Methuselah's Second Life

In 1963, archaeologists excavating the ancient fortress of Masada in Israel's Judean Desert uncovered a small clay jar containing date palm seeds. For four decades, those seeds sat in a drawer at Bar-Ilan University — dry, shriveled, and by every appearance, completely dead. They had been sealed in that jar since the Roman siege of 73 AD.

Then in 2005, Dr. Elaine Solowey at Kibbutz Ketura decided to plant one. She soaked the ancient seed, applied modern growth hormone, and pressed it into soil. No one expected anything. The seed was nearly two thousand years old. But eight weeks later, a green shoot broke through the surface. They named the seedling Methuselah.

That brittle, lifeless-looking seed had carried within it the full blueprint for a towering date palm — encoded, waiting, hidden for twenty centuries beneath an unremarkable husk.

Paul asked the Corinthians, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" Then he pointed them to the seed. What is sown perishable is raised imperishable. What is sown in weakness is raised in power. The withered thing you place in the ground bears no resemblance to the glory that emerges from it.