lordie, I was googling this subject and it looks like there might actually be a few references to cannabis in the Old Testament. It was called “kaneh bosm” which has been translated into English as “calamus” which is a type of reed, but it might be a translation error. A Polish linguistic scholar make a good case that it is actually cannabis, not calamus.
Wikipedia:
Identification of kaneh bosem
While sources agree about the identity of four of the five ingredients of anointing oil, the identity of the fifth, “kaneh bosem”, has been a matter of debate. The Bible indicates that it was an aromatic cane or grass, which was imported from a distant land by way of the spice routes, and that a related plant grows naturally in Israel.[57][58] Several different plants have been named as possibly being the “kaneh bosem”.
Acorus calamus
Most lexicographers, botanists, and biblical commentators translate keneh bosem as “cane balsam”.[59][60] The Aramaic Targum Onkelos renders the Hebrew kaneh bosem in Aramaic as q’nei busma.[61] Ancient translations and sources identify this with the plant variously referred to as sweet cane, or sweet flag (nl. the Septuagint, the Rambam on Kerithoth 1:1, Saadia Gaon and Jonah ibn Janah). This plant is known to botanists as acorus calamus.[62] According to Aryeh Kaplan in The Living Torah, “It appears that a similar species grew in the Holy Land, in the Hula region in ancient times (Theophrastus, History of Plants 9:7).”[63]
Cymbopogon
Maimonides (Yad, Kley HaMikdash 1:3), in contrast, indicates that it was the Indian plant, rosha grass (Cymbopogon martinii), which resembles red straw. Many standard reference works on Bible plants by Michael Zohary (University of Jerusalem, Cambridge, 1985), James A. Duke (2010), and Hans Arne Jensen (Danish 2004, English translation 2012) support this conclusion, arguing that the plant was a variety of Cymbopogon. James A. Duke, quoting Zohary, notes that it is “hopeless to speculate” about the exact species, but that Cymbopogon citratus (Indian lemon-grass) and Cymbopogon schoenanthus are also possibilities.[64][65] Kaplan follows Maimonides in identifying it as the Cymbopogon martinii or palmarosa plant.[63][66]
Cannabis, and others
Other possible identifications have also been made. Sula Benet in Early Diffusion and Folk Uses of Hemp (1967), identified it as cannabis.[67] Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan notes that “On the basis of cognate pronunciation and Septuagint readings, some identify Keneh bosem with the English and Greek cannabis, the hemp plant. There are, however, some authorities who identify the ‘sweet cane’ with cinnamon bark (Radak, Sherashim). Some say that kinman is the wood, and keneh bosem is the bark (Abarbanel).” [68] Benet in contrast argued that equating Keneh Bosem with sweet cane could be traced to a mistranslation in the Septuagint, which mistook Keneh Bosem, later referred to as “cannabos” in the Talmud, as “kalabos”, a common Egyptian marsh cane plant.[67]
Very interesting!
