The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

genesis 2:15-17

The passage above, in conjunction with Genesis 3 (Typically referred to as “The Fall”), set up what becomes the event that would cause Heaven and Earth to be separated — to borrow how the Bible Project phrases it, the event that would change Heaven on Earth to Heaven and Earth. It’s a really interesting event that is worth diving into. There are all sorts of strange things that happen over the course of Genesis 2 and 3. Talking snakes, cherubim, and a garden filled with the complete presence of God. And these are all things that I think we need to explore.

Note: This is the third installment of the “Heaven & Earth” series. To read the previous installments, click here.

Strange Tales

It’s a sad fact of life that when you listen to a story for a long time, or if you’ve heard it many times before, that you slowly start to accept a story without any critical lens being applied — it’s sometimes referred to as the “lullaby effect.” You listen to stories and tall tales your whole life and you slowly come to accept the details of the story without questioning anything. Johnny Appleseed wandered the hills of America and nobody wonders about the logistics of it all. Paul Bunyan and his ox Babe chop down all the trees in the wilderness and nobody thinks of how strange a 50-foot-tall blue ox is. This is not to say that we should dismiss any story in the Bible, but merely that sometimes we need to register to the stories of our childhood with fresh ears and find that new truths emerge from them.

So what stands out in Genesis 2 and 3? What things are accepted without questioning the strangeness of the story? First off, there’s the fact there is a literal talking snake in the story, which for some reason people seem rather accepting of. Even in the context of the Bible, it is still a real rarity for animals to speak; the only other animal in the Bible that speaks is Balaam’s donkey, who appears in Numbers 22 and criticizes Balaam for how he is treated. So right away, our attention should be drawn to the creature, and his role in the story.

The Serpent in the Garden

The inclusion of the serpent into the tale is an interesting one that deserves further attention. This speaking snake appears and, after a conversation with Eve, becomes a part of the story of humanity’s fall. But there are a couple of things that I think are worth noting. First, within Christian circles the serpent in the Garden in often equated with Satan, as though he has been planning the rebellion and fall of Adam and Eve since the creation of the Garden, and he is now exacting his master plan. The problem, however, is that the serpent in Genesis 3 is never named as “Satan”; he is only ever referred to as “the serpent.” In fact, while we’re on the subject, the word Satan in Hebrew is a title, not a name (coming from the Hebrew ha’shatan, meaning “the adversary”). Regardless, many equate the serpent to Satan (or, at the very least, to the enemies of God) given that the serpent is the one who entices Eve to taste the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And while the Tree deserves more discussion (which I’ll go into below), what did always strike me as interesting were the words that the serpent uses to lure Eve to eat the fruit:

“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”… “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Genesis 3:1, 3:4-5

The interesting thing in the serpent’s choice of wording and phrasing is that he never actually lies to Eve. Everything that he says is either a rephrasing of what God says or a piece of true information (which begs the question as to whether it would have been possible to lie in the Garden of Eden, or if its status as the place of full communion with God meant that falsehood was impossible. That is a question I will leave to the rabbis.). The serpent also states that to eat from the Tree of Knowledge means to understand good and evil in the way that God does. This was not a falsehood, either — upon their eating, Adam and Eve become like God in that they decide for themselves what is good and what is evil. So the serpent doesn’t lie here either. The only thing you can really hold him on is that the serpent states that eating the fruit will not cause death, but that is contrary to what God says previously, isn’t it? Unless God and the serpent meant “death” in different ways. Where the serpent said “You shall not die (a physical death)”, God states “You shall die (a spiritual death).” It seems that this is where semantics and intention of meaning come into play. But you could feasibly argue that everything that the serpent says to Eve is true. So does he mislead her, or does she mislead herself in poor council?

Perhaps this points to the fact that it does not always take a falsehood to convince us to stray, sometimes a selective phrasing of the truth can fill us with the doubt to abandon faith the same as if we were lied to directly. But I digress.

Eve’s response to the serpent is equally interesting. When the serpent asks for clarification of God’s directions, Eve adds another bit onto God’s words. Where God had said that they should not eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but Eve added that they cannot even touch the fruit, lest they would die. An interesting addition, to be sure, and one that I wonder whether the serpent exploited, encouraging Eve first to touch the fruit (and her realizing she did not die), and using that to encourage her to eat. God only knows, I suppose.

The Twin Trees

The fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is never specified either. While it is often portrayed as an apple, that simply (if we were to take the story as a more literal and less metaphorical/interpretive story) could not be true. Apples are a European fruit, and would not have been in the Mediterranean, Ancient Near East, nor in the Fertile Crescent. As such, many Jewish depictions of the fruit actually portray it as a pomegranate instead of an apple. In fact, Jewish legend teaches that the pomegranate that Eve ate had no seeds inside it in the Garden, but after the events of the Garden, God changed the fruit so that it would bear seed, exactly 613 seeds in each pomegranate. The reason for 613 seeds? So that every time a Jew ate a pomegranate they would be reminded of the 613 commandments spread throughout the Old Testament and of their commitment to follow God’s law. An interesting idea, and one that I appreciate a little more than the apple.

There were, however, two trees within the Garden (at least, two named trees): The Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Tree of Knowledge seems to get a lot of attention (rightly so), but there is the other tree that God denotes in the Garden. This also is an oddity, and raises questions of its own: does this mean that humankind could be immortal within the Garden? Or rather, does “Tree of Life” merely denote that this is the Tree that can provide sustenance, but cannot allow those who eat from it to escape from death? Does the Tree grant life of its own accord?

The Tree of Life is a marvel, but unfortunately, one that is only mentioned in passing in a single verse. However, I would argue a few things about it. If we believe that God is the giver of life and that all life flows through and from Him, then we cannot argue that the Tree grants life of its own accord. Instead, the Tree of Life symbolizes the reality that being in close proximity to God’s presence is life itself. I also think that this means the Tree of Life, through God, could provide a deathless existence.

After all, if you believe in conditional immortality (since all life comes from God, existence without God means a lack of life), then to fully be in the presence of God means existence without death. (C.S. Lewis talks a little of this in The Great Divorce, which I’ve talked about previously.) In order to convey this message, it seems that the writer of Genesis adopted a familiar symbol of life to their readers.

Angelic Beings

The second major thing that I feel often gets glossed over is the inclusion of cherubim in the story, with God setting them outside the gates to the Garden to guard the entrance. I feel like many people misunderstand the different types of angelic beings that are encountered in the Bible. And, unfortunately, Renaissance portraiture has caused many people to think of little angelic babies with wings anytime the word “cherubim” is used. There’s actually more of a distinction between the different types of beings — cherubim, seraphim, and ophanim — each with their own distinct features and roles. For example, the opening chapter of Ezekiel outlines his vision which featured the different angelic beings. Cherubim are described as hybrid creatures, as divine beings that reflect God’s creation of creatures, different animals with wings whose purpose was to serve God. Seraphim are burning, six-winged beings, the caretakers of God’s throne room and those who continually praise the Lord, singing “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” Ophanim are the burning wheels of fire, sometimes portrayed as being covered in eyes (these are the wonky ones you’ll sometimes see in internet memes on angels).

N.B. – For a great video breaking down all of this, check out BibleProject’s video on Angels and Cherubim.

The point of these creatures is that they are supposed to be strange, and different from everything else in our world. These beings’ strange descriptions reflect the glory of God — their descriptions are supposed to be strange because the glory of God is something that we cannot fully understand, in the same way, that we cannot fully understand a being that is a flaming wheel of eyes or a being with four faces, they simply don’t exist in our natural world.

So maybe angels do really look like that in the courts of heaven. Or maybe that is just how they present themselves to humans. I’ve yet to see one, so I’ll consider myself far from the authority on the matter.

But for all of the different types of angels and angelic beings mentioned in the Bible, the type that we really want to focus on right now are the cherubim, who God sets on the entrances to the Garden after He sends Adam and Eve out of the Garden. So are these cherubim acting as bouncers outside the doors of Eden or as guards, protecting a treasured resource inside, but not necessarily blocking the entrance?

An Eastward Banishment

When Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, God is forced to banish them from the Garden of Eden. But the choice of which direction He sends them is telling. He sends them east, which is seen in much of the Bible as the direction where you go when bad things happen. Conversely, good things in the Bible head westward. Cain is banished to the east after the murder of Abel, people travel east to Shinar in order to build the Tower of Babel, Lot travels east to Sodom and Gomorrah, and Israel is exiled to Babylon in the east after they are conquered. But for every bad thing that happens in traveling east, there are more westward good things that happen. When Jesus enters Jerusalem in the Triumphant Entry, he enters by the East Gate, which meant that he was traveling west into the city. When the Israelites travel into the Promised Land, they travel west to do so. And in Ezekiel’s vision (as well as in the book of Revelation), the glory of God is stated to be coming “from the East”, which means that it is traveling westward. So whenever we read this story and see that Adam and Eve travel east from the Garden, this should be a red flag to us, and it also means anytime we see people traveling east in the Bible, it should remind us of the separation and “heading away” from God that Adam and Eve experienced in their leaving the Garden.

It’s easy to view God as a merciless landlord, who upon failing to receive the money from his renter the day he expected it, immediately evicted the tenant out of anger and frustration. It’s easy to view God as a disappointed parent, wagging their finger, saying “You messed this up, now get out!” But I don’t think that is what God is feeling when He sends Adam and Eve from the Garden. After all, before he sends them out, he clothes them in garments of skin which, by the way, would have required an animal to be killed for the pelt. Perhaps this is the first sacrificial animal being described, where, despite our failings, God clothes us and forgives us. But even with forgiveness and a desire to take care of Adam and Eve and to make sure they are clothed, there are still consequences of sin: Adam and Eve cannot remain in the Garden, and despite being forgiven for their actions, their consequence is that they are no longer able to fully stand in the complete presence of God.

So is God setting cherubim at the doors Him saying “Get out and stay out”? I wouldn’t think so. I think instead it is God saying “It’s not safe or good for you to be here right now, but I will guard this place so that it is safe and ready for your eventual return, for the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve.”

I think it is less of a “we can’t get along right now, so get out of my hair” and more of an “I know this is hard and it hurts, but this is what is best right now, I will prepare you for your journey ahead until you find your way back to me.”

After all, I think we are called to believe in a God that wants what is best for us, even when the choices we make lead to difficult decisions and actions as consequences. I choose to believe in a God that is saying “I’ll hold this space for you, come back when all is right.” The choices we make lead us to or from God. While there may be consequences to our actions, God will always be there, guarding the door to the Garden, waiting to welcome us back again when all things have been made anew and all has been made right.

All made new. All made right.

Featured image courtesy of the BibleProject, available at www.bibleproject.com.