Something unfamiliar to people who haven’t visited densely Jewish areas of the world around this time of year, are the booths of young capitalists selling citrons. 1/13
These citrons are intended for fulfilling the commandment found in Leviticus 23:40 ולקחתם לכם ביום הראשון פרי עץ הדר וכו׳. The key line is “פרי עץ הדר” - whose translation is controversial. 2/13
According to one translation, it is “fruit of a beautiful tree”. However, Jewish tradition dating back at least to the pre-2nd Temple destruction is insistant that it refers to the “fruit of the citron tree”. So which is it? 3/13
Arguments in favorite of the “beautiful” translation tend to repeat a few of the same pieces of evidence. Theophrastus in Enquiry into Plants claims that it occurs in Persia and Media (he does not mention Judah), implying that before his time it was not imported to Greece. 4/13
However, we do have archaeological evidence in the form of pollen samples that make it clear that the citron was found in Israel prior to Alexander’s conquest. 5/13
Likewise, Persian walnut has been known in the area centuries prior. Other Persian plants were found in Mesopotamia and Anatolia millennia before Alexander’s conquest. So absence of direct evidence for citrons is not proof that they weren’t there. 6/13
Our record of when plants were imported in antiquity is frankly spotty. 7/13
Another claim is the absence of citrons from Nehemiah’s description of the festival of Sukkoth in 8:15. In my opinion, the “scholarly” interpretations of this verse have been nothing short of negligently misconstructions of the verse. 8/13
The verse lists the tree other species from Leviticus, plus olive and pine *branches*. No fruit is mentioned. This has been interpreted as proof that Ah-Ha! citrons aren’t part of the list! 9/13
But let’s analyze why this is a problematic misinterpretation that I assume originated from a cultural difference between the authors of the Bible and the occupants of the ivory tower. 10/13
Leviticus is a work of Law; it is prescriptive (“what you should do”). Nehemiah is inspired history (“what happened”). The only thing that can be deduced from this verse is that citrons were unavailable this year in Jerusalem. 11/13
Finally, the linguistic point: while אתרוג (Mishnaic Hebrew for ‘citron’) is a loanword from Old Persian *wātrang (perhaps there’s a more uptodate reconstruction), הדר may be a noun literally meaning ‘citron’... [the rest, I’ll save for a paper] 12/13
If so, this would be another case of Biblical Hebrew vocabulary being replaced in the spoken language of Jews in the post-Biblical period. 13/13
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