Was Jesus wrong about the size of mustard seeds?

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BenSinner said:
Couldn’t he have just said “The kingdome of Heaven is like an orchid seed. For those of you who don’t know, it is the smallest seed on the Earth.”
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So, perhaps He should have use micro measures and speak o computers and space travel, television, cell phones, and legalized drugs in the US…

How did He manage to Resurrect Himself or walk through walls or appear to five hundred disciples simultaneously or transport Himself or get the coin inside the fish which He sent Peter to fetch? (I hope you follow…)

Maran atha!

Angel
 
BenSinner said:
How can we differentiate?
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Well, we can tell (a) because he later told his disciples to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth and (b) because the Gospels were not given to us as the script for a documentary that was air-dropped from a plane. The words we were given are part of the greater deposit of Faith that we can trust are interpreted for us correctly as a whole by the pastors we are also given.
BenSinner said:
Couldn’t he have just said “The kingdome of Heaven is like an orchid seed. For those of you who don’t know, it is the smallest seed on the Earth.”
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Why would the story be related as if he were talking to a literalist when he wasn’t? It would have ruined the story to have taught a spiritual lesson as if his real point was to teach botany. The parables are the picture of elegant, memorable and profound simplicity. It would be a huge mistake to try to re-write them to meet irrelevant ends.
 
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Orchids are found in Israel; however, how many of Jesus’ followers were deriving their livelihood from orchid farming?

Maran atha!

Angel
 
Quit playing the gotcha game with Christ’s teaching…

All your questions are right in the text…

Very insulting other you say Jesus was lying…

Matthew 13

The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”

11 He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables:

“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’[a]
16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17 For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.
 
To expand upon what some others have said here, I think it’s worth considering that orchid seeds some 2000 years ago could have bigger than they are now.

I mean just look at what undomesticated corn looked like just 400 years ago as opposed to what it’s become today. Or strawberries. Or roses. As well as many other fruits and veggies. I know of at least two examples where the seeds were once much larger, but have since been shrunken down as a side-by-side of selective breeding. Strawberries are one. Pomegranates also were once far from the juicy, seed-filled fruit we know them as today. Many of the things we see and enjoy today are totally unrecognizable from their uncultured counterparts.
 
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Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter whether orchid seeds are smaller than mustard seeds. The more important question is why nitpick the parable? What’s the motivation for doing that?
 
i’ve never seen a “mustard tree” and i doubt that "bush’ is the tallest of “trees”

matybe Jesus (as a human) mixed up his metaphors that day

acorn turning into a mighty oak might’ve worked betterr…
"
 
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How do we differentiate? That’s a problem for Protestants who subscribe to Sola Scriptura. Catholics believe that Scripture must be interpreted within the context of tradition and the teaching of the magisterium…
 
i’m not a protestant;

i think that maybe Jesus fumbled with HIS choice of foliage for a parable; sh*t happens
 
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I would think it is more of a way of speaking rather than stating some botanical fact. Something very small that can grow very big. Mustard seed would be conveniently fit the description.

Orchid seed, for example, will not grow as big as a mustard tree and that would not want he wanted to mean in the teaching.
 
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probably not “tall trees” similar to oaks growing in in bronze age palestine

was the “mustard” bush the tallest vegetation ?

i think there may’ve been palm and cedar trees; which are far taller than than the mustard

i’ll’ve’d’to’ve’ had to go ahead & try to research this
 
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great post;

you explained today’s gospel better than my pastor

thank you
 
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Annie said:
Mustard seeds have evolved to be bigger than orchid seeds since then.

ETA: I was kidding when I wrote. Sometimes I have an obscure sense of humor.
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This is not as ridiculous as it sounds. Wild mustard has been cultivated by humans since antiquity, and the variation in its forms is incredible.

Cultivation involved artificial selection that accelerates evolution on a small scale. It doesn’t lead to new species, but it draws out and exaggerates specific characteristics. Consider, for example, how dogs take on so many different sizes, shapes, and habits.

One species of the mustard famiily, Brassica oleracea, has been cultivated by humans to develop varieties that we know as kale, collard greens, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower – all the same species!

The size of the seed is just one of many parameters that are influenced by human cultivation. That is not to say mustard seeds were smaller in Jesus’ time. Just saying the size is variable.

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This photo actually shows two different species of mustard, Sinapis Alba (yellow mustard) and Brassica nigra (black mustard).

Further reading: Thanksgiving turnips and the diversity of the genus Brassica | The Botanist in the Kitchen
 
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I once had a " Mustard Seed " pendant -

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It’s not the size of a mustard seed that disturbs me , but what Jesus said about having faith as small as a mustard seed .

“. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.”

Now that does challenge me .
 
brian_custer said:
i’ve never seen a “mustard tree” and i doubt that "bush’ is the tallest of “trees”

matybe Jesus (as a human) mixed up his metaphors that day

acorn turning into a mighty oak might’ve worked betterr…
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…or we must take Jesus’ Word according to Jesus’ Word:
31 Another parable he proposed unto them, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. 32 Which is the least indeed of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come, and dwell in the branches thereof. (St. Matthew 13)
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What in the Name of God is Jesus talking about? Perennials, flowering plants, botany?

When does Jesus state that a mustard seed grows to be the tallest of trees?
a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field
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Were there many farmers and horticulturists hanging around Israel planting orchid plots?

when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs

I’ve grown a few herbs (no many, mind you) but the best I’ve seen is 'they grow yay tall and yay wide–have you compared other herbs to the mustard herb?

becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come, and dwell in the branches

Yes, there might be some herbs on which some birds my rest upon (rosemary, for one); yet, are there many that become so huge that various birds could live/nest in them?

Even if Jesus were speaking only from a human perspective (which must be since He emptied Himself of His Divinity in order to Come to us in the likeness of man) why would He have to make a whole bunch of clarifications and qualify everything He said in order to not upset future scholars and pretenders?

Maran atha!

Angel
 
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Are these both mustard trees/shrubs or are you comparing a huge tree to a huge herbal plant?

Maran atha!

Angel
 
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