I had no idea there were so many perspectives about one chapter in the Book of Mormon.
I had no idea that the olive tree is mentioned in so many other places in the scriptures.
This book greatly broadened my perspective about Jacob chapter 5.


"Joseph Smith explained the way to understand parables and allegories: “I have a key by which I understand the scriptures. I enquire, what was the question which drew out the answer?”Jacob poses two key questions in his introduction to the allegory, which provide some clues to its meaning. First, Jacob asks: “Why not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him?” (Jacob 4:12). Jacob then points to the Jews’ deliberate efforts to distance God and render him incomprehensible: they sought to create a God who could not be understood (Jacob 4:14). For their self-inflicted blindness God took away “his plainness from them … because they desired it” (Jacob 4:14). Here Jacob asks the second key question: “My beloved, how is it possible that these [the Jews], after having rejected the sure foundation, can ever build upon it, that it may become the head of their corner? Behold, my beloved brethren, I will unfold this mystery unto you” (Jacob 4:17–18). Among other meanings, a mystery is a spiritual truth grasped only through divine revelation. The mystery that Jacob unfolds, therefore, counters the Jews’ deliberate mystification of God and reveals the true nature of Jesus Christ and his divine activity in the lives of even the most intractable of men. Jacob’s two key questions alert the reader that the allegory will deal with grace, atonement, and their relationship to Israel." (Page 11)

"The word atonement first appears in William Tyndale’s 1526 English version of the Bible. He used the word at-one-ment to translate the Greek word for reconciliation (katalagē) (Romans 5:11).æ (Page 11)

Chapter 3 shows Zenos to have been a familiar prophet to Lehi, Nephi, Isaiah, Abinadi, and Jacob. To a lesser extent: Benjamin, Alma, Samuel, Mormon and Moroni.

Chapter 4 - A very interesting analysis of the use of this parable in the early days of the restored church.

Chapter 7
"For example, it is sometimes said that the rhetoric of the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible is finer than that of the originals from which it is translated. Joseph Smith thought the Luther translation superior to the Authorized Version. 2 The sixteenth-century Swedish translation of the Bible is inferior to the Authorized Version. Granted our belief in continuing revelation, we should not confuse language differences in the details of translation with the nineteenth-century doctrine of evolution, certainly not in the sense that things get better and better. A sinful community debases its language, a virtuous community improves it; and English in our time is debased."



Here is the theme of chapter 7
"But enough has been said, I think, to illustrate how packed and rich the Book of Mormon is. It is a quality that cannot be properly appreciated unless the book is read aloud and listened to. We no longer in our culture read slowly, accurately, or aloud to the soul; we skim. We do little repeated reading. We do not read for an experience, let alone for understanding, so much as to read for immediate “comprehension.” If we read aloud, and even more likely if we hear something read aloud, we take it as an experience. If we do analyze, and we must analyze, it must be to have a better whole from the parts after we have completed the analysis. Analysis has no value in itself. It has value insofar as it contributes toward the soul’s being able to experience and understand the whole better in the end." (Page 171)

"The significance of two well-known titles of Jesus—Christ and Messiah—is instructive. Messiah is a transliteration of the Hebrew māshîaḥ, a term meaning “anointed one.” Similarly, Christ is a transliteration of the Greek christós, which also denotes “anointed one.”" (Page 281)

Chapter 11
"It is evident from the biblical writings that both animate objects (priests, prophets, and kings) and inanimate objects (vessels and instruments belonging to the temple) were anointed with olive oil as part of an Israelite religious ritual. The religious symbolism of the anointing rite had four parts. (1) The anointing rite served to sanctify and set apart an object or person for divine service. (2) The anointing was part of a “gesture of approach” rite that qualified the anointed person to approach sacred space. (3) Olive oil, the material utilized in the anointing ritual, signified the Holy Ghost. Those who received the anointing were sanctified through the agency of the Holy Ghost, enabling them to enter the presence of Deity. (4) Anointed priests, prophets, and kings were types or shadows of Jesus Christ, who is the Anointed One. Their anointing echoed the anointing of the Messiah. Certainly the anointing ritual was Christ centered. Metaphorically, Jesus is the “Horn of Salvation” (Luke 1:69), a reference to the horn of oil that is poured upon recipients of the anointing (1 Samuel 16:1; 1 Kings 1:39, 45)." (Page 283)

Chapter 13 - The English translation (in volume 2 of The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha) that this discusses has lots of old testament references in the margin on what looks like every page. This chapter deals a lot with anointing and many references to Pseudo-Philo and other pseudepigrapha.

Chapter 19
"... ‘I have two goodly shoots to engraft [...] on you: Ruth the Moabitess and Naamah the Ammonitess.’” Both of these women belonged to idolatrous nations and were grafted upon the stock of Israel. The former was the ancestress of David and the latter the mother of Rehoboam and his distinguished descendants Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Hezekiah." (Page 469)

Chapter 21 goes into detail about cultivation of olive trees.
"Some evidence indicates that by 3100 B.C., five fruits had been domesticated: olive, grape, date, fig, and pomegranate." (Page 487)

"In this single chapter of the Book of Mormon there are many detailed horticultural practices and procedures that were not likely known by an untrained person, and may not have been fully appreciated by professional botanists or horticulturalists at the time the Book of Mormon was translated. Even today, outside of olive-growing areas, professional horticulturalists may not fully appreciate some of the unique aspects of olive culture. Given the extensive detail about olive culture present in Jacob 5, we must give Zenos much credit for a high degree of horticultural knowledge, which many take for granted." (Page 552)



Contents
Introduction, Stephen D. Ricks and John W. Welch
Part 1: The Meaning of Zenos’s Allegory of the Olive Tree
1. The Olive Press: A Symbol of Christ, Truman G. Madsen
2. Jacob’s Allegory: The Mystery of Christ, M. Catherine Thomas
3. Nephite Uses and Interpretations of Zenos, Noel B. Reynolds
4. Jacob 5 in the Nineteenth Century, Grant Underwood
5. The Allegory of the Olive Tree in Jacob, Paul Y. Hoskisson
Part 2: Textual Analyses of Zenos’s Allegory of the Olive Tree
6. Jacob 4–6: Substantive Textual Variants between Manuscripts and Editions, Royal Skousen
7. Language Themes in Jacob 5: “The Vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel” (Isaiah 5:7), Arthur Henry King
8. Words and Phrases in Jacob 5, John W. Welch
9. Graft and Corruption: On Olives and Olive Culture in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean, John Gee and Daniel C. Peterson
Part 3: Ancient Historical And Religious Backgrounds to the Symbolism of the Olive
10. The Olive in Greco-Roman Religion, John Franklin Hall
11. Ritual Anointing with Olive Oil in Ancient Israelite Religion, Donald W. Parry
12. The Allegory of the Olive Tree and the Use of Related Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East and the Old Testament, David Rolph Seely
Part 4: The Olive in Early Jewish and Christian Texts
13. The Last Words of Cenez and the Book of Mormon, John W. Welch
14. Zenos and the Texts of the Old Testament, David Rolph Seely and John W. Welch
15. The Olive Tree and the Work of God: Jacob 5 and Romans 11, James E. Faulconer
16. Romans 11:17–24: A Bibliography of Commentaries, Gary P. Gillum
17. Borrowings from the Parable of Zenos, John A. Tvedtnes
18. Olive Oil: Symbol of the Holy Ghost, John A. Tvedtnes
19. Olive Culture in the Second Temple Era and Early Rabbinic Period, Stephen D. Ricks
Part 5: The Botany and Horticulture of Olives
20. Vineyard or Olive Orchard?, John A. Tvedtnes
21. Botanical Aspects of Olive Culture Relevant to Jacob 5, Wilford M. Hess and Daniel J. Fairbanks,, John W. Welch and Jonathan K. Driggs ( )

This book is a great example of how you can write over 600 pages of exposition on just a couple pages of scriptural text.

It reminded me of the current trend in the non-fiction universe of writing the history of the potato, or an exploration of the orange, or shad.

(See a great review here: http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=203).

Interesting essays throughout. Well edited and great concept. ( )