Win-A-Trip Contest Quiz (#2)

Rules

Identify each animal by its common name in Hebrew or English and/or its scientific name. Give at least one biblical citation (Old or New Testament) in which this animal is mentioned.

Send Your answers to:

BR Editorial Office, 5400 Greystone Street, Chevy Chase, MD 20815. (include your name and address as it appears on your BR mailing label, and your phone number.)

Hurry! The first 15 subscribers to submit correct answers to this quiz will receive a full-size replica of the famous 10th century B.C. Gezer Calendar, but all subscribers who submit correct answers to this quiz will be eligible to win a free trip to the Holy Land (round trip airfare Kennedy Airport, New York City, to Ben-Gurion Airport in Israel plus $500).

Second of Four

This is the second of four biblical quizzes. Two more quizzes will appear in subsequent issues of BR. After the fourth quiz appears in the Spring 1987 BR, the names of all those submitting correct answers to any quiz will be placed in a pool from which the winner of the free trip to the Holy Land will be chosen.

Answers

Answers to this contest quiz will appear in the Winter BR. Decisions by BR editors, in consultation with scholars, will be final. No employee of the Biblical Archaeology Society or relatives of employees may enter the contest.

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Answers to BR Plants-of-the-Bible Quiz

Correct submissions go into pool for Holy Land trip prize

In the Summer 1986 issue of Bible Review, we asked our readers to identify four plants of the Bible and give a Bible citation mentioning the plant Thirty-four readers gave correct identifications and Bible cites for all four plants; all of these readers’ names are now in the pool to win a free trip to the Holy Land. In January 1987, after the answers to the fourth quiz are in, we will draw one name from all those who answered correctly to any contest quiz. This person will win free round-trip air fare New York-Israel, plus $500. Remember—each time you submit four correct answers to a contest quiz your name will go into the pool. Increase your chance of winning the free trip by sending in your answers to all quizzes. The first 15 correct submissions received in answer to the BR Plants-of-the-Bible Quiz were sent a gift, Treasures from Bible Times by Alan Millard. Their names follow:

Answers to questions

(Win-A-Trip Contest Quiz (#1) BR 02:02)

1. Pomegranate (Punica granatum).

“For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of streams, of springs and underground waters, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey…” (Deuteronomy 8:7–8).

Additional biblical passages include: Exodus 28:33, 34; Numbers 13:23; 1 Samuel 14:2; 1 Kings 7:18; Song of Songs 4:3; Joel 1:12.

2. Mustard (Brassica alba).

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds; but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches” (Matthew 13:31–32).

Additional biblical passages include: Matthew 17:20; Mark 4:31; Luke 13:19, 17:6.

3. Carob or locust (Ceratonia siliqua).

“Now John himself had a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather belt about his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4).

Additional biblical passages include: Mark 1:6; Luke 15:16.

Several readers observed that the word “carob” does not actually appear in the Bible although the “locusts” eaten by John the Baptist in Matthew 3:4 and Mark 1:6 are thought to be carob pods. The ripe brown carob fruit is also called “St. John’s Bread,” identified in Christian tradition with the “wild honey” eaten by John the Baptist in the wilderness because of the drops of honey-like juice contained in the pods. Locust may also mean the insect by the same name; the Hebrew words for the locust insect (hagav) and the carob/locust (haruv) plant differ by only one letter. (The vowels are not written.) Nogah Hareuveni also points out that in Isaiah 1:19 [20] a passage translated “you will be devoured by the sword” (sword = herev) may be read “you will eat carob” (carob = haruv). The Hebrew words for “sword” and “carob” are spelled the same, differing only in the vowels used to pronounce them. If the latter reading is used, Isaiah would be saying that you will eat carob, the food that remains when all else is gone.

4. Tamarisk (Tamarix sp.).

“[Abraham] planted a tamarisk at Beer-Sheba, and invoked there the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God” (Genesis 21:33).

Additional Biblical passages include: 1 Samuel 22:6, 31:13.

Answers were provided by Nogah Hareuveni, director of Neot Kedumim, the Biblical Landscape Reserve in Israel. For further information on biblical plants, see Nature in Our Biblical Heritage and Tree and Shrub in Our Biblical Heritage, both by Nogah Hareuveni. (These books are offered by the BAS mail order bookstore).

Nogah Hareuveni commented about some of the answers to the Plant Quiz: “BR readers are smart” Yes, that’s true. So see the Win-A-Trip Contest Quiz (#2) and try your hand at identifying Animals of the Bible.