ChatterBank1 min ago
The "Olive Branch"
Answers
No best answer has yet been selected by dave_c. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable...
"An olive-branch was anciently a symbol of peace. The vanquished who sued for peace carried olive-branches in their hands. And an olive-twig in the hands of a king (on medals), as in the case of Numa, indicated a reign of peace."
(Numa Pompilius was the second king of Rome and not a kind of dance or anything to do with underwater activities, if you're tempted to do a Google search!)
The Bible ark story certainly involved an olive branch but seems to have less to do with the idea of peace than the idea that dry land - and hence trees - still existed. In addition, the Bible held little sway in ancient Rome where an olive branch certainly was a peace symbol.
And I didn't say that you had, O! I was simply pointing out for Dave's benefit - as you are now further doing yourself - that the peace-symbolism of the olive-branch is far more widely spread than just the Bible.
Your reference to Genesis 8/11 reads, in the King James' Version: "And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive-leaf pluckt off. So Noah knew the waters were abated from off the earth." It has nothing to do with peace, but only with knowing the flood had subsided, as I indicated earlier.
Of course, the knowledge that ancient Egyptians and ancient Romans as well as ancient Hebrews saw the olive-branch as a peace symbol does not really help any of us to grasp why. Why not the date, fig or whatever other Mediterranean/Middle Eastern plant's leaf/branch might occur to us?
I can't help thinking of the Native Americans and their "pipe of peace". Why not a "deer-stew of peace" or a "hooch-goblet of peace"?
The real point here is that none of us has truly answered the question...in my case at least because I don't know. Nor, I suspect - given that it stretches so far into the past - does anyone else.
I presume, therefore, that the notion must have been handed down via Jewish oral tradition alone. Either that or we've been barking up the wrong (olive!) tree as regards the Hebrew/olive/peace connection for a long time! Cheers