Christ’s thorn jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) also known as the sidr tree is a real, identifiable tree native to the Middle East, and it appears—directly or indirectly—in Islam, Judaism, and later Christian tradition. The connections between the three faiths are not theological agreements but overlapping uses, names, and symbolic associations rooted in the same landscape.

In Islam, the tree is known as the sidr. The Qur’an refers to Sidrat al-Muntaha, the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary, in Surah An-Najm (53:13–18). While the Qur’anic reference is cosmic rather than botanical, Islamic scholarship and popular tradition have long associated the earthly sidr tree (Ziziphus spina-christi) with this name. Separately, the sidr has practical religious use: its leaves are traditionally used for ritual washing, including funerary preparation, because of their cleansing properties. Islamic legal tradition also treats shade-giving trees such as the sidr as protected resources, discouraging their destruction because of their role in sustaining human and animal life in arid environments. In medieval medical literature the jujube appears fre-quently under various names, such as “sidar” or “tsal“, while the fruit is called “nabaq” or dum“. This is the confusing part, because it has so many different names. 

In Judaism, the same species is known in Hebrew as shizaf and in English, the jujube tree. The tree appears in rabbinic literature as a familiar fruit tree in the Land of Israel and surrounding regions. Its significance is legal and practical rather than mystical. The shizaf is discussed in the context of agricultural law, including restrictions against unnecessary destruction (bal tashchit, not wasting or destroying) and rules governing fruit trees, property boundaries, and communal benefit. Trees that provide food or shade, even if not commercially valuable, are afforded protection under Jewish law. Trees that provide fruit are forbidden from being cut down, and in Judaism there is even a holiday for the trees, called Tu B’shevat. The jujube therefore functions as part of Judaism’s broader land-based ethic rather than as a singular sacred symbol.

The Christian association is later and less textually grounded. The English name Christ’s thorn reflects a tradition that identifies the tree’s hooked thorns with the crown of thorns placed on Jesus Christ during the crucifixion. The New Testament does not name the plant species, and there is no definitive historical proof that Ziziphus spina-christi was used. However, the tree was common in Roman-era Judea, and its flexible, sharp thorns make the identification plausible enough to persist in Christian tradition and naming. This is one of the theories. Ever hike in the Judaean Mountains outside of Jerusalem, and dry thorny trees and bushes is about all you will find.

The clean line between the three traditions can exist: Islam names the tree as the sidr and elevates it symbolically and ritually; Judaism regulates it legally and ethically as part of a lived agricultural system. Mentioned in the Mishnah and Talmud, they are linked to the biblical atad and, historically. The sidr was also known as pilgrimage trees for women who were barren. Christianity retrospectively associates it with a central moment in the life of Jesus. All three traditions engage the same tree through different lenses—cosmic boundary, legal responsibility, and historical memory—without relying on the same texts or meanings. According to this article it is the only holy tree in Islam and the Druze also revere this tree for its spiritual importance.

The medicinal uses for Christ’s thorn, the sidr tree are vast. These are documented ethnobotanical use in Israel and the wider Middle East.

Medicinal Uses of Christ’s Thorn Jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi)

Source: Dafni, A., Levy, S., & Lev, E. (2005). The ethnobotany of Christ’s Thorn Jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) in Israel. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 1:8. https://doi.org/10.1186/1746-4269-1-8

What unites these traditions is that the jujube tree heals wounds, cools bodies, feeds communities, and thrives where water is scarce. It teaches patience, restraint, and coexistence with the land.

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A Holy High? It was often suspected to be part of religious rights. And cannabis or medical marijuana is being applied today in Israel to fight COVID-19. For the first time archeologists reveal that psychoactive cannabis was part of ancient worship rituals in the Holy Land.

Analysis of the material on two Iron Age altars discovered at the entrance to the “holy of holies” of a shrine at Tel Arad in the Beer-sheba Valley, Israel, were found to contain traces of cannabis and frankincense, according to new article in the journal, Tel Aviv.

Lead author Eran Arie from The Israel Museum in Jerusalem commented, “This is the first time that cannabis has been identified in the Ancient Near East; Its use in the shrine must have played a central role in the cultic rituals performed there.”

These unique findings shed new light on cult practices in biblical Judah, suggesting cannabis was used here as a deliberate psychoactive, to stimulate ecstasy as part of cultic ceremonies. Today people use CBD hemp oil for pain relief. Back then, the CBD and THC might have been part of a smudging ceremony.

Frankincense comes from Arabia. Therefore, the presence of frankincense at Arad indicates the participation of Judah in the south Arabian trade even before the patronage and encouragement of the Assyrian empire. Arad provides the earliest evidence for frankincense in a clear cultic context. Frankincense is mentioned as a component of the incense that was burned in the Temple of Jerusalem for its pleasant aroma. Today it’s used along with the cannabis plant as a popular smudge people use to clear the energy in their homes or offices.

Past excavations revealed two superimposed fortresses, dated to the 9th to early 6th centuries BCE, which guarded the southern border of biblical Judah. Highly important Iron Age finds were unearthed, including a well-preserved shrine that was dated to ca. 750-715 BCE.

Two limestone altars (the smaller altar is 40 cm high and about 20 × 20 cm at the top; the larger is about 50 cm high and 30 × 30 cm at the top) were found lying at the entrance to the “holy of holies” of the shrine.

Evidently, they had played an important role in the cult practices of the shrine. An unidentified black solidified organic material was preserved on the altars’ surfaces. Past analysis of these materials failed to identify their content and this dark material was recently submitted to organic residue analysis by modern methods.

The study reveals that on the smaller altar cannabis had been mixed with animal dung to facilitate heating, while the larger altar contained traces of frankincense that was mixed with animal fat to promote evaporation.

The “fortress mound” of Tel Arad in the Beer-sheba Valley in southern Israel was excavated over 50 years ago under the direction of the late TAU Professor Yohanan Aharoni.

Photo credit: Collection of the Israel Antiquities Authority, Photo © The Israel Museum, by Laura Lachman

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The relations between the Herodian Kingdom and the Nabatean Kingdom were very complex and involved political, economic and marriage ties. Through the institution of marriage with local dynasties, Herodians consolidated power in the southern Levant and later became Rome’s client state.

Intermarriage between religious groups was not uncommon, people were open-minded, until they were not. Here’s a little history of the way things were in the Levant, where major world religions brewed and fed each other:

The most prominent ruler of the dynasty, Herod the Great who ruled from 74/73 BCE to 4 CE, was a controversial figure according to historical sources, and one of main villains of The New Testament.

However, despite the popular tradition his rule was characterized by colossal buildings in Judea, including a renovation of the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, construction of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the fortress Masada on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert, the maritime port Caesarea Maritima, and monumental palaces like Herodium, 10 miles south of Jerusalem, and Machaerus, 18 miles southeast from the mouth of the Jordan River.

Although his father Antipater I Idumaean (100 BCE to 43 BCE) was an Edomite and his mother Cypros I, a Nabataean, Herod was raised as a Jew. How about that?

An ancient matchmaker

Herod used marriage to bring together different ethnic groups within his realm and making political alliances with other rulers in the same area. In the First Century BCE many members of the Judean elites were Hellenized, which was also the case with Herodians. The process of Hellenization enabled these elites to consolidate and expand their rule in the southern Levant.

The founder of the dynasty, Antipater I already designed a marriage strategy to boost his influence in the region and took a Nabataean noblewoman Cypros I as a wife. She was related to the Nabataean King Aretas III, also known as Philhellen which means Friend of the Greeks.

Kings as babysitters

Relations between them became so cordial that Antipater I would entrust the Nabataean king to take care of his sons while he was participating in the military campaigns against Hasmonean Aristobulus II (66 BC-63 BC).

According to Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian (37 CE to 100 CE), Antipater I used the Nabataean backing to contact Pompey and Roman generals in the east. Then Antipater I forged an alliance with Caesar, and for his ongoing support of Rome he was awarded with the prize of not having to pay taxes. 

His ascendants automatically became the Roman citizens, therefore his marriage to Cyprus I is only one aspect of a much broader policy that sees Antipater I taking advantage of multiple social, religious and ethnic identities.

However, political relations were not always idyllic: when Cesar was assassinated in Rome in 44 CE the East entered a period of chaos and the Nabataeans mistakenly sided with the Parthians. After the Romans defeated the Parthians, the Nabataean Kingdom was obliged to pay tribute to Romans.

The Roman state used Herod I to punish the Nabataeans when they failed to pay the tribute on time and in 36 BCE Herod I expanded his realm at the expense of the Nabataean Kingdom taking its northern swaths. Wadi Mujib, the biblical Arnon Stream, was a border between Nabataean and Herodian states and, according to a Greek archaeologist Konstantinos Politis, the late researcher Taysir Atiat found a Nabataean temple and a watch tower on the mouth of Wadi Mujib.

Within a Herodian Kingdom there was a port on the eastern side of the Dead Sea called Ain –ez Zara, with rooms for shops as it was part of the incense trade route. Further up an ancient road connects Ain ez-Zara with Machareus fortress, a border stronghold and a palace of King Herod the Great. It was a part of the defensive line with a small settlement under the palace, which was a place where St. John the Baptist was beheaded around 29 CE.

A breakup that leads to war

Herod Antipas (20 BCE to 39 CE) was one of sons of Herod the Great and ruled the Galilee and Perea, where in the former province established a city of Tiberius named after his patron Emperor Tiberius. Continuing practice of his predecessors, he married Phasaelis, a daughter of the Nabataean King Aretas IV. The breakup of that marriage was a pretext for the war between Aretas IV and Herod Antipas as the former invaded Perea and defeated Antipas.

According to Josephus, Jews attributed the defeat of Herod Antipas in 36 CE to the beheading of John the Baptist.

A few generations earlier, the romantic relation took place between Salome, the sister of Herod I, and the Nabataean vizier Syllaeus, who came to Jerusalem in 20 BCE to negotiate a loan of 60 talents on the behalf of the Nabataean King Obodas III.

Afraid of the pagans at Petra

Despite the objections from Herod the Great, his sister continued to date the ambitious Nabataean deputy.  Herod I had tense relations with Obodas III and paranoid, as he was, Herod I thought that Syllaeus would depose him and become the ruler of Judea. Several months later, when Syllaeus returned to Jerusalem to propose to Salome, Herod I added the condition that he had to become a Jew and undergo circumcision.

Fearing the reaction and potential stoning by his fellow pagans in Petra, Syllaeus backed off returning to the Nabataean capital empty handed, without love.

The identity of the Herodians was fluid and dynamic, transforming from one ethnicity, culture and religion to another. The choice of the spouse or partner depended on the constellation of power and relations with the Nabataean kings who were also politically submissive to the Romans.

When Jews rebelled in 70 CE, the Nabataeans joined the Roman army who crashed the uprising. However, the Nabataeans’ relative independence didn’t last for too long and Emperor Trajan annexed their kingdom in 106 CErenaming it in the province Arabia Petrea.

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