Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? (3 Nephi 14:16)
While critical of the Mesoamerican models of Book of Mormon geography proposed by John Sorenson, Brant Gardner, et al., (which I accept), R. Kent Crookston, in his discussion of “figs” in the Book of Mormon, admits that such is not an anachronism as some critics claim:
A single textual reference to figs is not much to go on but cannot be ignored. That Jesus spoke of men “gathering” figs, leads us to conclude that he was referring to the harvesting of edible fruits, just as he had done in Jerusalem . . . Given their prominence in both the Old and New Testament, it seems likely that figs would have been among the “seeds of fruit of every kind” that Nephi mentioned bringing with them, apparently from their and Ishmael’s home region, into the valley of Lamuel (1 Nephi 8:1).
Hundreds of varieties of plants classified within the fig genus grow around the world including the banyan tree, the India rudder tree, plus a variety of tropical vines (“Fig.” Encyclopedia.com). Hellmuth has noted that some types of fig trees were used by the Maya and the Aztecs for bark cloth and paper and are still made into these products for tourists in Guatemala today. He noted however that in Mesoamerica, “Figs for candy and cookies come from fig trees of other parts of the world” (Nicholas M. Hellmuth, Economic Potential for Amate Trees: Ficus (Fig Tree) Species of Guatemala). It is the common fig (Ficus carica) that is native to the Mediterranean region that is the fig ordinarily cultivated for human food (Wikipedia, s.v. “Common Fig.”). Some edible figs can be found in tropical and subtropical areas however (Julia F. Morton, “Fig” In: Fruits of warm climates, Miami FL., pp. 47-50). Thus, while figs are a stronger fit to the Mediterranean eco-zones than to Mesoamerica, for fairness they are considered neutral in the test of our hypothesis. If it was in Mesoamerica that Jesus visited the Nephites it is possible that they were familiar with the gathering of figs. (R. Kent Crookston, Book of Mormon Ecology: What the text reveals about the land and lives of the record keepers [Provo, Utah: Village Lane Publishing, 2019], 43, emphasis in bold added)
