Info about the Garden and the Trees

 A question from a reader about the garden of Eden and the 2 trees. His English is broken, but that is okay.

Maregaal Yaakov,

Do you know who are the tree next to the tree of life,,, known as the tree of knowledge of good and bad,,,,,who is that tree,??

Johannes Roos,
Hey, good evening. This myth in the Jewish bible is borrowed from Babylonian, Assyrian, Urartu cultures. The tree of life in those cultures is basically a tree that gives eternal life to those that eat if it. Most of the time we see kings eating from it and the gods of those cultures are nearby whoever king it is. Whether we originally had something like this in our polytheistic days is very hard to say, because we actually committed suicide culturally speaking by discarding our polytheism. Nonetheless..... Here is the basic teaching of the Torah, theologically speaking

Adam and Eve were in the garden in the "East."

"East" of where? particularly Jerusalem, the City of HaShem.

Adam was told he may eat of any tree in the garden that had fruit, which included that tree of life.

They were also told there is just one tree that they must not eat from and that was the tree of knowledge.

Hashem uses the word, "surely" in the statement, "...the day you eat of it you will surely die." Keep this in mind.

Now because the tree of life is there and it grants eternal life, it goes without saying that mankind, that being Adam and Eve at that point, were destined to die in the normal manner of life and their only way to escape death was to take of the Tree of Life. However, before they got the chance to eat of the Tree of Life the serpent came and persuaded them to eat of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil first.

And, when they did Hashem fulfilled the word, "surely" unto them by putting cherubim in the way/path to guard them from reaching out and grabbing the fruit of the Tree of Life which was the only way for them to escape death,  thus they "surely" died in due course.

And because of this one particular sin several things happened as a consequence in this mythology all at once.

1. why there are weeds.
2. why we humans work so hard to get food when the beasts of the field don't have to work so hard as it seems
3. Why women have a hard time with labor compared to the animals.
4. Why women have a hard time with pregnancy and conception when compared to the other animals
5. Why we die even though we are made in His image.
6. Why the serpent has no legs or why it will slither on the ground
7. Why humans are the only specie to wear clothes
8. Why mankind are generally scared of snakes

The story moves on because it is a myth and so Genesis speaks about Adam's kids and how Israel came about in due course.

The story moves on so fast that it doesn't mention it still exists somewhere or it stayed around till the flood and the flood killed the tree, even though its supposed to grant eternal life.

In the myth where we borrowed it from, the standing serpent is a diety in ancient Sumer. Possibly Ningishzida or
Ninazu

Maregaal
2/21/2022
11:09 pm