You're not going to be here. One of my favorite olive trees in the entire world is inside the walls of the BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies in Jerusalem.

I remember Truman Mattson telling us all about how it was long line from a helicopter

all the way from the Galilee to the center.

They were concerned about the shock of its journey,

but they promptly planted it, and then it died.

At least they thought it did.

We'll tell you all about it.

Welcome to Meridian Magazine's Come Follow Me, podcast.

We're Scott and Maureen Proctor,

and this week we get the immense joy of being able to talk about the Allegory of Zenus from

Jacob, Chapter 5.

This is the longest chapter in the Book of Worman, and sometimes is a mire or a bog for the casual reader.

Some of our students over the years have said,

we just can't understand all the symbols and the confusion

about the trees in different places and times.

Some of our Institute students have even skipped reading Jacob 5 altogether.

I guarantee you, we're not going to

start with this and you'll come to see why this is one of our very favorite chapters. It certainly is. To start with, let's explain a few terms so that we're all on the same page together.

First of all, what is an allegory? An allegory is a story, a poem, or a picture

that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.

The word allegory is from the Greek allegoria

and can be broken into two simple routes,

...