Prodigal son food

[Frederick J. Peabody]

In a recent post by Robert Mill, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, it was
stated that the parable of the prodigal son made reference to the carob,
i.e. swine food that was envied by the son when he was "down of his luck"
so to speak.  Previously I was not aware that this swine food represented a
reference to the carob.  I guess that I always assumed that the swine ate
what I had seen them eat, namely "garbage."  Interesting.

I looked up the reference in my Greek New Testament and the word used for
the carob in this passage (Luke 15:16) is not quite the same as that used
by Theophrastus ("keronia"), but rather "keration" (pronounced:
care-AH-tee-awn). In a previous post by A. C. Ellis, University of
Amsterdam, it was mentioned that "keronia" was an Ionian form.  I am sure
that a linguist could tell us what linguistic form is represented
by "keration."  I have not found any occurrence of the word "keratonia"
in my version of the Greek New Testament (Westcott, B.F. and F.J.A. Hort.
1966.  Macmillan, New York).

F.J. Peabody