TREES IN THE BIBLE

With quotations and references, numerous excerpts from the Old Testame nt are cited which refer to forests, forest trees, woodland utilizatio n, damage to the environment, and environmental ethics. The land of th e Bible was once mostly covered with forests. In the Old Testament, th ere are numerous mentions of forests, today present only in devastated remnants, and forest treee species, predominantly oaks. Israel's poli tical and economical times of prosperity under King Solomon had far-re aching social and ecological consequences. The woodlands of Israel and neighboring Lebanon were plundered through excessive timber utilizati on. The Books of the Old Testament describe in great detail organizati on and amounts of timber shipped for Solomon's pompous buildings. Besi des bringing in huge quantities of the much sought' after Lebanese ced ar, an own Jewish fleet in the Red Sea was used for importing - togeth er with ivory, precious metals, and monkeys - also huge volumes of tro pical woods from Africa and the Far East. Favored by the political wea kness of the neighboring empires an oriental feudal state was able to develop around Jerusalem. This period of splendor, however, was soon f ollowed by a decline accompanied with the constant warnings Of the Pro phets. Especially Isaiah and Jeremiah interpreted the political and ec onomical decline also as cogent consequence of continuing offence agai nst those rules of the Mosaic Laws that were meant to preserve the env ironment. These are rules for environmental ethics which are based on remarkable intuitive visions into ecological interrelationships. Basic premise is the creating God owning the land which man may only use te mporarily under restrictive conditions. Core are the sabbatical rules for dealing with the lana, restricting its use to a period of not more than six years only followed by a sabbatical year, i. e. a year to re cuperate. Very bad consequences for the land (such as destruction of f orests, erosion, drought catastrophes) and its inhabitants were threat ened if 'these restrictions were violated. Towards the end of the Old Testament's history of ecological disaster, the worst predictions of t he Prophets had become reality: Israel and Judaea were dissolved, the city of Jerusalem itself and its temple destroyed, the Jewish inhabita nts at times expelled from the country, forests destroyed, orchards an d arable land davastated. In the New Testament, forests and forest tre es are not any more mentioned. Urgent social and political woes of the final era were superimposed over the worries about the environment ly ing in shambles. Under Herod the Great a last megalomaniacal building boom had demanded the last of people and what had remained of the natu ral resources. Besides, the writers of the Books of the New Testament were people living in a Roman urban world; they were less concerned ab out condition and future of the land and the natural environment than about the desolate political conditions of their time.