The Tree in the Garden of Eden and its Possible Origins

Thanks to Jim West who at his blog links to an article by E. Tsireli about the trees ancient religious history:

http://auth.academia.edu/EvlampiaTsireli/Talks/51280/The_Tree_in_the_Garden_of_Eden_and_its_Possible_Origins

and a quote from the conclusion

“The tree has become the means of communication between man and deity, as well as a way of expressing this relationship. This strong relationship passed into the biblical text and formed the tree of life and the tree of knowledge scene,however with a very different connotation. 

……However, with respect to the tree in the Paradise story of the Bible, it seems that its role reaches its peak as it is involved in the most important and perhaps most sad event of all human kind; the Fall of Man. Nevertheless, in the Christian eschatology there is the hope in the book of Revelation that the righteous men will be allowed to eat of the tree of life in the End Times. This is the only time the figure of the Tree is used by the writers – the biblical writers in this connection- to ‘open’ and ‘close’ in some way such a great sacred Book as the Bible.”

Now, I don't believe the Fall of Man was a sad event.  It was necessary and made it possible for us to come to be.  And I believe in the happy ending at the close of Revelation.

The Gospel of Trees

One of the recurring themes of this blog relates to the meaning of trees.  Recently came across a website called The Gospel of Trees.  They have nice pictures and nice quotes, from ancient to modern times.  Trees have roots and they reach down into the depths of the earth and the depths of our psyches.  The first section was lifted from the About section of the blog.  Then follows a quote from Miroslav Wolf from another pane.

The Bible is a story about trees. It begins, or nearly enough, with two trees in a garden: the Tree of Life, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The pivotal event in the book comes when a man named Jesus is hanged on a tree. And the last chapter of the last book features a remade Jerusalem: “In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” If you understand the trees, you understand the story.

The words and images here are presented in no particular order: this is a mosaic rather than a narrative. Clicking on the arrow at the top right of each content page will take you randomly to another page on the site. 

Also, this mosaic is a work in progress: more text and images will be added to it over time.

This site is one of the lesser fruits of the Project on Lived Theology. I am greatly indebted to Charles Marsh, the founder and Director of PLT, and to the other members of the Virginia Seminar, who have greatly enriched my life in recent years.

My name is Alan Jacobs. Any text and images on this site that are not explicitly credited to others are created by me.

The site is designed by my very talented friend Brad Cathey. Hosting is by Highgate Cross. 

The Gospel of the Trees by Alan Jacobs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

There is a remarkable image in the closing pages of Scripture that has become a touchstone for the way my colleagues and I think about faith and culture. Amid its descriptions of the New Jerusalem, Revelation includes “the tree of life, bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Rev. 22:2). The tree holds out hope that whole cultures will be healed and mended, becoming places where people can flourish. And it sets an agenda for faith as a way of life that contributes to that flourishing, in anticipation, here and now.

— Miroslav Volf