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The God factor and the pistachio tree

The Atlantic pistachio tree is not only a source of food and a lesson in mutuality, thanks to a very strange symbiotic relationship it has with an insect. It was also a goddess, at least once upon a time. In Israel, fall doesn't trumpet its arrival in a cacophonous changing of leaves. A rare one whose leaves do turn russet in the best tradition of more northern climes is the wild terebinth, a.k.a. the Atlantic pistachio – oft-mentioned in the bible and a source of superfood for the locals before they were even human.

Some terebinths are low and bushy, like in the Valley of Elah, where David fought Goliath (1 Sam. 17:2 - elahis the name of this tree in Hebrew). Yet others have broad girths and wide crowns, in the rare places where deforestation over the centuries was avoided.

The Pistacia atlantica nuts among the “choice fruits” of Canaan that Jacob instructed his sons to take back to Egypt (Gen. 43:11) were pistachios (although the Hebrew word used in that verse, botnim, is today translated as “peanuts”). Today we know that Jacob did the Egyptians a favor – the true pistachio, a relative of the Atlantic pistachio, is now widely touted as a superfood.

Then there’s the grisly tale of the death of Absalom, son of King David. The Bible says it was from the boughs of a “great terebinth” (some versions say oak) that Absalom found himself caught by his famously heavy tresses, when his father’s general, Joab, found him and ran him through (2 Sam. 18:9–15).


See pictures and read article at -- http://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium-1.629771

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