Ah… language… but there is the fly in the ointment!
(And yes, that expression does come from Ecclesiastes, attributed to King Solomon…)
One always has to ask “Which Bible?”
Over the centuries, the accumulated writings we call “The Bible” were drawn from Hebrew teachings and traditions (to Christians, the "Old Testament") and the story of Jesus and the work of his disciples (the "New Testament.) It was primarily passed along orally, eventually being recorded and translated through various languages including Aramaic, Greek, and Latin into modern European languages. The King James Bible was an attempt to create a piece of writing as beautiful as humans could make it to encourage men to see the beauty of God's word. In the process, every sentence required compromises in the selection of words.
Anyone who has played the party game “Telephone” in which a message is passed, and inevitably garbled, from one person to another around a circle understands the difficulty of communicating accurately. If it is that hard in one language, imagine the difficulty when communicating complicated moral and ethical messages through multiple translations.
Thus we find words taken from the Bible and used in everyday life for which we think we know the meaning, only to find the matter ever so much more complicated.
Let’s start with a common Bible word that plays a big role in hostas – Paradise.
You probably know that any hosta name that starts with Paradise comes from Marco Fransen in Holland. I remember with great fondness making an excursion in 2004 into the Dutch countryside seeking him out at Paradijsweg 5, Ter Aar, Holland. We assumed we were looking for some old grizzled hosta guy, and were surprised to meet a strapping young man and his slight blonde wife – Joyce. (Yes… that Joyce… Paradise Joyce.) We had a lovely talk with them about their decision to get into hostas as a way to live a healthier life in the countryside and to raise their boys away from some of the craziness of city life.
You probably also have already figured out that the use of the name Paradise doesn’t come from a religious focus, but from the fact that their homestead is on Paradijsweg. The paradise part is obvious… and "weg" has the same root as the English "way," as in, highway. In other words, they live on Paradise Road.
But what does Paradise mean? Such a simple word… so many different shadings and meanings. Its first appearance in the Bible is as the name of the garden in which Adam and Eve first lived and from which mankind has been expelled. The word comes from ancient Persian and crept into the scriptures via some unpleasantness during which the Hebrews had an extended involuntary stay in Babylon. In rough terms, paradise meant “garden” – and thus, beauty.
But in the New Testament, paradise takes on a different meaning. Instead of the earthly garden men were excluded from, or some other “paradise on earth”, paradise took on the meaning of “God’s garden.” To a Christian, that becomes the “garden” in which the righteous will spend eternity with God. Jews also believe that the soul is eternal and that righteous souls return to God. In Islam, there is a heaven (Janna) and Paradise (Firdaus) is the highest level.
No matter what the language or the source, the word paradise encompasses what we have lost, what we create on earth, or what we can hope for in the afterlife – but it always involves a garden!
Now we explore another word. One English word in the Bible serves as translation for a broad range of Hebrew and Greek words. It can describe a physical phenomenon – brightness, shining light. It can describe the way the universe directs all attention toward God the creator. It can describe divine majesty, great truth and grace. It can also mean praise directed toward God.
Oh, so many different words… all rolled into one English word for convenience. In most Christian bibles, the word used for all these purposes is glory.
And thus we come to a fine hosta, Paradise Glory. This is Marco’s sport from Paul’s Glory. It is probably a tetraploid – it has the heavy texture and wider margins – and it resembles closely H. ‘St. Paul.’
(Don’t get me started on Paul’s Glory and St. Paul and Peter and Paul… I already did that some time ago… check out
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Oddly enough, Zilis in The Hostapedia listing for St. Paul, says it is pretty much indistinguishable from Lakeside Shore Master, but only mentions Paradise Glory in the “other similar hostas” list at the bottom of the entry. Even odder, Zilis in the listing for Paradise Glory doesn’t mention Paul’s Glory as the parent plant, though Fransen has always been clear that it is a sport of PG. Perhaps Mark felt he should be more vague about the origins as Marco does not register his hostas.
Should we complicate this a little more? Lakeside Shore Master was registered with “unknown parentage” but Zilis notes that it behaves in leaf, mound, and flowering, like a Paul’s Glory sport. He also notes that looks just like Pete’s Passion and American Glory Be.
And even odder still. I grow three of these. Lakeside Shore Master is only 15 feet away from Paradise Glory. I like both of them very much… so how is it I never noticed they are the same hosta?!
So we may have five different names for the same hosta… Paradise Glory, St. Paul, Lakeside Shore Master, American Glory Be, and Pete’s Passion. It is so lovely, perhaps it deserves five names. It certainly evokes a “glory be” response from me!
