lkwunhyo blog

No one comes to the first pages of the Bible with a completely blank slate. Rather, it’s almost too easy to come instead, with lots of preloaded assumptions — some of which we are aware of, but most of which we are not.

Regardless of our own biases and modern upbringing, the biblical authors actually had a purpose for telling this story, the way they told it, as the story that set forth the agenda for the whole Hebrew Bible.

It’s commonplace to see Genesis being ripped out of context. People go into the Adam and Eve narrative, looking to gain insight into human origins or to research about gender. And while the Bible can speak to modern issues and shape our perspective and thoughts, it must be recognized that by doing so, it is to rip these chapters out of context.

Rather, it is of greater importance to take these chapters as they are, and as intended by it’s author. While the Adam and Eve narrative can be pasted into all kinds of modern cultural matters, it is first and foremost, the archetypal narrative that marks the beginning of the Hebrew Bible for everything else that would soon follow.

A Repetition of Human Failure

At the very first pages of the Bible, a reader would find themselves at the tale of two trees — the tree of life, and the tree of knowing tov (good) and ra (bad). And it is these trees that illustrate the whole human story.

The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground — trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. — Genesis 2:9 NIV

Now, this text is ripe for all kinds of very valid questions and thoughts — “Why did God place trees in the center of the garden? And what on earth are these trees all about?”

It might seem harsh for God to place these trees at the center, and perhaps even more unfair of Him to command abstinence from the tree of knowing tov and ra. Yet, it is consistent with the human experience. Life is often shared with a moment of testing. Each decision and choice that we make is often a moral dilemma — the choice to do good, or to fail in doing so.

It’s common for readers to attribute Adam and Eve’s wrongdoing to the act of attaining wisdom, but this isn’t quite true. In fact, attaining wisdom is something to be encouraged,

“Now, LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” — 1 Kings 3:7-9 NIV

For Solomon, knowing how to distinguish between tov and ra was something he couldn’t do alone. Rather, for Solomon to rule Israel, and for the humans to rule over God’s creation, the ability to discern tov and ra was a necessity. So this leaves readers with the question, “Then what way of knowing tov and ra wouldn’t kill the first humans?”

It’s a valid question, but the narrative doesn’t explain that explicitly — it only portrays the negative option. But what the story does describe is the way in which Adam and Eve willingly take from the tree of knowing tov and ra. This is the story — it’s about the taking of the fruit; doubting God’s generosity towards them. So then, the question to ask is rather: “Whose wisdom are the humans going to trust, and how will they attain it?”

The thematic taking of autonomy acted by the humans is a fragment of the beginning archetypal narrative. As soon as this is discovered, it becomes easier to find it’s corresponding narratives, even in Genesis alone:

Self-Autonomy Narrative	Description
Abel and Cain (Gen. 4)	If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? (Gen. 4:6) There is a choice between right and wrong — a path that leads to either life or death, blessing or curse. But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” (Gen. 4:6) But Cain is given the free-will to choose whichever path. Either the path to trust in God who says there is acceptance in doing good, or to mistrust God and choose to follow what he thinks is the right thing to do.
Tower of Babel (Gen. 11)	Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; (Gen. 11:4) This narrative is about the people reaching up to the heavens to return to the garden on their own terms. Rather than trusting God about the snake-crusher, they choose to accelerate their return by their own faulty wisdom.
Abraham and Hagar (Gen. 16)	He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. (Gen. 16:4) Abraham, having been promised by God countless descendants, mistrusts God and takes autonomy by conceiving a child by his own terms.
Abraham Lies About Sarah (Gen. 12, 20)	Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.” (Gen. 12:13) Following God’s recent promise of blessing, Abraham blatantly mistrusts God. In fact, he becomes the snake to the Pharaoh and it is the Pharaoh who ironically passes the test. All while Abraham chooses to trust in himself for his safety.

All these narratives are about the human failure in listening and trusting in God — it’s supposed to be an act of faith. So then, true wisdom is this: a genuine trust in God and in His wisdom in discerning good and bad.

A Divine Refuge

Another archetypal fragment is perhaps as much rewarding as it is exciting to discover — the divine refuge.

The Cosmic High Place

The beginning narrative takes place in the garden of Eden where readers stumble across a river:

A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. — Genesis 2:10-14 NIV

It’s a seemingly abrupt change in the pacing of the story and it also prompts the question, “What do rivers have to do with anything in the biblical story?”

Although the rivers foreshadow the key nations of the biblical narrative, it also helps readers discover the nature of the garden of Eden.

What’s interesting is that the biblical authors points to the garden of Eden as a cosmic high place — a mountain. It’s subtle but all the rivers flow from a single source, implying that the garden of Eden is a mountain. Ezekiel sees this too. He says,

You were in Eden, the garden of God[…] You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. — Ezekiel 28:13-14 NIV

The garden of Eden is a holy mountain — it’s the cosmic high place.

Walking with God

And it’s in this high place that God walks with His people. However, no longer was that the case with Adam and Eve:

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, and they hid him from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” — Genesis 3:8-9 NIV

It’s only a few chapters into the biblical story that we find the intimacy is broken between the humans and God. In fact, the humans hide from God behind the cover of trees, as if they are the righteous ones (ref. Ps. 1).

But Adam isn’t alone in his rebellion. Almost none of the coming biblical figures do much good either. In the ten generations of Adam’s genealogy, each life ends with the phrase, “and then he died.” It’s almost like an unceasing drumbeat, sounding disappointment but also planting a small hope for a new humanity to return to the garden.

In the last generation, we come across Noah. And what’s interesting about Noah is that he’s like his great-grandfather Enoch in one really important sense — he walks with God.

Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. — Genesis 5:23-24 NIV

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. — Genesis 6:9 NIV

It’s this that keeps the hope alive for a return to the garden, just like in the beginning.

A Picture of the Garden

If you pay closer attention, you’ll find that the entire biblical story is about returning to the garden. Not only is the tabernacle and temple brimming with garden imagery, but the Jewish translators of the Septuagint was steeped in the garden narrative.

The Hebrew word for “garden” is “gan” (גן). What’s interesting is that when they came to the word, “gan”, they translated it with the Greek word, “parádeisos” (πᾰρᾰδείσου), from which our English word “paradise” comes from.

It’s not just about the Greek word they used, but rather how these Jewish scholars thought about the garden. It was a paradise.

Now what other reference in the New Testament do we have in reference to a paradise?

Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” — Luke 23:43 NIV

When Jesus was hanging on the cross, a criminal was being crucified with Him. And he asks Jesus to remember him in His kingdom. There, Jesus says that they both, will be in “parádeisos.”

Jesus was talking about a place where God and man exist in harmony — a fuller reality of the tabernacle. It’s a cosmic union between the heavens and the earth. It’s the garden of Eden.

A Divine Refuge Among Chaotic Waters

It’s captivating to dwell on the flood narrative because it’s almost a scene-to-scene replay of the beginning story. Like the beginning, we’re taken back to the waters again (ref. Gen. 1), except this time, there’s a surviving remnant, Noah. And he’s in a divinely provided refuge with a man and a woman with their sons and wives, all peaceably coexisting with animals in a vehicle of salvation. They’re exactly like the first humans in the Eden narrative — it’s a little floating Eden.

As the waters recede, the ark rests on Mount Ararat — a high place. And there, just like the first humans, God blesses them.

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. — Genesis 9:1 NIV

It’s the same blessing God gave to Adam and Eve. And even more, Noah is almost like a new humanity ready to walk with God again. But instead, he plants a garden, eats (or drinks) of the fruit, and becomes naked and shamed, no different to the first humans. We’re back to square one.

The Rescuer in the Garden

The Hebrew Bible paints the picture of an anticipated new humanity — the snake-crusher who would lead humanity back into the garden. Yet, none seem to fit the portrait. Noah is no different to his fathers, far from the anticipated Messiah; Abraham blatantly mistrusts God and lies about his wife twice (ref. Gen. 12:10-20, 20); and Moses isn’t any more promising, ignoring God’s instruction and leading people on his own terms (ref. Num. 20:1-13).

And after the last prophet of the Hebrew Bible, there’s radio silence. Israel is occupied by the Romans and it seems like it’s no different than before.

But it’s in this time that we come across a figure called Jesus of Nazareth. He went about healing the sick, caring for the outcast, and He gathered twelve disciples as if they were the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus wasn’t a military leader, nor a zealot. He was a carpenter. Yet, like all his ancestors, Jesus too faced the generational test. And Jesus passed. In the wilderness, He did what Israel failed to do — Jesus trusted in God the Father. And in His greatest test, Jesus prayed what no one else could, “Yet not my will, but yours be done.”

Jesus is in His nature, God. But rather than taking autonomy for Himself, Jesus trusts in the wisdom of His Father.

He is the tabernacle personalized (ref. Jn. 1:51) and the divine refuge. He is the One transfigured in the high place. Jesus is the One who meets His Father in the garden (ref. Lk. 5:16, 22:39) and the One who walks faithfully up His last hill (ref. Mt. 27:33). Jesus is the promised Jewish Messiah — the awaited snake-crusher (ref. Gen. 3:15).

Last Thoughts

It seems that as we read through the first chapters of the Bible, each word and every syllable is tuned to introduce literary motifs. What we see from the Genesis narrative is God’s faithfulness. His providence is displayed through flawed humans, through the great patriarchs of faith, to even ourselves for the pursuit of a paradise lost. This is the story — God reaching down, even to the point of death on the cross, that we might walk with Him in the garden again.