Post Script on Tree Symbolism

I want to conclude my discussion of the meaning that might be associated with a tree.  Above all is the tree of life, which Nephi represented as the “love of God.”  The love of God, of course, is manifested in the gift of his Son (John 3:16), who worked out the atonement and offers eternal life to those who partake of the fruit of the tree and accept him.  By extension, the tree may represent the results of accepting Christ, which is salvation and exaltation in God’s heavenly Kingdom. The love of God also manifests itself in the hearts of those who partake of Christ and is delicious and satisfying in the here and now.  This tree may also symbolize the means by which salvation and blessing are accessed, the great plan of happiness that is the Gospel, and its ordinances, along with repentance and righteous living.

This tree is also representative of the atonement of Christ, as he was lifted up and suffered on the tree that was a cross.  The tree may also symbolize Christ himself, as the giver of life, or his power and priesthood which is inseparable from Christ himself.  The fruit of the olive tree is used to anoint kings and priests, and to give blessings of health and vitality.

In some senses, this tree may represent distinctions in gender roles of the highest order.  Trees provide elevated vision, sustenance, and shelter, which may equate to the preside, provide, and protect for fathers in the Family Proclamation.  As Cassler suggests, the sons of God administer the ordinances of salvation and exaltation and in that way may preside over the  the doorway through the veil that brings us home to God.  This of course suggests a second tree which relates to the nurturing capacity of women, that of bringing souls to mortality and the perpetuation of the fullness of life and love in families.

My Book of Mormon reading strategies

I recognize the importance of regular study of the Book of Mormon, which can be an anchor to our faith in may ways.  But what reading strategy is best?  I have worked with several approaches that give different benefits:
 
1) Read the book all the way through from front to back.  The tried and true method.

2) Read the book all the way through from back to front (a chapter at a time, starting with Moroni 10, then Moroni 9, etc.)  This approach has two advantages.  First, it cuts you loose from the chronological setting for the chapter, and therefore may give a little more focus to the message; 2) It emphasizes the end of the book instead of the beginning.  We all know First Nephi, because we have started reading the book many times.  This put emphasis on the destruction of the Nephite civilization, Mormon and Moroni’s doctrinal messages, the Jaredites, etc.

3) Study the book topically and write short articles about what you learn.  For me, writing consolidates learning and gives me ownership of the insights.

4) Read select passages over and over until you have exhausted any insights (the rabbinical approach).  This is my current strategy.  I have made a list of major doctrinal pieces that occupy the majority of whole chapters or more.  Then I read the entire passage, then I read it again.  And again.  And again.  I follow-up on ideas that the reading suggests in other writings.  I make notes on insights received or I may do the short article thing.  I don’t leave this passage and go to the next, until I have exhausted my interest in this one.

This is my list of major doctrinal chapters in the Book of Mormon:
1 Ne 8, 10-15   The tree of life–vision of the Gospel plan, atonement
1 Ne 22        Discussion of Isaiah’s prophecies of latter days
2 Ne 1-4       Lehi’s prophecy and blessings to his children
2 Ne 6          Jacob’s prophecy of the Jews
2 Ne 9          Atonement and resurrection
2 Ne 10        Jacob’s prophecy of latter days
2 Ne 25        Nephi’s prophecy of the Jews and Christ
2 Ne 26        Nephi’s prophecy of Christ’s visit to the Americas/Priestcrafts
2 Ne 27        Book of Mormon prophecy
2 Ne 28-30   Conditions in the latter days/rejection of the Book of Mormon/restoration of 
     Israel
2 Ne 31        The strait and narrow way/first principles
2 Ne 32        Holy Ghost
2 Ne 33        Nephi’s last testimony
Jacob 2        Chastity
Jacob 3        Pure of heart
Jacob 4        Christ
Jacob 5-6     Allegory of the olive trees/prophecy of the House of Israel
Mosiah 2-5   King Benjamin address
Mosiah 12-16  Abinidi--The Ten Commandments/how salvation comes/redemption through
     Christ
Alma 5        Spiritual rebirth
Alma 7        Prophecy of Christ/repentance/redemption
Alma 9-14   The coming and mission of Christ/repentance/redemption/priesthood
     responsibilities
Alma 26        Ammon’s gratitude
Alma 29        Alma’s desires
Alma 32        Faith
Alma 33        Worship/prayer
Alma 34        Repentance/prayer
Alma 36        Repentance and forgiveness
Alma 37        Missionary work
Alma 38        Alma’s testimony/salvation
Alma 39        Sexual sin/repentance
Alma 40-42   Atonement/mercy/resurrection
Helaman 13-15   Samuel’s prophecy
3 Ne 12-14   Sermon at the temple
3 Ne 15-16, 20-21   Israel and the last days
3 Ne 18        Sacrament
3 Ne 27        The gospel, atonement
3 Ne 29        The Book of Mormon and the last days
Mormon 7    Invitation to the Lamanites of our day
Mormon 8    Book of Mormon coming forth/reactions and warnings
Mormon 9    Miracles and signs
Ether 3        Faith and perfect knowledge
Ether 8        Secret combinations/freedom
Ether 12      Faith, hope and charity
Moroni 7      Faith, hope and charity
Moroni 8      Baptism of little children/First principles
Moroni 10    Spiritual gifts/Sanctification

Norman Rockwell exhibit at BYU

Wendy and I saw an exhibition of Norman Rockwell's work at the BYU MOA today.  By far my favorite piece was called “The Problem We All Live With, ” a  painting by Rickwell depicting 6-year old Ruby being escorted to school by U S Marshalls.

Here is the story of this happening.  It is a wonderful story of faith and prayer:

"...In 1960, six years after the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional. Ruby was one of four first-graders selected to integrate two elementary schools. She was sent alone to William Frantz Public School.


"On Ruby’s first day, 150 protesters gathered outside. They chanted, “Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate.” Six-year-old Ruby was oblivious to the meaning, and later recalled singing the rhyme to jump rope. She would not understand the cause for the commotion until months later, when a classmate told her, “I can’t play with you. My mama said not to because you’re a nigger.”

"As she left school that first day, Ruby saw someone in the crowd carrying a black doll in a coffin. Her autobiography "Through My Eyes" shows a photograph of smiling demonstrators posing with the coffin for the cameras — a haunting image. When Ruby arrived the next day, some spat at her and shouted, “Go home, nigger.” One woman screamed, “I'm going to poison you. I'll find a way.” Ruby recalls, “She made the same threat every morning.”

"Ruby was not their only target. The crowd also threatened each white student, hoping to shut down the school entirely. After several days, only three of the 576 white children arrived for school.
 
"One was the daughter of the Rev. Lloyd Foreman, a Methodist minister undeterred by the raucous mob. Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck described how a group known colloquially as the “cheerleaders” hurled insults at the minister and his daughter: “No newspaper had printed the words these women shouted. … But now I heard the words, bestial and filthy and degenerate.”

"Another white student endured for three weeks, but the little girl awoke one night screaming. She pleaded not to be sent back to school with “those ugly ladies; those ladies who yell so ugly.” Her family packed up and left Louisiana.

"Ruby also had nightmares. “Did you say your prayers before you went to sleep?” her mother would ask. “Honey, that’s why you’re having a bad dream. Go back now, and say your prayers.” Remembering those moments, Ruby writes, “Somehow it always worked. Kneeling at the side of my bed and talking to the Lord made everything okay.” She also remembers: “My mother and our pastor always said you have to pray for your enemies and people who do you wrong, and that’s what I did.”

"Ruby’s prayers are the subject of the children’s book "The Story of Ruby Bridges" by Dr. Robert Coles. Concerned about the trauma to Ruby, Coles had offered counseling. One school morning, Ruby’s teacher watched as Ruby stopped in front of the screaming mob. Her lips moved. Coles later asked Ruby what she had said to the crowd. “I wasn’t talking,” Ruby responded. “I was praying for them.” When Coles asked why, Ruby answered, “Well, don’t you think they need praying for?”

"Every morning and afternoon, she said the same prayer: “Please, Dear God, forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing.” Recognizing the words of Jesus, Coles reflected in an interview, “Now, I’d heard that some place before. … It silenced me.” Ruby’s parents could not read or write, Coles noted, “and yet they had taught her biblical truths in a way that she was to live them out. I would like to see some of us who have fancy educations bring up our children similarly.”

"It is fitting that Norman Rockwell gave us the enduring image of Ruby Bridges. Few routines could be more ordinary than a child’s daily arrival to school. Yet little Ruby was at the center of an extraordinary conflict. How did she endure? By the most ordinary of means — prayer. It’s hidden from Rockwell’s painting, but when faced with “The Problem We All Live With,” Ruby sought help from a source of strength available to each of us.

"America changed as a little girl outlasted her enemies by praying for them."    (From a Deseret News op-ed piece, by Michael Erickson)

Interpreting the Tree(s) of Life

Undoubtedly, the tree of life motif might be interpreted in multiple ways.  The ancient Jewish rabbis taught that there were four levels of meaning in the interpretation of text in biblical study, 1) the plain or contextual meaning, 2) the allegorical or implied meaning/hints, 3) the metaphorical meaning as compared to other scripture and literature, and 4) the hidden or mystic meaning.  Symbols may suggest multiple meanings, for example baptism may suggest the death and burial of the old evil person, or our rebirth into a new life, or remembering the death, burial and resurrection of the Savior and his atonement for our sins, or represent a covenant to follow the example of Christ in our lives.  None of these interpretations is wrong.  The Savior often spoke in parables, which only the spiritually attuned could understand.  We have sometimes been advised as temple workers, when asked about the meaning of various symbolic representations in the temple, to avoid giving dogmatic interpretations, but rather to suggest seeking the Spirit to the person with the question.  Let that Spirit tailor the interpretation to the needs of the individual patron.

One of the challenges in understanding the tree of life is to compare how Lehi and Nephi’s tree relates to the trees in the Garden of Eden.  Griggs in the study just summarized gives what seems to be a contradictory response to this question.  First, he avers that the trees of life in the two circumstances are not the same (“another tree”), since fruit of the Garden tree was forbidden to be eaten and the Lehi-Nephi tree had partaking of the fruit of the tree the most important objective of the person’s spiritual quest in this life.  Yet in the same paragraph he postulates a second tree in the Lehi-Nephi scenario of which men continue to eat “the deadening fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil” which appears to imply that the two sets of trees are the same. 

Griggs also gives a negative cast to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that it represents worldly and evil choices. This is like in the Lehi-Nephi dream the filthy water or the great and spacious building and may be consistent with Lehi’s interpretation of the forbidden fruit as bitter (2 Ne. 2:15).  Yet generally in LDS theology, the fall of Adam and Eve is not seen as a negative but a necessity.  Without the fall “the great plan of happiness would have been frustrated.  There would have been no children, no blood, no mortality and death, no probationary experience on earth, no atoning sacrifice, no forgiveness, no resurrection and thus no hope for joy here or eternal life hereafter.” (Dennis L. Largey, “Book of Mormon Reference Companion, Deseret Book, 2003, p. 264)

Here is another way to interpret the symbolism of the two trees in the Garden of Eden that I find interesting, that helps interpret gender roles and differences in a way that might explain some LDS doctrines about men, women, and families.  It seems to suggest that both the of the trees were heavenly in origin and had heavenly purposes.  Is that true?  Well, to me it has a good feel.  But it is symbolic interpretation that teaches some principles--

“The LDS do not believe that the Fall was a great tragedy. Rather, we believe that the Fall was foreordained, that it was for our progression, and thus the Fall was a blessing. Number two, the LDS do not believe that Eve sinned in partaking of the fruit of the First Tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And number three, because the LDS do not believe Eve sinned, we also do not believe that Eve was punished by God for her role in partaking of the fruit, but rather rewarded.

“The Great Plan of Happiness devised for the children of God mandated that they leave their heavenly home, receive a mortal body as a blessing, enter into full agency by being separated from God, and then return once more to their heavenly home to be judged for how they used their agency.  That is, the Plan was to be a “round,” if you will: it would take us from our heavenly home and, if we walked that path well, the plan would bring us back to our heavenly home, now much more like our Heavenly Parents, with much more knowledge, a fuller agency, a desire to choose the right, with so much more than we ever could have acquired if we had stayed in heaven with a pale or dilute version of agency.

“Only the children could choose to leave, and to bring to pass a separation from their divine parents.  And so in the Garden were placed a son and a daughter of God, and two trees.  Two persons, two trees.

“Both Trees represented doorways along the journey of the Great Plan.  The First Tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, symbolized the doorway leading from heaven, and the ordinances of entering mortality with a mortal body, gaining full agency, and having the light of Christ awakened within.  The Second Tree, the tree of eternal life, symbolized the ordinances of salvation and exaltation, and the doorway back to our heavenly home...

“...The First Tree was the gift to be given by women in the Great Plan.  It is through women that souls journey to mortality and gain their agency, and in general it is through the nurturing of women, their nurturing love of their children, that the light of Christ is awakened within each soul.  And we should include in that list of souls Jesus the Christ. Even Christ our Lord was escorted to mortality and veiled in flesh through the gift of a woman, fed at his mother’s breast, and awakened to all that is good and sweet in the world. Women escort every soul through the veil to mortal life and full agency.  It is interesting to think that even Adam, who was created before Eve, entered into full mortality and full agency by accepting the gift of the First Tree from the hand of a woman.  In a sense, Adam himself was born of Eve...

What gift will Adam give to further the Great Plan?  The LDS believe that Adam and his sons will give the gift of the fruit of the Second Tree to the children of God, those who are worthy to receive it, just as Eve and her daughters give the fruit of the First Tree to all who are worthy to partake of it.  The fruit of the Second Tree is the ordinances of salvation and exaltation administered by the sons of God.  Just as the doorway through the veil into this life is administered and guarded over by the women, the daughters of God, so the doorway through the veil that brings us home is administered and guarded over by the sons of God.  And those that have accepted the gift of the Second Tree from the hands of the sons of God will pass through that veil and back to that celestial place where they can be with their Parents once more.

Just as Adam was asked to hearken to Eve and received the fruit of the First Tree, Eve is asked by God to hearken to Adam in accepting the fruit of the Second Tree.  We would be remiss if we did not see that there were two hearkenings, two gifts given, two gifts received, two stewardships.

That means that priesthood, in the LDS understanding, is not some extra given to men and denied women.  Priesthood is a man’s apprenticeship to become a heavenly father, and it is clear from LDS doctrine that women have their own apprenticeship to become like their heavenly mother.  The ordinances—and they are ordinances—of body and of agency—pregnancy, childbirth, lactation—the spiritual ordinances of the First Tree are not less powerful or spiritual than the ordinances of the Second Tree.  Women have their own godly power.

Some have erroneously felt that the Church and its male leaders preside over the members’ families, and that somehow that means that men are to rule over women.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The Restored Gospel helps us see that the Church is intended to be the gift that the sons of God give to the family, just as the daughters of God give a great gift to the family.  The Church, then, is but an auxiliary to the family, which stands above it in the eternal plan.  Elder Jeffrey R. Holland,... has said, “There might be wards and stakes in heaven—I don’t know anything about them—or there may well be some other organization that we don’t know much about.  What we do know will exist in heaven is families.  And most of what has been revealed about our afterlife, our eternal life, our celestial life, focuses on family organization…” The family is the divine organization, and we know from LDS doctrine that, in the family, women and men rule as equals.  President James E. Faust, of the First Presidency of the LDS Church, said: “Every father is to his family a patriarch and every mother a matriarch as coequals in their distinctive parental roles.”  (Valerie Hudson Cassler  “I am a Mormon Because I am a Feminist” http://mormonscholarstestify.org/1718/valerie-hudson-cassler)

More about trees: The Tree of Life

 

     Continuing our family dialog (or maybe its my monolog) about the tree metaphor (see post of last Dec 11th).  I ran across the reprinting of an interesting and insightful 1988 Ensign article (“The Tree of Life in Ancient Cultures”) by C. Wilfred Griggs about the Tree of Life.  The author points out this particular symbolism serves to demonstrates the Book of Mormon to be an ancient text, because of its commonality with the pervasive representation of the Tree of Life, as an object of man’s quest to obtain and enjoy its fruit, in the art and literature of every ancient Mediterranean culture in the period before, during and after the time of the prophets Lehi and Nephi.
     Here are some of the connections described by Griggs (my summary):

1) Small gold plates, engraved in Greek language and found in Italy, Sicily, Crete, and Macedonia depicting “the dead, wandering in the world of the shades, and [warning] them to avoid a destructive spring on their left, [but to keep to the right to find another spring] beside a white cypress tree.  After pausing for refreshment and nourishment, the wanderers continue to the lake of memory, where after responding appropriately to questions posed by the lake guardians, [they] receive eternal memories and enter into the gods’ presence, [with those] successfully completing the journey becom[ing] gods themselves.”
     The cypress tree is the tree of life and the spring nearby the spring of life.  The other spring is the source of forgetfulness and punishment.

2) In Old Testament and Jewish writings:
     – In the Adam and Eve’s exclusion from the Tree of Life included exclusion from God’s presence, and thus, whenever man regained God’s presence, a tree of life representation symbolized the reunion.
     – The Lord spoke to Moses out of a bush that burned with fire but was not consumed.
     – The rod of Aaron symbolized that God was with Moses and Aaron as it swallowed the rods of Egyptian magicians.  Later the rod blossomed and bore almonds as a sign that the Lord chose the tribe of Levi to bear the priesthood.
     – Messianic prophecies (Isaiah, Zechariah) speak of the Messiah in terms related to a tree of life.  Christ is called the Branch, giving light and life to the earth.
     – Zachariah also saw a vision of two olive trees on either side of the menorah (sacred lampstand) of the tabernacle.  Most scholars see the latter as representative of the tree of life.
     – In sacred but non-canonized Jewish literature, when Enoch traveled to the Seven Sacred Mountains, he saw a sacred tree similar to a date palm but more beautiful and grand than he had seen before.  His guide told him that the fruit of the tree could not be eaten by mortals unitl they were purified after the judgement and that they would have to enter the temple to partake.  In the Secrets of Enoch, the seer is shown the heavenly dwelling place, where stand the tree of life.  In the Testament of Levi, Enoch prophecies that in the last days the Lord shall open the gates of paradise and give to the saints to eat from the tree of life, and the spirit of holiness shall be upon them.  Ezra is promised that in the last days is opened Paradise, and plant4d the Tree of Life.  Jewish literature often portrays the tree of life as the seat of an oracle of God, as source of inspiration as well as nourishment, and a scared sanctuary apart from worldly cares and dangers.

3) Other Ancient Near Eastern Cultures
     – In a famous Mesopotamian epic, the hero Gilgamesh undertakes a long journey to find the plant that gives life.  His guide takes him to the washing place, to wash off his grime in water clean as snow, then he is dressed in a cloak to clothe his nakedness and a band is placed upon his head.  He then passes through the great waters to obtain the plant whereby a man may regain his life’s breath.  He is frustrated in his quest by a serpent which drags the plant away.   In a similar Sumerian legend, again about the story of the tree of life in the creation of the universe, Gilgamesh is given by a goddess a magical drum and drumstick made from the tree of life which is in her garden.  The hero loses them to the world of the dead.  An Akkadian myth tells of a shepard who to bless his people needs an heir, and with the aid of an eagle, flies to heaven to obtain the “plant of birth” to cure his childlessness.  Other wrings tell of Eridu, whose earthly abode is in a tree, so that the branches, used to sprinkle holy water, have therapeutic value.  A commentator states that sacred tree is everywhere the abode of a God, or is guardian of the temple.

4) Ancient Egypt
     – Countless examples of the tree of life symbol, found in representations of the lotus plant and the papyrus, in numerous artifacts, lotus being the symbol of rebirth and regeneration. The Egyptians frequently depicted life emerging from these plants.  w.
     – The Ished, a persea tree, grew in the temples, and ritual required each Pharaohs name at his coronation ceremony.  A small statue shows Ramses making an offering to the gods, while kneeling on the leaves and branches of the sacred Ished tree, with his names and deeds  to be inscribed on leaves of this tree.
     – Egyptian coffin covers often depict the deceased eating and drinking from a tree of life, and out of which the goddess Nut is growing.  In one figure she is offering food and drink to a man, who needs nourishment as he wanders through the dark netherworld.
     – Other artifacts show divine beings refreshing the pharaohs with fruit of the tree of life.  A pond or stream of sacred water often lies near or under the tree, with the God of writing inscribing the name of the king on the tree. Partaking of the tree is a sacramental act, symbolizing unity with the gods; this is not available to mortals in ordinary circumstances, but is found only in rituals relating to eternity.

5) Ancient Greece
     – The tree of life is a common mythological symbol of religious ritual.  It is the sacred palm in a golden cup from Minoan Crete.  Vases show the god of fertility or nature, Dionysius, kneeling before a palm or pouring a sacred offering or libation on a palm growing out of an altar.
     – Ancient Greek literature is replete with references to a sacred tree, or tree of life.  In the epic The Odyssey, the hero sees a tree growing out of the alter of Apollo, different from any other tree on earth. Apollo’s mother grasps a palm tree during his birth.  The newborn god is then washed with water and wrapped in a new white garment.  Stories also tell of Athenians visiting the oracle of Delphi during the Persian Wars to dedicate a bronze palm tree with golden fruit to Athena.
     – Often the sacred tree was an olive, not a palm. The token Odysseus used to identify himself to his wife is their marriage bed, carved from a great olive tree still rooted in the ground.  Later the olive tree on the Acropolis, believed to have been planted there by the goddess Athena, was thought be the source for all olive trees in Attica.  The victors of the Olympic games were crowned with branches and leaves from an olive tree growing near sacred altars at Olympia.  The games represented the ritual process of obtaining the tree of life, similar processes being described in many ancient cultures.  In Greek mythology, Heracles exemplified this process in his twelve labors, which would secure him eternal life.  In the last two, he descends into Hades, and acquires golden apples from the sacred grove of the Hesperides.  He accomplishes all his tasks but has to give the apples back to his heavenly guardians, because it is not proper for a mortal to have the sacred fruit.

6) The New Testament and Early Christian Writings
     – While the tree of life was an enduring symbol in the ancient world, with virtually the same characteristics, as a symbol of eternal life.  New Testament and early Christian writers realized that it could only point to Jesus Christ.  The tree of life is significant in the Book of Revelation, and those who overcome the world will be able to eat of it (Rev. 2:7; 22: 2, 14).  Other passages refer to the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, for example, when the olive tree becomes Paul’s symbol of eternal life for the Saints, both Jew and Gentile (Rom. 11:16-27; also notice the similarity of his analogy to Jacob’s allegory of the olive tree in the Book of Mormon in Jacob ch. 5).
     – Olive oil, a product or fruit of the sacred tree, was used not only used in the Old Testament for the ritual anointing of priests and kings, but also was used in the New Testament for anointing and blessing the sick (See Ex 30:23-33; James 5:14-15).  The name Christ (Gr.) and Messiah (Heb.) means “the anointed one” and anointing for divine kingship and for God’s blessing has special significance of Jesus.
     – The New Testament also alludes to the cross of Jesus as a tree (Acts 5:30; Gal. 3:13; 1 Pet. 2:24).  It has been noticed that the Greek word used for tree in these passages is the same word that is used for the tree of life in the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament), rather than the usual New Testament word for tree.  According to a number of sources, early Christians thought of the cross as a tree of life.  Here is a translation of an ancient hymn:
     “The tree of life is the cross which gives a radiant life to our race. On the top of Golgotha Christ distributed life to men.  And henceforth he further promised us the pledge of eternal life.  Our Savior typified his body in the tree, the one from which Adam did not taste because he sinned.”
Also from an early Church Father:
     “By the tree of death we were born to the life to come;...therefore, pluck believingly the fruits of life.”
Cyril of Jerusalem writes that the cross fulfilled the Old Testament symbol of life coming from the wood in the temple, on the ark [of the covenant], and even the rod carrying the bronze serpent: 
    “The Tree of Life [meaning the cross] therefore was planted in the earth, that the earth which had been cursed might enjoy the blessing, and that the dead might be released.”
Methodius called Jesus both the first principle and the tree of life.  John Chrysostom speaks of life through the cross, and calls the cross the fountain of life.

7) The Book of Mormon
     Griggs states that “the Book of Mormon provides an excellent example of how sacred writings preserve and transmit great religious symbols...”
     “The tree of life appears in the visions fo both Lehi and Nephi as a symbol of spiritual nourishment and salvation.  The symbol contains many critical elements found in Old World cultures: (1) the difficulty of gaining access to it; (2) the various destructive forces around and about it; (3) the spiritual qualities required to make its fruit acceptable and nourishing to its partakers; and (4) the divine nature of the tree and its fruit, which render them unavailable to mortals lost in darkness and laden with sin.”
     “The tree of life as found in Nephite culture had other–future–ties as well.  John Sorenson, for example, has noted that “Tree of Life symbolism occurred widely in Mexico and Central America in ancient times.  Many of the same artistic features occur in scenes there as in Near Eastern art.”   M.Wells Jakeman and V. Garth Norman have also documented specific similarities between some of those tree representations and references to the tree of life in the Book of Mormon.
     “Among all these representations, however, nowhere is there a better depiction of the tree of life and true meaning than in the Book of Mormon.  Lehi and Nephi learned that only by holding fast ot the rod of iron, representing the word of God, could people reach the tree and its fruit... Those who reached the tree but partook of the fruit without forsaking the world and its enticements became ashamed, falling away into forbidden paths.
     “The destructive forces about the tree included mockers and a filthy river representing the hell prepared for the wicked.  The tree’s white fruit, described similarly in other ancient cultures, was sweet and more desirable to the righteous than anything else.  The tree itself represented the love of God, specifically manifested in the ministry and sacrifice of the Savior.
     “Alma later used the tree of life motif in his sermons, inviting the people “to be baptized unto repentance, that [they] also may be partakers of the fruit of the tree of life.”  Although the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden tree of life in the Garden of Eden was well-known among the Book of Mormon writers, the New World prophets, like those in the Old World, looked to another tree of life with fruit they could eat.
     “These and similar ways in which Book of Mormon writers use the symbolism of the tree of life place the Book of Mormon solidly in antiquity.  But the greatest challenge of the vision of the tree of life in the Book of Mormon is not in tracing its history...  The greatest challenge is in making the truths it symbolizes an integral part of our lives.  Most men continue to eat only the deadening fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  The tree of life, however, is available to all who do not wish to live forever in their sins, and the Book of Mormon invites all people to approach and partake of the tree’s divine and eternal fruit.”