2000-year-old tree bears fruit—for the first time!

Remember this story?

Well, Methuselah's story isn't over!

According to this February 27, article from Behold Israel, Methuselah, who was in fact a 'male' tree and cannot produce fruit. However, 6 more seeds were painstakingly revived and were given the names Adam, Jonah, Uriel, Boaz, Judith, and Hannah. Then, Methuselah was used to cross-germinate Hannah, and the result was...

111 dates!

Which means, that these dates are as close as we can get to tasting what a 1st century person did when eating from a date palm. It's still different because of so many factors, like soil quality, air quality, etc. But still, can you imagine? This is what Jesus and the disciples would have tasted in the desert.

WOW! 

The stories that seed could tell...

Unless a seed falls to the ground...

"Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." John 12:14

When the Romans raided and destroyed the Zealot fort, Masada, near the Dead Sea in the first century, they discovered full cisterns and storage rooms full of food (read the story here).

When those remains were discovered in the 20th century, archeologists recovered fossilized remains of wheat, as well as some dried date pits.

Someone decided to test these 2000-year-old date pit and in 2005, planted one... and in today, it is still growing! 

Methusaelah is now 12-years-old and researchers pollenated him with a female plant—and made dates. 

Gives new meaning to Jesus' words in John 12, huh? We can hold on to our pain and our rights and our dreams and desires, gritting our teeth and standing our ground. And we can hold out for a while. Maybe even a long time. But the power of life—the power of resurrection—comes from being willing to trust God, accept His gift, and die. 

Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls

The caves of Qumran (there are so many!), where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

A group called the Essenes lived here and copied both Scripture and other writings. When General Silva sent 10 legions (12,000) soldiers to Masada in AD 70-ish, they stopped in Qumran on the way. The Essenes had hid their scrolls in jars in caves, planning to come back to them. Instead, they were all killed.

In the 1940's, a shepherd was looking for his sheep in an area, and threw a rock into a cave... and heard something breaking. Finally, the scrolls were found.

On our last day in Israel, my friend and I went to the Israel Museum and saw the Isaiah scroll, the oldest copy in existence. SO COOL!!! #israel #apictureadayofIsrael

Also, fun fact- if you stand at Qumran and turn around, the mountain directly behind you (the last "green" one in the distance in the picture below) is Mount Nebo in Jordan, where Moses died.