Hello VC,

I've got an NIV and it doesn't say that.

Rev. 22:1-2  Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, down the middle of the great street of the city.  On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.

Everytime corn is planted and takes root and grows it produces a crop.  If you live in a temperate climate you can sometimes plant corn twice a year and it will yeild two crops.  The tree of life will apparently yeild a new crop of whatever fruit it produces every month.  As you read further you will see that we will be allowed to eat of the tree of life without cost for all of eternity.  There was also a tree of life in the original garden and when sin came into the world Adam and Eve were banished from the garden because they could no longer be allowed to eat of the tree of life and live forever.

God bless you.

In Christ, Ted

Hello Jen,

You wrote:

The Jews didn't even consider the story of Adam and Eve as literal--although it is a very important myth. 

It's worth considering that the Jews didn't understand the Scriptures as regards all the prophecies of the coming Messiah and were the working force that sentenced Jesus to death.  Jesus even condemned them in one passage as being the people who 'killed all the prophets'.  Therefore, I'd just recommend caution when trying to bolster an argument with, "Well, this is what the Jews believed."  It would be my reasoning that anything the general population of the Jews believed probably wasn't right in the first place.  Jesus continually rebuked and corrected them as being blind and unable to understand the things of God.

God bless you.

In Christ, Ted.

Mar 3, 2010 -- 9:03PM, voice-crying wrote:

This is what the text says:  "In the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."  Revelation 22:2

I don't know why A tree is producing 12 different kinds of fruit, but, what I do know is that the tree is literal and I know that the tree is not Jesus.  Look at verses 1 and 2.

The first verse says:  "And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb."  (Rev 22:1)

If a person says...this or that is a metaphor you need to follow that statement with an explanation.  This book (Revelation) reveals end time prophecy [things that will happen in the future]; it is not a secret.  There are many things that I don't understand and this is just one of them.

Actually the Bible, just like most of us in everyday life, uses metaphors all the time w/o saying "this is a metaphor" and w/o giving an explanation.  The Psalm I quoted earlier does not say "God is like a rock... metaphorically, of course".  It doesn't explain WHY God is a rock, it just says "God is a rock".  Similarly, when Jesus tells a parable he rarely says "now this is a parable-- a symbol" and only once does he give an explanation.  There are metaphors all throughout the Bible for all sorts of things, most are not "announced" or explained, you are meant to grasp it from the context.

There is nothing in the context here that requires this tree to be literal, and quite a lot to suggest it is a metaphor.

The NAS translates the word 66

 benefit 2, crop 5, crops 2, descendants* 1, fruit 43, fruitful 1, fruits 4, grain 1, harvest 1, proceeds 1, produce 4, profit 1

From all that I can tell there doesn't seem to be any Greek word in the sentence structure that would be translated as 'manner' or 'kinds'.  These words appear to have been added for unknown reasons.

There is also a word for word parallel translation here and again you won't find the 'manner' or 'kinds' there.

biblos.com/revelation/22-2.htm

From all that I find. a valid argument could certainly stand that the passage is referring to twelve monthly harvests of the same crop each month from the tree.

I must commend you, however, for asking the question as it had honestly never occured to me that there was a possibility that the one tree might bear different fruits.  Many of the commentaries that I checked on did seem to assume that there were actually 12 varieties of fruit.  All I can say is that it is certainly possible, but surely makes more sense that it refers to 12 crop harvests of the same fruit each month.  It's one that we may be forced to wait and see.  I know for myself that there are many such places in Scripture where I am forced to take that attitude and especially in the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

God bless you.

In Christ, Ted.

Mar 3, 2010 -- 9:16PM, miami-ted wrote:

Hello Jen,

You wrote:

The Jews didn't even consider the story of Adam and Eve as literal--although it is a very important myth. 

It's worth considering that the Jews didn't understand the Scriptures as regards all the prophecies of the coming Messiah and were the working force that sentenced Jesus to death.  Jesus even condemned them in one passage as being the people who 'killed all the prophets'.  Therefore, I'd just recommend caution when trying to bolster an argument with, "Well, this is what the Jews believed."  It would be my reasoning that anything the general population of the Jews believed probably wasn't right in the first place.  Jesus continually rebuked and corrected them as being blind and unable to understand the things of God.

God bless you.

In Christ, Ted.

I saved this.  I thought it was worthy of a post of its own.  I am so sorry to say this, Ted, but the Jews are not any more stupid, or likely to miss the Messiah any more than any other people in general.  The very thing we should take from that lesson is that MANKIND gets a mindset and then blinds himself to the truth!  It isn't a Jewish thing.  It's very nice that you have been handed this ancient religion based on the Messiah and others recognized him and spread the word and wrote it down for us to read now. 

It is a good question to ask ourselves:  Would we recognize a prophet or the Messiah were we in their position?  Wisdom tells me we very well could get it wrong.

What did they expect the Messiah to do?  Why did they not accept his geneology?  Why did they not accept his teachings?  We get married to an idea like inerrency of scripture and we won't let it go.  ;)

Peace.

A.

(edited in an attempt to fix code and clarify.)