Another striking piece of knowledge appears where Luke records that the tax collector Zacchaeus climbed up a sycamore tree in Jericho (Luke 19:4). The relevant species, ficus sycomorus, did not grow in northern Mediterranean countries (Italy, Greece, Turkey), and in fact lacks natural pollinators in those countries.53 But this tree was characteristic of Jericho, according to the second-century rabbi Abba Shaul.54 How did the author know there were sycamores in Jericho? The simple explanation is that he had either been there or spoken to someone who had.
