Understanding the Garden: A Study of the Eden Narrative
Over the course of my own experience I have found that the evangelical understanding of the Garden of Eden, indeed all of the Old Testament, is somewhat weak. If we are to understand the fullness of the gospel then it behooves us not to understand the Old Testament if only because it sets the stage for God’s redemptive act upon the cross. It follows, then, that our understanding of the beginning of this “lost” testament is quite important. As Evangelicals, we easily understand the Garden as the place of the first sin and of God’s promise that Eve’s descendants would crush the head of the snake. But we should not forget nor ignore what other significance Eden may have for us. The question then arises, how are we to understand the Eden narrative?
First and foremost the crisis of authorship rears its head. Before we explore the narrative we ought to explore its origins. Indeed, one of my sources, “The Eden Narrative,” spends sixty-five pages of its one hundred and eighty-three page length in analysis and discussion of authorship. If we buy into the current scholastic orthodoxy and presuppose four different authors, J, E, D and P, then we must begin to reconstruct who wrote what and when it was written dependent upon the various names of God that are used in the text. Zimmern asserts that the author of the Paradise narrative is J,
…on account of its consistent employment of the divine name “Jahve” instead of the “Elohim” used in the other documentary sources… and has preserved for us the old Hebrew legends, particularly those dealing with primeval times, in a form much more genuine and primitive than we find in later writings of priests of the Exile. The original colouring of a mythological picture is far fresher in Genesis ii. And iii. than in Genesis i… [1]
J authorship is also commonly placed around the tenth century BCE and is said to be written from a Jerusalem-dweller’s perspective, already a far cry from the perspective of Moses. Zimmern, however, ignores the significance of the usage of the “Jahve” name, as he transliterates it, which I will render as “Yahweh.” He ignores the significance of its usage between God and Moses at the burning bush where God tells Moses that his covenant name that he will be remembered by is “Yahweh” (Exodus 3:14). The usage of the name here, in the Eden story, is indicative of God’s closeness with his creation in that they understand his character to be inline with all that is referenced to by the name “Yahweh,” namely intimacy with the creator God and salvation. The usage of Yahweh may also be evidence for Mosaic authorship because it is to Moses that the name of God is revealed. Furthermore, stylistic variations do not necessarily indicate different authors and duplication of narrative stories is a common Hebrew literary device, not an automatic sign of disparate authorship.[2] For evidence of such we need look no further than the books 1 Kings and 2 Kings as compared to 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles.
We also cannot ignore the fact that the spelling and grammar of the Hebrew Bible match that found on various inscriptions within an appropriate time frame for Mosaic authorship of the texts.[3] These findings anchor the texts of the Hebrew Bible to well before the exile. Nor can we brush aside the Mosaic imprint on the Old Testament texts (Exodus 24:4, Deuteronomy 31:9)[4] as well as the simple commandment “You shall not lie.” It seems to me that this entire issue of the critical scholarship of the Pentateuch is based upon the presupposition that the traditional authors could not have written the Hebrew Bible because it raises the possibility of true prophecy as well as the existence of God and his being at work in our world. Such a bias comes right out of Enlightenment thinking which, if it were given to basing its criticism on mere presuppositional biases and not the evidence first and foremost, then perhaps it was not so enlightening after all?
But as the proper and thorough analysis and critique of Biblical Criticism, as a whole, is beyond the scope of this paper, let me clarify the point. It is not necessarily true that Mosaic authorship of the texts is beyond the realm of possibility. That having been said, we can move along to a linguistic consideration of “Eden.”
There have been scholars who suggest that the word “Eden” derives from the Akkadian edinu, which may be a word taken from the Sumerian word edin, with the meaning of a plain or steppe.[5] However, as Wallace asserts, such a meaning does not lend itself very well to the context of a garden of paradise, and therefore suggests the alternative that “Eden” comes from the same root as the Hebrew words yadanim, “luxuriates” or “delights,” and edna, which means “delight.”[6] Given that Eden is considered to be a paradise, in which mankind knew the creator God by his covenant name and had not yet removed himself from that relationship by sinning, Wallace’s assertion seems to be the most appropriate.
Where was this paradise, then? Was it to be understood to have ever existed in an actual, geographic place? Working from a presupposition of a developing tradition rather than Mosaic authorship, Zimmern asserts that
Obviously the original story dealt with one river only, adding, perhaps, that on leaving the Garden of Eden this river divided into four branches. Such a statement did not satisfy a later generation, which strove to indicate more exactly the position of Paradise and to identify the four rivers geographically.[7]
Ignoring Zimmern’s assertions concerning authorship and redaction of the text, which we have previously addressed, Zimmern’s statements seem to indicate that, in his opinion, Eden was not originally understood to be an actual place. Or, if it were, then it was a place so vague that it may as well have been purely metaphorical and that the names of actual rivers were an attempt to ground the Israelite story of the beginning of human existence in a real location. Zimmern goes on to assert that the “Gihon” river, one of the four used to locate Eden, was in fact the Nile[8] and that since this would make it impossible for Eden to geographically exist, that the Israelites understood Eden was not a place after all or at least not an earthly one. Rather, “The very idea of Paradise implies that it cannot be exactly located: Paradise lies unapproachably remote from man… Paradise was not supposed to be found on earth at all, but, paradoxical as it may sound – in heaven.”[9] However, as Zimmern rightly notes, the label of geographic rivers for a heavenly place is paradoxical. We should then reconsider the possibility of Eden having at least been understood to have been a historic, geographical place. Wallace notes that,
Many opinions have been expressed over the identity of the first two rivers (pison and gihon). The major suggestions have included the Ganges, the Nile and its tributaries, or principal canals in the irrigation systems of Mesopotamia… we might suggest that pison and gihon form a rhyming pair and could be traditional names whose original reference has been lost. Nevertheless the mention of the Tigris and Euphrates indicates that the narrative is meant to portray an earthly geographic situation. In this context it is hard to see how the gihon… would not be associated with the Jerusalem spring.[10]
It is quite possible that the rhyme scheme of gihon and pison form a pair of rivers whose reference has since been lost to time. However, in my admittedly brief study of the Hebrew language, I am given to understand that Hebrew linguistic license, such as might be taken with Hebrew poetry, does not lent itself to rhyming but rather to alliteration playing off of the assonance and consonance of Hebrew words. Regardless, any such assertions can only be speculative and we are left only with the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to work with. Two geographical rivers that indicate, given that they are quite real, that Eden was understood to have been an actual place. It seems counter-intuitive to include two real rivers in a place that one wishes to perceive as metaphysical, metaphorical or imaginary.
Wallace’s assertion that the Jerusalem spring might be understood as the gihon river is based upon his position of J authorship of the Eden narrative.[11] However, while “the Jerusalem spring was known at the time of the monarchy, the period to which we date J,”[12] I am unsure as to how far before the monarchy the spring could possibly have been understood to refer to the gihon, if it does at all. While Wallace uses it to reinforce his position of J authorship, depending on how far back the spring was known, its possible associations with the gihon might stretch further back into history.
Biblical imagery of life-giving waters flowing from a single spot is also found in Ezekiel’s vision of the new temple that is to come. In the renewed temple, life-giving water flows out from beneath the altar, heading east from the southern part of the temple (Ezekiel 47:1-2). The temple also served as the place where one could make atonement for one’s sins which interfered with one’s relationship to God, and was also understood to have been the dwelling place of God among his people, much like the tabernacle in the wilderness. Heaven, the temple and the tabernacle are all called the dwelling of God (Leviticus 26:11, Deuteronomy 26:15, Psalms 76:2). In Eden, we have yet another place where God has dwelled among his people,
The motif which is of central importance in the biblical and extra-biblical passages in which the garden of God is depicted, is the presence of the deity or unmediated access to the deity. It is this motif alone which accounts for the life-giving or divine aspects of some of the other motifs, especially those of the streams and the trees… and the presence of trees capable of bestowing divine qualities, could imply that the garden is the dwelling of Yahweh.[13]
Wallace argues that the presence of the strange trees of life and of the knowledge of good and evil, which we will examine later, as well as the life-giving streams, mark Eden as the earthly dwelling of God within which his creation enjoyed unmediated access to his presence. When we see the contrast between Eden and the world beyond it (Genesis 2:5, 3:18) we see a place of plenty compared to a barren, wild and untamed place. Furthermore, the author of Genesis also writes that “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8)...” While this anthropomorphic understanding of God occurs when God is searching for those who have rebelled against him, nevertheless the Garden of Eden remains a place wherein God is said to have actually walked.
Therefore, we have a place that is defined by physical rivers and that is referenced to by the tabernacle, the temple and even Heaven itself as all are understood to be the dwelling places of God. We can liken Eden to God’s creating what we might call “sacred space” for himself upon the earth. Just as God commands the Israelites to take the promised land away from the Canaanites so that Israel may be a holy nation, set apart for God, and as the Israelites must build a tabernacle and later a temple as a place set apart for God, so too does God dwell in Eden apart from the rest of the world. Even though the world is still “very good (Genesis 1:31), God makes a place separate from all the others for his presence to dwell in. Given the assertion of all of these places as God’s dwelling, we can assert, as Wallace does, that in Eden mankind enjoyed the unmediated access to the presence of Yahweh himself without the need for ritual sacrifice. Furthermore, we can then argue that the cherubim and the flaming sword set to guard the tree of life from mankind-in-exile marks the beginning of the need for mediated access to God via the sacrifice system which we begin to see in the Cain and Abel narrative (Genesis 4:3-4).
It is important to note that the cherubim and the flaming sword do not guard the entirety of the Garden of Eden, but rather the tree of life (Genesis 3:24). Mankind thus loses unmediated access to life, which mankind could also eat from as well as the other fruit in Eden, save for the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In what sense, however, are we to understand these trees? They cannot be purely symbolic, given the seeming geographical nature of Eden, yet to proclaim that knowledge and life could be had from eating of actual fruit, as one might eat an apple or a fig, seems radically mythological in a text that does not incorporate nor portray the great mythological pageantry of other religious texts.
We will begin with the tree of life. Wallace points out that there is a lot of talk about various things in the Eden narrative which are able to bestow some form of life. “In the narrative there is a distinction made between the breath of life… which makes the man a living being… and the tree of life through which humans have access to the divine attribute of immortality.”[14] It is also worth noting that it is only the tree of knowledge of good and evil which mankind is prohibited to eat from, and not the tree of life, until the first prohibition is broken. While mankind had free access to the tree of life, and evidently immortality in light of the author writing, “And the LORD God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever (Genesis 3:22).’”
Wallace believes that there was an earlier version of the story with only one tree given some apparent confusion between the two and ambiguous references of them throughout the course of the narrative.[15] Yet if there is confusion concerning the trees even on the part of Eve who is in the garden herself,[16] and given that no one has yet partaken of the tree of life, then perhaps this apparent confusion represents a confusion of values on the part of Adam and Eve. They were allowed to freely partake of the tree of life, yet they chose the tree of knowledge instead, perhaps thinking that this would instead grant them what they sought. Or, if this was not the fashion of their moral confusion, perhaps they merely valued the forbidden over and above everlasting fellowship in the unmediated presence of God. Given their choice, that is exactly what they thought.
I assert my first proposition, that Adam and Eve sought the tree of knowledge first because they thought it would grant them the life they sought, in other words that the tree of knowledge would satisfy and fulfill them, based upon the connection between wisdom and righteousness with life. “Her (Wisdom’s) ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed. (Proverbs 3:17-18).” There is a strong link to wisdom and the tree of life, not knowledge, in the Hebrew Bible. Indeed, the one who embraces wisdom embraces the tree of life. Furthermore, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise (Proverbs 11:30),” indicates that righteous living produces its own “tree of life.” There is also a strong connection between obedience to God’s laws and life, such as when God calls upon the Israelites to choose obedience as they prepare to enter the Promised Land,
For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live (Deuteronomy 30:16-19).
The possession of and being blessed in the land that is given by God is dependent upon the Israelites choosing to obey the laws that they have been given. Similarly, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are blessed by God and are given paradise as their home. But when they choose to disobey, the paradise that they enjoy and the land that they dwell in become forfeit and they die in the wilderness, whereas before they could have enjoyed immortality. God sets before the Israelites life (the tree of life) and death (the tree of knowledge) and he enjoins them to choose the former, so that not only they but their descendents will have the life that they seek. But if the tree of knowledge leads only to death, why is it not called such? Wisdom is, evidently, not synonymous with knowledge in the Hebrew Bible else the author of Proverbs would have said that wisdom produces a tree of knowledge. Rather, wisdom, like righteousness and obedience, lead to life. If the choice is, as put in Deuteronomy, between life and death, and not life and knowledge, then why is the forbidden tree in Eden called the tree of knowledge? Why not call it the tree of death?
As Wallace asserts, “Neither biblical nor non-biblical material offers anything similar to the tree of knowledge.”[17] There have been four classical understandings of “knowledge” to be gained from partaking of the fruit of this prohibited tree, which Wallace discusses at length. The first of these is what Wallace refers to as “the acquisition of human faculties.” This is, or at least, has been, a popular conclusion such as we see popularized in the musical “Children of Eden,”[18] and in other various pop-culture references that attempt to redefine the Fall not as the loss of paradise but rather the romanticizing of growing from a child into an adult who is solely responsible for one’s self. Thus the knowledge given by the tree can mean human maturity and/or the acquisition of the human conscience. However, given the model between life and death given in Deuteronomy based upon obedience or disobedience, and the guilt that Adam and Eve felt after they broke God’s prohibition,[19] it seems safe to assume that this is not what the author of Genesis intended to convey nor how it was understood by the Israelites. It is quite evident from reading the Hebrew Bible that Yahweh is a very moral and holy God. Why he would forbid the pinnacle of his creation, mankind, to have the knowledge of or the ability to choose between right and wrong seems thematically contradictory. Furthermore, they obviously could already choose between right and wrong before eating of the tree of knowledge because they freely chose to break God’s prohibition. Therefore, not only is the option of acquiring human moral faculties thematically contradictory, but it is also contradictory because what Adam and Eve seek already belongs to them. As to whether or not eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge granting human maturity, Wallace writes,
Further, one has to consider the full meaning of Gen 3:22 when the couple become like gods after eating the fruit. To become like divine beings in any way far surpasses the attainment of human maturity in any form. The text itself, therefore, argues against this interpretation. It is interesting that many post-biblical traditions have held beliefs contrary to this view.[20]
That divine likeness is far beyond human maturity seems a very reasonable assertion, especially in light of a culture’s viewing of gods as being far above human capacity and unlike our own rather irreverent culture.
The second option is that of knowledge of sexual relations. I am given to understand that when someone refers to “forbidden fruit” of taboo sexual relations, that terminology comes from this interpretation of the prohibition concerning the tree of knowledge. To be sure, there is certainly sexual imagery within the Eden narrative such as Adam and Eve being naked and not knowing shame, Even’s punishment is one relevant to her procreation as well as for her desire over her husband, as well as the snake being a symbol of fertility cults as noted by Wallace.[21] Wallace also cites Engnell as arguing for “knowing good and evil” to be interpreted as a sexual idiom[22] by referring to Deuteronomy, among other verses, which says, “And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad—they will enter the land. I will give it to them and they will take possession of it (Deuteronomy 1:39).” Engnell may have a case here, as one of the identifying characteristics of children is those who have not yet sexually matured. However, it does not need to refer merely to that. Children can also be defined as those who have not yet fully emotionally, mentally or morally matured which leaves Engnell’s assertion, in my mind, as mere opinion. Furthermore, viewing the tree of knowledge giving those who eat of it knowledge of sexual relations totally ignores the marriage, also rife with sexual language, that God has already decreed to be a part of his creation: “For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh (Genesis 2:24).” Why would God declare that mankind may not learn of that which he has already given to them, and also falls under the world being good because sin has not yet entered the world? There is, therefore, no credible reason to assert that the tree of knowledge of good and evil refers to carnal, sexual knowledge.
The third possibility is that of “universal knowledge,” or quite simply, knowledge of everything. Wallace argues for this by asserting that the phrase “knowing good and evil” is an example of a merismus and that it is a very common phenomenon in Biblical Hebrew.[23] He also gives this definition: “a synecdoche in which a totality is expressed by two constituent parts.”[24] Wallace goes on to cite several examples within the Bible of merismus, which would likely take a full book to fully and rigorously analyze. We may skip ahead to his conclusion, however, where he writes that,
In 3:6 there is the notice that the tree was desirable to increase one’s understanding. The eating of the tree allowed the human to become like gods. This is hinted at in Gen 3:5 and realized in 3:22 when Yahweh says: ‘the human has become like one of us knowing good and evil.’ If we understood ‘good and evil’ as a merism, there being no indication that mutually exclusive alternatives are meant, then the quality gained by the humans is the divine ‘knowledge of everything.’ We noted… that more than one aspect can be involved in the expression “good and evil.” Aspects of culture, civilization and sex might all be implied. This is particularly the case when the phrase is combined with the verb yada with its many shades of meaning.[25]
Given, as Wallace notes, the vague nature of the verb “to know” in Hebrew, yada, as well as the vague sense of what the narrative means by good and evil as evinced by the previously outlined possibilities, this seems to be a satisfying and accurate conclusion. However it still strikes me as being rather limited in scope. Just as Wallace refutes the first two possible conclusions, of human faculties and sexual knowledge, neither of which seem to be deemed as evil, if not given to mankind already, by God; why then would God forbid his creation from such merely informational knowledge as culture and civilization? Is there something inherently evil about irrigation ditches, or in knowing how to construct a house with several floors or in knowing how to domesticate a dog? Certainly these things came about after mankind broke the prohibition and ate from the tree of knowledge, but did these things happen because of something inherent in the fruit itself or because it was necessary to learn to do these things beyond the safety of the garden?
I am therefore willing to concede that part of what the fruit of the tree of knowledge possessed were those very things that Wallace asserts. However, the fundamental aspect of the nature of the tree of knowledge lies in the prohibition itself. Mesters offers us the following understanding of the divine prohibition,
It (the order of God) permits eating from all the trees, including the tree of life, and it forbids eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:16-17). These two divine orientations cannot be separated, since one is the alternative of the other. This is the option between life and death, left to the free choice of man. On one side is the tree of life, and on the other the tree of knowledge of good and evil which brings death.[26]
Thus we should not understand the boundaries of Eden to be that Adam and Eve may partake of all that they wish, and the tree of life, as long as they do not partake of the tree of knowledge. Rather God has offered mankind a simple either/or proposition: either you eat of the tree of knowledge, or you eat of the tree of life and everything else. This resounds with the afore mentioned passage of Deuteronomy 30:16-19 where God calls upon his people to choose either life or death, with there being no middle ground on which his people can stand. Therefore obedience to God is an all or nothing proposition that one either does or does not do. But to the person who rejects obedience to God’s law, he believes that what he or she is doing is the right thing. Isaiah makes reference to these people when he declares, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness (Isaiah 5:20).” In light of this, as well as our observing that wisdom, righteousness and obedience are those things which lead to life within the rubric of the Hebrew Bible, we can take the next logical step and assert along with Mesters that,
Thus man is faced with two alternatives, made explicit in the order of God; either attain wisdom by observing the Law of God and so find life in him; or, ignoring all this, try to be a god for himself (cf. Gen 3:5), by deciding for himself and by means of his own research what is good and evil and so find death by cutting himself off from God.[27]
Mesters is here referring to the ability to find life, the very tree of life, in the unmediated presence of God enjoyed by mankind in the Garden of Eden. The alternative to this is to make one’s own parameters for dwelling in the garden rather than abiding by God’s, with the consequence being expulsion into the world and separation from God. Therefore, while the tree of knowledge might have contained knowledge in the “broad sense of everything” that Wallace asserts, it also entailed an intimate knowledge of sin. For in partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil one knew good, by dwelling in the garden bound by God’s parameters and prohibitions, and one knew evil by disobeying and acting as a law unto one’s self. This Hebrew word “to know,” yada, which can signify knowledge as in carnal relations, might serve in Wallace’s broad sense of the vague word but also in the sexual sense of intimate knowledge because by partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge one had personally experienced evil rather than merely being vaguely aware of it as something outside God’s parameters. This is the fourth option, which Wallace dismisses as being part of the first option; it is the option of human autonomy and self-determination. Not self-determination in choosing to sit or to lay down, to walk or to run, but self-determination in a moral and spiritual sense of choosing one’s own direction either toward or away from God as the self pleases. Mesters puts it this way,
It is the very condition of human life: to be able to dispose of everything, but to dispose according to the wisdom and design of the Creator. This divine order is a symbol that summarizes the norm which ought to regulate all behavior: ‘Be wise and follow the Law of God, i.e., eat of the tree of life. Do not try to build a law for yourself from your own head, i.e., do not eat of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.’ This is not an arbitrary order. It is an expression of the fundamental law inscribed in the very existence of man.[28]
Throughout the entire Hebrew Bible, beginning in the Garden of Eden and going through all of the Law and the prophets there is one ultimate choice set before all those who would worship Yahweh; either one must let Yahweh be God and obey him, or one must be god one’s self and determine what you will or won’t do. The first choice is that of goodness and life, righteousness and godliness. The second is that of autonomy and self-determination, and also confusion and death. This is not an arbitrary decision set before primordial man in the Garden of Eden, to either jump or not jump through God’s hoops but rather it is a struggle that is ingrained upon the heart of all of mankind to either choose God or not choose him, and to try and live with the consequences of whatever choice we make.
In conclusion, we can assert that the Garden of Eden was understood to have been an actual, geographic place. While there may be significant problems that we cannot reconcile as to its location given the possible identification of some of the rivers, at the very least the garden was understood to have once been a real place. Yet that we can no longer reconstruct where it may have been actually testifies to the truth of the story itself; just as God forbade re-entry into the Garden of Eden we are no longer able to find it ourselves, lest we should enter into it. Within that actual place humanity lived in unbroken fellowship with God that was direct and immediate, without the need of separation of the two. We lived within God’s sacred space; we dwelled with God in the tabernacle, or the Holy of Holies, three-hundred and sixty-five days of the year and not just once a year as was later implemented due to the divide of sin between man and God. Within Eden humanity wrestled with the question that is most fundamental to its nature – the question of whom to worship. Would we worship God and partake of the tree of life, or would we worship ourselves, make our own law, and partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? We chose the latter, forfeiting our intimate relationship with God and instead coming to know sin and evil as intimately as we once knew God himself. What we take from Eden is the knowledge that we have blown it on a cosmic scale and that we deserve to be bereft of God’s presence. Yet even in his cursing Adam and Eve he made a provision for them, that Eve’s child would crush the serpent beneath his heel and, ultimately, overcome that which was lost in the Garden of Eden.
Bibliography
Mesters, Carlos. “Eden: Golden Age or Goad to Action.” Orbis Books; Petropolis, Brazil, 1971
Petter, Dr. Thomas D. Lecture Notes, OT 502, 2006
Wallace, Howard N. “The Eden Narrative.” Scholars Press; Atlanta Georga, 1985
Zimmern, Heinrich. “The Babylonian and the Hebrew Genesis.” David Nutt; London England, 1901
Zondervan. “NIV Study Bible.” Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1973
[1] Heinrich Zimmern, “The Babylonian and the Hebrew Genesis.” (David Nutt, London, England: 1901) p. 30-31.
[2] Dr. Thomas D. Petter, Lecture Notes OT 502, 2006.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Howard N. Wallace, “The Eden Narrative.” (Scholars Press, Atlanta Georgia: 1985) p 84.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Zimmern, 31-32.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Zimmern, 32-33.
[10] Wallace, 74.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid. 79-80.
[14] Ibid. 103.
[15] Ibid. 101-103.
[16] Ibid. 102.
[17] Ibid. 116.
[18] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Eden (2006).
[19] Wallace, 116.
[20] Ibid. 117.
[21] Ibid. 119.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid. 122
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid. 129.
[26] Carlos Mesters, “Eden: Golden Age or Goad to Action.” (Orbis Books, Petropolis, Brazil: 1971) 31-32.
[27] Ibid. 33.
[28] Ibid.
First and foremost the crisis of authorship rears its head. Before we explore the narrative we ought to explore its origins. Indeed, one of my sources, “The Eden Narrative,” spends sixty-five pages of its one hundred and eighty-three page length in analysis and discussion of authorship. If we buy into the current scholastic orthodoxy and presuppose four different authors, J, E, D and P, then we must begin to reconstruct who wrote what and when it was written dependent upon the various names of God that are used in the text. Zimmern asserts that the author of the Paradise narrative is J,
…on account of its consistent employment of the divine name “Jahve” instead of the “Elohim” used in the other documentary sources… and has preserved for us the old Hebrew legends, particularly those dealing with primeval times, in a form much more genuine and primitive than we find in later writings of priests of the Exile. The original colouring of a mythological picture is far fresher in Genesis ii. And iii. than in Genesis i… [1]
J authorship is also commonly placed around the tenth century BCE and is said to be written from a Jerusalem-dweller’s perspective, already a far cry from the perspective of Moses. Zimmern, however, ignores the significance of the usage of the “Jahve” name, as he transliterates it, which I will render as “Yahweh.” He ignores the significance of its usage between God and Moses at the burning bush where God tells Moses that his covenant name that he will be remembered by is “Yahweh” (Exodus 3:14). The usage of the name here, in the Eden story, is indicative of God’s closeness with his creation in that they understand his character to be inline with all that is referenced to by the name “Yahweh,” namely intimacy with the creator God and salvation. The usage of Yahweh may also be evidence for Mosaic authorship because it is to Moses that the name of God is revealed. Furthermore, stylistic variations do not necessarily indicate different authors and duplication of narrative stories is a common Hebrew literary device, not an automatic sign of disparate authorship.[2] For evidence of such we need look no further than the books 1 Kings and 2 Kings as compared to 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles.
We also cannot ignore the fact that the spelling and grammar of the Hebrew Bible match that found on various inscriptions within an appropriate time frame for Mosaic authorship of the texts.[3] These findings anchor the texts of the Hebrew Bible to well before the exile. Nor can we brush aside the Mosaic imprint on the Old Testament texts (Exodus 24:4, Deuteronomy 31:9)[4] as well as the simple commandment “You shall not lie.” It seems to me that this entire issue of the critical scholarship of the Pentateuch is based upon the presupposition that the traditional authors could not have written the Hebrew Bible because it raises the possibility of true prophecy as well as the existence of God and his being at work in our world. Such a bias comes right out of Enlightenment thinking which, if it were given to basing its criticism on mere presuppositional biases and not the evidence first and foremost, then perhaps it was not so enlightening after all?
But as the proper and thorough analysis and critique of Biblical Criticism, as a whole, is beyond the scope of this paper, let me clarify the point. It is not necessarily true that Mosaic authorship of the texts is beyond the realm of possibility. That having been said, we can move along to a linguistic consideration of “Eden.”
There have been scholars who suggest that the word “Eden” derives from the Akkadian edinu, which may be a word taken from the Sumerian word edin, with the meaning of a plain or steppe.[5] However, as Wallace asserts, such a meaning does not lend itself very well to the context of a garden of paradise, and therefore suggests the alternative that “Eden” comes from the same root as the Hebrew words yadanim, “luxuriates” or “delights,” and edna, which means “delight.”[6] Given that Eden is considered to be a paradise, in which mankind knew the creator God by his covenant name and had not yet removed himself from that relationship by sinning, Wallace’s assertion seems to be the most appropriate.
Where was this paradise, then? Was it to be understood to have ever existed in an actual, geographic place? Working from a presupposition of a developing tradition rather than Mosaic authorship, Zimmern asserts that
Obviously the original story dealt with one river only, adding, perhaps, that on leaving the Garden of Eden this river divided into four branches. Such a statement did not satisfy a later generation, which strove to indicate more exactly the position of Paradise and to identify the four rivers geographically.[7]
Ignoring Zimmern’s assertions concerning authorship and redaction of the text, which we have previously addressed, Zimmern’s statements seem to indicate that, in his opinion, Eden was not originally understood to be an actual place. Or, if it were, then it was a place so vague that it may as well have been purely metaphorical and that the names of actual rivers were an attempt to ground the Israelite story of the beginning of human existence in a real location. Zimmern goes on to assert that the “Gihon” river, one of the four used to locate Eden, was in fact the Nile[8] and that since this would make it impossible for Eden to geographically exist, that the Israelites understood Eden was not a place after all or at least not an earthly one. Rather, “The very idea of Paradise implies that it cannot be exactly located: Paradise lies unapproachably remote from man… Paradise was not supposed to be found on earth at all, but, paradoxical as it may sound – in heaven.”[9] However, as Zimmern rightly notes, the label of geographic rivers for a heavenly place is paradoxical. We should then reconsider the possibility of Eden having at least been understood to have been a historic, geographical place. Wallace notes that,
Many opinions have been expressed over the identity of the first two rivers (pison and gihon). The major suggestions have included the Ganges, the Nile and its tributaries, or principal canals in the irrigation systems of Mesopotamia… we might suggest that pison and gihon form a rhyming pair and could be traditional names whose original reference has been lost. Nevertheless the mention of the Tigris and Euphrates indicates that the narrative is meant to portray an earthly geographic situation. In this context it is hard to see how the gihon… would not be associated with the Jerusalem spring.[10]
It is quite possible that the rhyme scheme of gihon and pison form a pair of rivers whose reference has since been lost to time. However, in my admittedly brief study of the Hebrew language, I am given to understand that Hebrew linguistic license, such as might be taken with Hebrew poetry, does not lent itself to rhyming but rather to alliteration playing off of the assonance and consonance of Hebrew words. Regardless, any such assertions can only be speculative and we are left only with the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to work with. Two geographical rivers that indicate, given that they are quite real, that Eden was understood to have been an actual place. It seems counter-intuitive to include two real rivers in a place that one wishes to perceive as metaphysical, metaphorical or imaginary.
Wallace’s assertion that the Jerusalem spring might be understood as the gihon river is based upon his position of J authorship of the Eden narrative.[11] However, while “the Jerusalem spring was known at the time of the monarchy, the period to which we date J,”[12] I am unsure as to how far before the monarchy the spring could possibly have been understood to refer to the gihon, if it does at all. While Wallace uses it to reinforce his position of J authorship, depending on how far back the spring was known, its possible associations with the gihon might stretch further back into history.
Biblical imagery of life-giving waters flowing from a single spot is also found in Ezekiel’s vision of the new temple that is to come. In the renewed temple, life-giving water flows out from beneath the altar, heading east from the southern part of the temple (Ezekiel 47:1-2). The temple also served as the place where one could make atonement for one’s sins which interfered with one’s relationship to God, and was also understood to have been the dwelling place of God among his people, much like the tabernacle in the wilderness. Heaven, the temple and the tabernacle are all called the dwelling of God (Leviticus 26:11, Deuteronomy 26:15, Psalms 76:2). In Eden, we have yet another place where God has dwelled among his people,
The motif which is of central importance in the biblical and extra-biblical passages in which the garden of God is depicted, is the presence of the deity or unmediated access to the deity. It is this motif alone which accounts for the life-giving or divine aspects of some of the other motifs, especially those of the streams and the trees… and the presence of trees capable of bestowing divine qualities, could imply that the garden is the dwelling of Yahweh.[13]
Wallace argues that the presence of the strange trees of life and of the knowledge of good and evil, which we will examine later, as well as the life-giving streams, mark Eden as the earthly dwelling of God within which his creation enjoyed unmediated access to his presence. When we see the contrast between Eden and the world beyond it (Genesis 2:5, 3:18) we see a place of plenty compared to a barren, wild and untamed place. Furthermore, the author of Genesis also writes that “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8)...” While this anthropomorphic understanding of God occurs when God is searching for those who have rebelled against him, nevertheless the Garden of Eden remains a place wherein God is said to have actually walked.
Therefore, we have a place that is defined by physical rivers and that is referenced to by the tabernacle, the temple and even Heaven itself as all are understood to be the dwelling places of God. We can liken Eden to God’s creating what we might call “sacred space” for himself upon the earth. Just as God commands the Israelites to take the promised land away from the Canaanites so that Israel may be a holy nation, set apart for God, and as the Israelites must build a tabernacle and later a temple as a place set apart for God, so too does God dwell in Eden apart from the rest of the world. Even though the world is still “very good (Genesis 1:31), God makes a place separate from all the others for his presence to dwell in. Given the assertion of all of these places as God’s dwelling, we can assert, as Wallace does, that in Eden mankind enjoyed the unmediated access to the presence of Yahweh himself without the need for ritual sacrifice. Furthermore, we can then argue that the cherubim and the flaming sword set to guard the tree of life from mankind-in-exile marks the beginning of the need for mediated access to God via the sacrifice system which we begin to see in the Cain and Abel narrative (Genesis 4:3-4).
It is important to note that the cherubim and the flaming sword do not guard the entirety of the Garden of Eden, but rather the tree of life (Genesis 3:24). Mankind thus loses unmediated access to life, which mankind could also eat from as well as the other fruit in Eden, save for the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In what sense, however, are we to understand these trees? They cannot be purely symbolic, given the seeming geographical nature of Eden, yet to proclaim that knowledge and life could be had from eating of actual fruit, as one might eat an apple or a fig, seems radically mythological in a text that does not incorporate nor portray the great mythological pageantry of other religious texts.
We will begin with the tree of life. Wallace points out that there is a lot of talk about various things in the Eden narrative which are able to bestow some form of life. “In the narrative there is a distinction made between the breath of life… which makes the man a living being… and the tree of life through which humans have access to the divine attribute of immortality.”[14] It is also worth noting that it is only the tree of knowledge of good and evil which mankind is prohibited to eat from, and not the tree of life, until the first prohibition is broken. While mankind had free access to the tree of life, and evidently immortality in light of the author writing, “And the LORD God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever (Genesis 3:22).’”
Wallace believes that there was an earlier version of the story with only one tree given some apparent confusion between the two and ambiguous references of them throughout the course of the narrative.[15] Yet if there is confusion concerning the trees even on the part of Eve who is in the garden herself,[16] and given that no one has yet partaken of the tree of life, then perhaps this apparent confusion represents a confusion of values on the part of Adam and Eve. They were allowed to freely partake of the tree of life, yet they chose the tree of knowledge instead, perhaps thinking that this would instead grant them what they sought. Or, if this was not the fashion of their moral confusion, perhaps they merely valued the forbidden over and above everlasting fellowship in the unmediated presence of God. Given their choice, that is exactly what they thought.
I assert my first proposition, that Adam and Eve sought the tree of knowledge first because they thought it would grant them the life they sought, in other words that the tree of knowledge would satisfy and fulfill them, based upon the connection between wisdom and righteousness with life. “Her (Wisdom’s) ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed. (Proverbs 3:17-18).” There is a strong link to wisdom and the tree of life, not knowledge, in the Hebrew Bible. Indeed, the one who embraces wisdom embraces the tree of life. Furthermore, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise (Proverbs 11:30),” indicates that righteous living produces its own “tree of life.” There is also a strong connection between obedience to God’s laws and life, such as when God calls upon the Israelites to choose obedience as they prepare to enter the Promised Land,
For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live (Deuteronomy 30:16-19).
The possession of and being blessed in the land that is given by God is dependent upon the Israelites choosing to obey the laws that they have been given. Similarly, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are blessed by God and are given paradise as their home. But when they choose to disobey, the paradise that they enjoy and the land that they dwell in become forfeit and they die in the wilderness, whereas before they could have enjoyed immortality. God sets before the Israelites life (the tree of life) and death (the tree of knowledge) and he enjoins them to choose the former, so that not only they but their descendents will have the life that they seek. But if the tree of knowledge leads only to death, why is it not called such? Wisdom is, evidently, not synonymous with knowledge in the Hebrew Bible else the author of Proverbs would have said that wisdom produces a tree of knowledge. Rather, wisdom, like righteousness and obedience, lead to life. If the choice is, as put in Deuteronomy, between life and death, and not life and knowledge, then why is the forbidden tree in Eden called the tree of knowledge? Why not call it the tree of death?
As Wallace asserts, “Neither biblical nor non-biblical material offers anything similar to the tree of knowledge.”[17] There have been four classical understandings of “knowledge” to be gained from partaking of the fruit of this prohibited tree, which Wallace discusses at length. The first of these is what Wallace refers to as “the acquisition of human faculties.” This is, or at least, has been, a popular conclusion such as we see popularized in the musical “Children of Eden,”[18] and in other various pop-culture references that attempt to redefine the Fall not as the loss of paradise but rather the romanticizing of growing from a child into an adult who is solely responsible for one’s self. Thus the knowledge given by the tree can mean human maturity and/or the acquisition of the human conscience. However, given the model between life and death given in Deuteronomy based upon obedience or disobedience, and the guilt that Adam and Eve felt after they broke God’s prohibition,[19] it seems safe to assume that this is not what the author of Genesis intended to convey nor how it was understood by the Israelites. It is quite evident from reading the Hebrew Bible that Yahweh is a very moral and holy God. Why he would forbid the pinnacle of his creation, mankind, to have the knowledge of or the ability to choose between right and wrong seems thematically contradictory. Furthermore, they obviously could already choose between right and wrong before eating of the tree of knowledge because they freely chose to break God’s prohibition. Therefore, not only is the option of acquiring human moral faculties thematically contradictory, but it is also contradictory because what Adam and Eve seek already belongs to them. As to whether or not eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge granting human maturity, Wallace writes,
Further, one has to consider the full meaning of Gen 3:22 when the couple become like gods after eating the fruit. To become like divine beings in any way far surpasses the attainment of human maturity in any form. The text itself, therefore, argues against this interpretation. It is interesting that many post-biblical traditions have held beliefs contrary to this view.[20]
That divine likeness is far beyond human maturity seems a very reasonable assertion, especially in light of a culture’s viewing of gods as being far above human capacity and unlike our own rather irreverent culture.
The second option is that of knowledge of sexual relations. I am given to understand that when someone refers to “forbidden fruit” of taboo sexual relations, that terminology comes from this interpretation of the prohibition concerning the tree of knowledge. To be sure, there is certainly sexual imagery within the Eden narrative such as Adam and Eve being naked and not knowing shame, Even’s punishment is one relevant to her procreation as well as for her desire over her husband, as well as the snake being a symbol of fertility cults as noted by Wallace.[21] Wallace also cites Engnell as arguing for “knowing good and evil” to be interpreted as a sexual idiom[22] by referring to Deuteronomy, among other verses, which says, “And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad—they will enter the land. I will give it to them and they will take possession of it (Deuteronomy 1:39).” Engnell may have a case here, as one of the identifying characteristics of children is those who have not yet sexually matured. However, it does not need to refer merely to that. Children can also be defined as those who have not yet fully emotionally, mentally or morally matured which leaves Engnell’s assertion, in my mind, as mere opinion. Furthermore, viewing the tree of knowledge giving those who eat of it knowledge of sexual relations totally ignores the marriage, also rife with sexual language, that God has already decreed to be a part of his creation: “For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh (Genesis 2:24).” Why would God declare that mankind may not learn of that which he has already given to them, and also falls under the world being good because sin has not yet entered the world? There is, therefore, no credible reason to assert that the tree of knowledge of good and evil refers to carnal, sexual knowledge.
The third possibility is that of “universal knowledge,” or quite simply, knowledge of everything. Wallace argues for this by asserting that the phrase “knowing good and evil” is an example of a merismus and that it is a very common phenomenon in Biblical Hebrew.[23] He also gives this definition: “a synecdoche in which a totality is expressed by two constituent parts.”[24] Wallace goes on to cite several examples within the Bible of merismus, which would likely take a full book to fully and rigorously analyze. We may skip ahead to his conclusion, however, where he writes that,
In 3:6 there is the notice that the tree was desirable to increase one’s understanding. The eating of the tree allowed the human to become like gods. This is hinted at in Gen 3:5 and realized in 3:22 when Yahweh says: ‘the human has become like one of us knowing good and evil.’ If we understood ‘good and evil’ as a merism, there being no indication that mutually exclusive alternatives are meant, then the quality gained by the humans is the divine ‘knowledge of everything.’ We noted… that more than one aspect can be involved in the expression “good and evil.” Aspects of culture, civilization and sex might all be implied. This is particularly the case when the phrase is combined with the verb yada with its many shades of meaning.[25]
Given, as Wallace notes, the vague nature of the verb “to know” in Hebrew, yada, as well as the vague sense of what the narrative means by good and evil as evinced by the previously outlined possibilities, this seems to be a satisfying and accurate conclusion. However it still strikes me as being rather limited in scope. Just as Wallace refutes the first two possible conclusions, of human faculties and sexual knowledge, neither of which seem to be deemed as evil, if not given to mankind already, by God; why then would God forbid his creation from such merely informational knowledge as culture and civilization? Is there something inherently evil about irrigation ditches, or in knowing how to construct a house with several floors or in knowing how to domesticate a dog? Certainly these things came about after mankind broke the prohibition and ate from the tree of knowledge, but did these things happen because of something inherent in the fruit itself or because it was necessary to learn to do these things beyond the safety of the garden?
I am therefore willing to concede that part of what the fruit of the tree of knowledge possessed were those very things that Wallace asserts. However, the fundamental aspect of the nature of the tree of knowledge lies in the prohibition itself. Mesters offers us the following understanding of the divine prohibition,
It (the order of God) permits eating from all the trees, including the tree of life, and it forbids eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:16-17). These two divine orientations cannot be separated, since one is the alternative of the other. This is the option between life and death, left to the free choice of man. On one side is the tree of life, and on the other the tree of knowledge of good and evil which brings death.[26]
Thus we should not understand the boundaries of Eden to be that Adam and Eve may partake of all that they wish, and the tree of life, as long as they do not partake of the tree of knowledge. Rather God has offered mankind a simple either/or proposition: either you eat of the tree of knowledge, or you eat of the tree of life and everything else. This resounds with the afore mentioned passage of Deuteronomy 30:16-19 where God calls upon his people to choose either life or death, with there being no middle ground on which his people can stand. Therefore obedience to God is an all or nothing proposition that one either does or does not do. But to the person who rejects obedience to God’s law, he believes that what he or she is doing is the right thing. Isaiah makes reference to these people when he declares, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness (Isaiah 5:20).” In light of this, as well as our observing that wisdom, righteousness and obedience are those things which lead to life within the rubric of the Hebrew Bible, we can take the next logical step and assert along with Mesters that,
Thus man is faced with two alternatives, made explicit in the order of God; either attain wisdom by observing the Law of God and so find life in him; or, ignoring all this, try to be a god for himself (cf. Gen 3:5), by deciding for himself and by means of his own research what is good and evil and so find death by cutting himself off from God.[27]
Mesters is here referring to the ability to find life, the very tree of life, in the unmediated presence of God enjoyed by mankind in the Garden of Eden. The alternative to this is to make one’s own parameters for dwelling in the garden rather than abiding by God’s, with the consequence being expulsion into the world and separation from God. Therefore, while the tree of knowledge might have contained knowledge in the “broad sense of everything” that Wallace asserts, it also entailed an intimate knowledge of sin. For in partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil one knew good, by dwelling in the garden bound by God’s parameters and prohibitions, and one knew evil by disobeying and acting as a law unto one’s self. This Hebrew word “to know,” yada, which can signify knowledge as in carnal relations, might serve in Wallace’s broad sense of the vague word but also in the sexual sense of intimate knowledge because by partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge one had personally experienced evil rather than merely being vaguely aware of it as something outside God’s parameters. This is the fourth option, which Wallace dismisses as being part of the first option; it is the option of human autonomy and self-determination. Not self-determination in choosing to sit or to lay down, to walk or to run, but self-determination in a moral and spiritual sense of choosing one’s own direction either toward or away from God as the self pleases. Mesters puts it this way,
It is the very condition of human life: to be able to dispose of everything, but to dispose according to the wisdom and design of the Creator. This divine order is a symbol that summarizes the norm which ought to regulate all behavior: ‘Be wise and follow the Law of God, i.e., eat of the tree of life. Do not try to build a law for yourself from your own head, i.e., do not eat of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.’ This is not an arbitrary order. It is an expression of the fundamental law inscribed in the very existence of man.[28]
Throughout the entire Hebrew Bible, beginning in the Garden of Eden and going through all of the Law and the prophets there is one ultimate choice set before all those who would worship Yahweh; either one must let Yahweh be God and obey him, or one must be god one’s self and determine what you will or won’t do. The first choice is that of goodness and life, righteousness and godliness. The second is that of autonomy and self-determination, and also confusion and death. This is not an arbitrary decision set before primordial man in the Garden of Eden, to either jump or not jump through God’s hoops but rather it is a struggle that is ingrained upon the heart of all of mankind to either choose God or not choose him, and to try and live with the consequences of whatever choice we make.
In conclusion, we can assert that the Garden of Eden was understood to have been an actual, geographic place. While there may be significant problems that we cannot reconcile as to its location given the possible identification of some of the rivers, at the very least the garden was understood to have once been a real place. Yet that we can no longer reconstruct where it may have been actually testifies to the truth of the story itself; just as God forbade re-entry into the Garden of Eden we are no longer able to find it ourselves, lest we should enter into it. Within that actual place humanity lived in unbroken fellowship with God that was direct and immediate, without the need of separation of the two. We lived within God’s sacred space; we dwelled with God in the tabernacle, or the Holy of Holies, three-hundred and sixty-five days of the year and not just once a year as was later implemented due to the divide of sin between man and God. Within Eden humanity wrestled with the question that is most fundamental to its nature – the question of whom to worship. Would we worship God and partake of the tree of life, or would we worship ourselves, make our own law, and partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? We chose the latter, forfeiting our intimate relationship with God and instead coming to know sin and evil as intimately as we once knew God himself. What we take from Eden is the knowledge that we have blown it on a cosmic scale and that we deserve to be bereft of God’s presence. Yet even in his cursing Adam and Eve he made a provision for them, that Eve’s child would crush the serpent beneath his heel and, ultimately, overcome that which was lost in the Garden of Eden.
Bibliography
Mesters, Carlos. “Eden: Golden Age or Goad to Action.” Orbis Books; Petropolis, Brazil, 1971
Petter, Dr. Thomas D. Lecture Notes, OT 502, 2006
Wallace, Howard N. “The Eden Narrative.” Scholars Press; Atlanta Georga, 1985
Zimmern, Heinrich. “The Babylonian and the Hebrew Genesis.” David Nutt; London England, 1901
Zondervan. “NIV Study Bible.” Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1973
[1] Heinrich Zimmern, “The Babylonian and the Hebrew Genesis.” (David Nutt, London, England: 1901) p. 30-31.
[2] Dr. Thomas D. Petter, Lecture Notes OT 502, 2006.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Howard N. Wallace, “The Eden Narrative.” (Scholars Press, Atlanta Georgia: 1985) p 84.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Zimmern, 31-32.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Zimmern, 32-33.
[10] Wallace, 74.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid. 79-80.
[14] Ibid. 103.
[15] Ibid. 101-103.
[16] Ibid. 102.
[17] Ibid. 116.
[18] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Eden (2006).
[19] Wallace, 116.
[20] Ibid. 117.
[21] Ibid. 119.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid. 122
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid. 129.
[26] Carlos Mesters, “Eden: Golden Age or Goad to Action.” (Orbis Books, Petropolis, Brazil: 1971) 31-32.
[27] Ibid. 33.
[28] Ibid.
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