Abstract
Musselman set himself no lesser task than to see in its indigenous setting every plant that is mentioned in the Bible, to photograph them in situ and learn local customs and knowledge of the plants. This massive undertaking led him to traverse the globe. The fruits of this patient and loving fieldwork are presented in this book. Lest the ethnographic work not suffice on its own for accurate characterisation of the biblical uses of the plants, this research has been complemented, refined and extended through archaeological botany, so as to acquire the best possible understanding of the ancient context.
Written with a keen awareness of its historiographical roots, Musselman’s dictionary begins with a narrative history of the origins of botanic writing and the development therefrom of a Christian theological and biblical tradition of plant literature. The main part of the book lists under their common English names the plants that appear in the Bible; the scientific name follows, then the biblical passages where it occurs, together with a transliteration of the Hebrew or Greek term. There is also an index of biblical passages to help navigate the entries. The discussions focus on the points that the author judges key to interpreting the use of the plants in the biblical context, and in doing so exposes some widely held misunderstandings. For example, it turns out that the proverb, ‘like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances’ (NASB) most probably refers not to apples but apricots, of which some varieties have silvery leaves. This is an example of the difficulty of identifying to which plants biblical texts allude; sometimes this arises because of our uncertainty about the specific names they are given in the ancient languages, but it also occurs when the ancient languages are not specific and what is required is a well-informed imagination. Musselman’s entry on the crown of thorns, for example, reflects on the type of armed plant that was widespread and most flexible for plaiting, thus identifying it differently from the ‘thistles’ of the parable of the sower, though the Greek word is the same. Given such varieties of interpretation, it would have been helpful to include indices of Hebrew and Greek terms, rather than just Latin and English names. I also wonder whether the evidence of the Septuagint could not have been brought into consideration in interpreting the Hebrew text: the Greek apocrypha to the Hebrew Bible are included in the research, but the relationship between terms in the LXX and underlying Hebrew is not addressed.
At least one photograph of the relevant plant accompanies each botanical entry; sometimes there are also images suggesting more vividly the plant’s location or local use, such as the picture of a man incising a frankincense tree in Ethiopia, or someone stripping bark of cinnamon trees in Sri Lanka. It is disappointing that these images are in black and white, when so much of the book’s value lies in making vivid what most of us will never see for ourselves. There is a section of colour plates, but it includes only a fraction of the plants covered in the book and in any case the separation of these images from the discussions to which they are integral is an unwieldy organisation of material. Since it is already a book beyond the budget of the thrifty, would it not have been worth the added expense of full colour illustration throughout?
The dictionary does not seek to play a significant role in theological discussion, but the devotion to seeking out detail simply for the sake of vividness makes it all the more engaging. This is a book that many will enjoy dipping into for pleasure, as well as seeking out its authority on botanical exegesis that is baffling for non-specialists living in very different climes.