How many years can olive trees live? Could the trees in the Garden of Gethsemane be the trees that were alive during the time when Jesus prayed in the garden? -- Chad Garber (Atlanta)
Some olive trees can live more than 1000 years and still bear fruit--so I've read. Yet the trees in Gethsemane, and in fact all around Jerusalem, were all cut down by the Romans when they besieged the city in 70 AD. I believe the oldest olive trees in the Garden today are usually about 800 years old. But that doesn't mean some aren't the lineal descendants of the trees in the first century garden.
A web search will lead you to many sites about ages of trees. The only downside: their names tend to be given in Linnaean language (Latin genus and species).
