Just about every culture and every religion recognizes, in some way, the importance of the Tree of Life. One of the best sources on this topic is a book called The Tree of Life: From Eden to Eternity. The widespread presence of Tree of Life imagery may be the result of a distant collective memory of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve’s choice to partake of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil and their subsequent banishment from Eden and from the Tree of Life.
It also seems to be a universal cultural phenomenon that people create and recognize life-giving metaphors in relation to trees and the fruit of trees. The Tree of Life is a pervasive symbol of permanence, growth, fruitfulness, shade, and shelter. Furthermore, many trees lose their leaves in winter but come back to life again in the spring, which has led to them being seen as a symbol of death and resurrection.
In the Nag Hammadi Gnostic literature, in a text called On the Origin of the World, we run across a description of the Tree of Life. Margaret Barker, a Methodist scholar of ancient temple symbolism and ceremony, was excited to read this early Gnostic Christian text, which says that the Tree of Life was of "immense height, coloured like the sun, with beautiful branches, leaves like a cypress and fruit like bunches of white grapes" (Margaret Barker, The Great High Priest: The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy (New York, NY: T & T Clark, 2003), 244; citing CG II.5.110). Early Christians believed that people could obtain purity, light, and powers over evil beings and destruction by approaching and eating the fruit of the Tree of Life.
In the very first psalm in the book of Psalms an interesting polarity is found. Psalm 1:1–3 states, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. … For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish." Here in the Psalms, we find one of the strongest early representations of what can be called "The Doctrine of the Two Ways," or "The Ways of Life and Death." (See Noel B. Reynolds, "The Ancient Doctrine of the Two Ways," BYU Studies Quarterly 56, no. 3 (2017): 49–78.)
Lehi’s dream, which also emphasizes this theme of divergent paths, can be seen as a spiritual fountainhead that influences later Book of Mormon thought. In succession, prophets such as Jacob, Abinadi, Alma the Elder and the Younger, and Mormon, draw heavily upon the imagery of living waters, which as Nephi explains (1 Nephi 11:25), is connected to the symbolism of the Tree of Life. (See Mack C. Stirling, "The Way of Life and the Way of Death in the Book of Mormon," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 6 no. 2 (1997): 180–186). Lehi emphasized how blessed people are who will keep the law and the commandments, following the straight and narrow path to eternal life. Seeing in his dream a complex scene of a tree planted in a garden next to a river, Lehi would have been reminded of powerful images coming from several religious and cultural directions.
Interestingly, when Alma the Younger uses the image of the "seed" in Alma 32, he assumes that his poor Zoramite audience is familiar with the basic concept of a tree being planted by a river of water. Notice that Alma explains that when you plant the seed which he wants you to plant in your heart, you’re not supposed to plant just any random seed. You must plant the seed of a basic belief in Christ—that He will be the Son of God, that He will come to redeem His people, that He will suffer and die to atone for their sins, that there will be a resurrection, and that you will be judged according to you works (Alma 33:22). Alma calls this set of beliefs "the word" or the seed, that if "ye shall plant" in your heart (Alma 33:23), it will grow in you unto "a tree springing up in you unto everlasting life," becoming a tree in you bearing precious fruit that is white above all that is white and sweet above all that is sweet (Alma 32:42).
Thus, the message of Alma 32, which is talking all about faith and the seed of faith, builds upon Lehi’s dream of the Tree of Life. Alma’s message involves going forward with keeping the commandments, doing God’s bidding, and being diligent in cultivating, caring for, and protecting this tender plant of faith so that you yourself will become, in effect, a Tree of eternal Life in the garden of God’s paradisiacal glory.
Figure 3 Welch, John W., and Greg Welch. Three Trees in the Book of Mormon In Charting the Book of Mormon. Provo, UT: Book of Mormon Central, 1999.
Thus, the symbolic meaning of the great cosmic tree has migrated from being a national symbol in Zenos’s allegory in Jacob 5, to becoming a symbol of choice here in Lehi’s dream as he and his family face an either-or choice, and finally to being a representation of inward fruitful righteousness and personal testimony in Alma 32. The image of the tree of life bears a lot of weight and yields fruit in many ways.
Book of Mormon Central, "Why We Still Have to Cling to the Iron Rod Even Though the Path is Strait (1 Nephi 8:13–14)," KnoWhy 402 (January 25, 2018).
"The image of the people struggling uphill towards the tree of life is a fitting symbol for life on earth. At times, life may feel like an uphill climb, a desperate attempt to overcome the effects of the Fall and return to the Eden from which we have been cast out."
Book of Mormon Central, "What Fruit is White? (1 Nephi 8:11)," KnoWhy 10 (January 13, 2016).
"The Book of Mormon’s description of white fruit adorning the Tree of Life may … be seen as a symbol of something holy and sacred that should be freely picked and gladly eaten by all people who seek righteousness and eternal life."