about Figs, Dates, Laurel, and Myrrh
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.
about Lytton John Musselman
Lytton John Musselman has studied Bible plants for three decades and has published numerous books and articles on their identification, symbolism, and use in the holy writings. He is Mary Payne Hogan Professor of Botany and chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. He also wrote Jordan in Bloom (2000), which was commissioned by Queen Rania Al-Abdullah. He has lived and worked in several Middle Eastern countries, including serving as a Fulbright professor at the American University in Beirut (he has held three Fulbright Awards); he travels to the Middle East annually. He is also interested in parasitic plants (and edits Haustorium, the newsletter for those interested in the biology of such plants) and quillworts (Isoetes. Also a field naturalist, he is the manager of the Old Dominion's Blackwater Ecologic Preserve.
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about Garrison Keillor
Garrison Keillor is America's favorite storyteller. For more than 30 years as the host of A Prairie Home Companion, he has captivated millions of public radio listeners with his weekly "News from Lake Wobegon" monologues. Keillor is also the author of several books and a frequent contributor to national publications including Time, The New Yorker, and National Geographic, in addition to writing his own syndicated column. He has been awarded a National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment of the Humanities.
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