식물

Tree of Knowledge · The Forbidden Tree at the Centre of Eden

One of the two sacred trees at the centre of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2:9, called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God commanded Adam, "of the fruit of this tree you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die," Genesis 2:17, but the serpent seduced Eve, who ate and gave to Adam, and at once their eyes were opened and they knew they were naked, sewing fig leaves for cover, Genesis 3:1-7. The later iconography of an apple comes from the Latin pun on malum, evil, and malum, apple.

Bodhi Tree · The Sacred Fig Under Which the Buddha Awoke

The sacred fig of the genus Ficus, beneath which Siddhartha Gautama attained awakening at the age of thirty-five in Bodh Gaya around the 6th century BCE. The Sanskrit bodhi means awakening, and the species name Ficus religiosa means religious fig. The tree now standing beside the Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya descends from the original, while its oldest granddaughter is the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi planted by the nun Sanghamitta in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, in 288 BCE.

Olive · The Branch in Noah Dove, the Gift of Athena, the Sign of Peace

The evergreen broadleaf that carried Mediterranean civilization. From Genesis 8:11, where the dove from Noah ark returns with a fresh olive leaf, the olive became the emblem of peace. In Greek myth, Athena won the patronage of Athens by giving the city the olive tree in her contest with Poseidon (Pausanias Description of Greece 1.24.5). And the place where Jesus prayed before his arrest was Gethsemane, in Aramaic gat shemane, the olive press (Matthew 26:36).

Laurel · Daphne Metamorphosis and Apollo Sacred Tree

The tree into which the nymph Daphne was transformed while fleeing the pursuit of Apollo. As the sacred tree of Apollo and the medium of the Delphic oracle, and as the source of the triumphal crown placed on the heads of Roman generals, it crosses the Greco-Roman world as a symbol of glory, prophecy, and purification.