The symbol of that tree pervades the art and literature of every Mediterranean culture from centuries before the time of Lehi until well after the time of Moroni. This fact, and the fact that Lehi and Nephi portrayed the spiritual meaning of that symbol much the same way other ancient cultures portrayed it, demonstrates that the Book of Mormon is an ancient text, not an invention of the 19th-century social milieu.
What young adult in Jacksonian America — or modern America for that matter — would make a connection between a sacred tree, the Virgin Mary and God's love? In Nephi and Lehi's day, however, the connection would have been obvious, and obviously colored by their cultural background.
While Mary is not Asherah, it's easy to see how Nephi's culture would have prepared him to understand such an interpretation. But how did Joseph Smith know this in 1830? Methodist scholar Margaret Barker observed that both Nephi's vision and ancient Near Eastern traditions symbolized the tree as the Heavenly Mother. "This revelation to Joseph Smith," she said, was the ancient Mother symbolism, "intact, and almost certainly as it was known in 600 BCE."
Thoughts?