Abstract:
This study explicates the significance of the olive trees in Zechariah 4:1–14 and Paul’s metaphorical illustration of the olive trees in Romans 11:16–24 and draws a comparison between the two. Both in Zechariah 4:1–14 and in Romans 11:16–24 the focused attention on two olive trees may indicate a common theological parallelism that may have been influential in crafting Paul’s analogy. This study suggests the possibility that Zechariah’s olive trees may have been at the forefront of Paul’s categorical interpretation of the natural and wild olive trees of Romans 11.
Description:
This article is a dissemination of part of a PhD thesis submitted in 2015 in the Department of Old Testaments Studies, University of Pretoria, under the supervision of Dirk J. Human. (http://hdl.handle.net/2263/50713)
