arrives in earnest. Two to three inches of cold rain falls and people burn charcoal in braziers indoors for heat. Snow dusts the mountains and mornings bring a thick layer of frost to the highlands. Highs do not reach 70° even on the warmest days, and it may drop to below 50° at night.
By the end of the month, though, the land begins to turn green with sprouting grasses. In valleys and lowlands, egumes such as peas and chickpeas are sown, and people traditionally enjoy spring dishes made from freshly harvested vegetables.
Tebeth (December/January)
The name of this month evokes the season; “Tebeth” means “to sink down” as one does in muddy ground. Four inches or more of rain flood the land and temperatures continue to fall (48-68°). The hills are frosty every morning and the snow begins to make its way to lower elevations; it is not uncommon for Jerusalem to see flurries. Mountain passes may be temporarily blocked by snow and floods, and poorly constructed homes are in danger of being washed away.
Unlike other parts of the world, winter in Israel sees the greening of the land as grains and the earliest flowers of spring emerge.
Shebat (January/February)
Shebat is the middle of winter, and the rain slackens somewhat to around two inches. Temperatures rise; though nights may drop as low as 45°, days reach the low seventies. Toward the end of the month as the weather warms, almond trees brighten the landscape with explosions of pink and white blossoms. Fig trees bud, and the fields are alive with frolicking lambs.
Adar (February/March)
At last, spring arrives. Thunder- and hailstorms (called the “latter rains” in Scripture) drench most of the land with two more inches of precipitation, providing the moisture and nutrition for plants to mature. Temperatures moderate to between 50 and 70°.
The land is painted with all the color’s of nature’s pallete. The tiny, red flower clusters of carob trees and the bright red blossoms of pomegranates are visible on distant hills like flame. In the lowlands, terebinth trees display their reddish-purple flowers alongside the bright green of their new leaves. In courtyards and small plots outside the city walls women plant cucumbers, lettuce, endive, coriander, horehound, tansy, horseradish, cumin, garlic, hyssop, mint, and rue.
Life in ancient Israel was inextricably connected to the land and the seasons. The pagan nations’ religious rituals and beliefs were almost all based on elements of planting, harvest, weather, and reproductive cycles.
Understanding life in Bible times is impossible without some understanding of these seasonal changes. It is an aspect of life that most people in Western cultures have lost touch with—to our detriment, in the opinion of the author.
For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novelsProphet of Israel andJudge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.
The Palestine I present in the Eternal Throne Chronicles is obviously a far lusher, forested, and climatically milder place than we find it to be at present. As with all things Biblical, there is a great deal of ongoing debate as to the ecological and meteorological conditions of Israel three millenia ago.
The ecology of modern-day Israel, though, is remarkably diverse. From the snow-covered slopes of Mount Hermon it is possible to view, in once glance, broad and barren deserts of yellow sand, lush green jungles, fertile valleys of checkered fields, plateaus and steppes of garigue, sandy Mediterranean beaches, majestic forests of oak and cedar and more. During the rainy season streams, lakes, and swamps appear temporarily all over northern Israel, and the fens south of Lake Hula once served as home to crocodiles and hippos. There are few places on earth with such variety of geography and climate within so small an area.
Many researchers believe that the dawn of the Iron Age in the tenth century resulted in a dramatic increase in the harvesting of timber, since the production and forging of iron require enormous quantities of fuel. Archaeology seems to support (or at least allow for) this interpretation. Israel was once a place of great forests, the remnants of which can still be glimpsed in a handful of preserves. (I have included below a few photographs of one of the surviving forests in present-day Lebanon, and a link to some further pictures). At some time the entire Plain of Sharon was a mighty, sprawling forest of oaks; the forests of Hereth, Mahanaim, Ephraim, and Bashan were all celebrated in scripture for their majesty and density. When forests are referred to by Bible writers, they are generally connected to an element of danger or mystery (David's hiding place in 1 Samuel 22:5, the site (and cause) of Absalom's death in 2 Samuel 18).
There is also some evidence that the current aridity of the Levant results in part from the logging of its mountains. When the land was still covered in trees, especially the hills and mountains of the Shephelah and Judah (which would have been taller three thousand years ago), clouds traveling inland from the Mediterranean would have been much more likely to drop their precipitation before evaporating over the Arabian Desert. This increase in rainfall, added to the fertility of a soil that had not been depleted by millenia of farming, erosion, and irrigation, add up to considerably more lush Israel.
The town in which I live in Washington averages only 15 inches of precipitation per year--almost 10 inches less than Jerusalem's current average. But Sequim is surrounded by lush forests of fir, hemlock, and cedar covering the slopes of the snow-capped Olympics. Admittedly, there is more to climate than rainfall, but this fact does allow us to entertain the possibility that the Israel of King David's day was a land with more in common with portions of northwest Washington today than with the barren hills of modern Judea.
