One of the highlights of my travels with RBC’s Day of Discovery team was the opportunity I had to visit one of the few groves of old cedars left in Lebanon: The Cedars of God.

'The Cedars of Lebanon' by Edward Lear, British. Oil, 1862.

As it is with valuable trees everywhere, our human stewardship of the biblically honored “cedars of Lebanon” has often been disgraceful. They were so valuable in ancient times that even by the time of Christ they were badly depleted. In the second century, the Roman emperor Hadrian placed a ban on cutting them—except, of course, for imperial Roman use! Reforestation has happened sporadically since that time. Modern industrial times took a great toll on them, and they were again badly depleted by the middle of the 20th century.

Lytton Musselman

Dr. Lytton Musselman, chair of the botany department of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, has assisted in some of the latest rounds of reforestation in Lebanon. As a visiting professor at American University in Beirut in 2001, Lytton was the host of our Day of Discovery crew as we did our filming of the “The Wonder of a Tree” series. He appears in the final episode. Lytton is also the host and content provider of the “Bible Plants” Website at ODU. You can find the “Bible Plants” link in the right sidebar. Four years ago—after years of research and photo collection—his book on the plants of the Bible and the Koran was published. Titled Figs, Dates, Laurel, and Myrrh: Plants of the Bible and the Quran, it is a great asset to me in grasping the outdoors setting of each biblical account.

Since the Bible begins with unfallen man living in a Garden and ends with the redeemed saints living in a Garden City, and since, in between, the natural world plays such an important role in the biblical narratives, I find it curious that Christians typically do not seem very interested in the natural history of the Bible lands. Because I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to visit Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan with Day of Discovery, I’m fascinated with the natural world of the Bible.

About a year ago I picked up in a used-book store a wonderful old tome by Henry Van Dyke, the author of The Other Wiseman and The First Christmas Tree. He’s also the writer of the lyrics we sing to the music of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore You.” This book is a chronicle of his own trip to Israel, Jordan, and Syria in 1907, and it is titled Out-Of-Doors In the Holy Land. In the preface he expresses what I have come to feel about the importance of the natural history of the lands of the Bible:

There are two things in the book which I would not have you miss: the first is the new conviction—new at least to me—that Christianity is an out-of-doors religion. From the birth in the grotto at Bethlehem (where Joseph and Mary took refuge because there was no room for them in the inn) to the crowning death on the hill of Calvary outside the city wall, all of its important events took place out-of-doors. Except the discourse in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, all of its great words, from the sermon on the mount to the last commission to the disciples, were spoken in the open air. How shall we understand it unless we carry it under the free sky and interpret it in the companionship with nature?

I’m sure, of course, that you and I have received most of our biblical instruction indoors—in our churches, and so forth—but because I have experienced the out-of-doors in the Holy Land and can still vividly recall its vistas, smell its odors, and even savor eating “St. Peter’s fish” on a table beside the Sea of Galilee, when I read the Bible today, it relates to me in a physical as well as a spiritual manner. One does not have to visit the lands of the Bible, however, to gain that perspective. Merely picturing Jesus as walking shoulder to shoulder with you through your favorite outdoor place will go a long way toward helping you grasp the reality that your Savior is also the Creator of much of what you love.

To me the capstone of honor given by a biblical author to the natural world is that great scene in Revelation 5 where the angels, the elders, and all the earth’s living creatures praise in unison the Lamb who was slain for our sin:

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders.In a loud voice they were saying: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.” Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever! (Revelation 5:11-13).