I spent the last three non-“Life of Paul” posts talking about the Genesis One creation account in the Bible. I’d like to continue through the first eleven chapters of Genesis because these chapters often present themselves as “stumbling blocks” for people who have doubts about the credibility of the Bible. This is a good time to remind the reader that I am simply interested in the Bible as a lay (non-clergy) person. I am not a “Bible Scholar” in the sense that I do not have seminary training or training in biblical languages and interpretation. I just write about what I find interesting and have learned or investigated during my life.

After the Chapter 1 creation account, the writer of Genesis (presumably Moses – under the leadership of the Holy Spirit) turns to the account of the first family and the Garden of Eden. He opens the description in Genesis 2:4 with the phrase “these are the generations…” This same phrase is used at the beginning of each major character or storyline throughout Genesis: Adam, Noah, Noah’s sons, Shem, Terah, Ishmael, Isaac, Esau, and Jacob. This is a phrase that is translated in various English translations as generations, account, history, story, records, etc. In other words, it means that the following is the account of what happened to …. Now lets look at Genesis 2:4-25.

“These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.“

While Chapter 1 told the story of the creation that God had made, this passage is now focused on a specific part or aspect of that creation. The focus of this passage is the man (and eventually woman) and the place that God has prepared for them to live. It is intended to show the care and provision that God has for his people. Like a painter or movie director, the author sets the stage for the story he’s about to tell.

“When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

Some people try to make this passage mean that no rain had ever fallen on earth before the creation of man (and thus make an argument for a young earth). By the same argument, then, they would have to eliminate plants from having developed on the earth and no water cycle existing yet. But please don’t forget the original intended audience – the Israelites freshly freed from captivity in Egypt who are being re-introduced to their Creator. This is highly poetic and descriptive language designed to present the arrival of the first human – God’s special creation. Visually, you can imagine a barren landscape shrouded in mist from which emerges the first human. With the arrival of this human is the picture of God’s design for a habitat in which he can dwell.

“And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.“

I’ll talk about the trees of life and good/evil later. Some of this language may be figurative and symbolic, but I believe that it also describes an actual physical place. The evidence for this is the actual geography identified in the next part of the description. We know already about the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The other geographic references are more obscure and unknown to us today, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. The passage describes Eden as a place in which this habitat (the garden) was placed and it was the origin of the watersheds of these rivers. The modern-day location would be in Iraq or Turkey, as shown in the wikimedia map below.

Just as the focus of the Genesis 1 creation account was from the perspective of the surface of the Earth, so this passage has turned its focus to a specific spot on the surface of the Earth. The view is the location of the garden in Eden, and when the passage says, “out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food“, it is similar to the way verse two in Chapter 1 described the earth as “without form and void.” There the earth was prepped and ready to be filled. Similarly, the garden in Eden is described as prepped (no plants, no bushes, no rain, foggy) and ready to be filled. So, “every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food” represents the filling of the garden with the items God was intending for Adam and Eve to utilize. These are not the first trees on the earth. They are the plants placed in this unique garden.

The passage then goes on to describe geographically where this garden was located.

“A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.“

At this point we need to be reminded of the parallel passage from Genesis 1:28-29 – “‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.” The humans (Adam and Eve – who has not yet been introduced) were to be the guardians / rulers / stewards of the earth and utilize it for their benefit. The passage in Chapter 2 provides some additional insight for us.

“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.’”

There are three things I want to point out from this paragraph.

1. Humans (the word “Adam” literally means “man”) were intended to work. We sometimes think of work as a bad thing, but truthfully – we all need something to be responsible for and to care for. Work is not in and of itself boring, mundane, or unfulfilling. That perspective is a result of sin – which we’ll discuss later. The concepts of “subduing” and “dominion” in chapter 1 imply that work is needed and expected.
2. In the earlier part of the chapter, the garden is identified with two specifically named trees: the tree of life, and tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Again, these may be figurative in nature, but I think they were (or are) physical objects as well, available and accessible to the humans. I believe that Adam and Eve were NOT inherently immortal. Their bodies (even before sin entered the world) were subject to decay and death. Decay and death are a natural part of the earth processes. The fossil record provides evidence of this continual cycle and death (of non-humans) should not be considered evil and the result of sin. Obviously, sin has impacted that and I’ll address that in my later discussion on the effects of sin. However, the first humans would never die because God had provided the tree of life for them. This tree is also mentioned in Revelation as being present in heaven and whose fruit would be continually eaten and it will provide healing for the nations. God gave all the trees in the garden for food for the humans, and this included the tree of life. It was to be the means by which they perpetuate their lives (and heal any harms that might befall them).
3. God’s directive to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a command to demonstrate that He had given man a choice to obey, or not. The warning Adam received was that “in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.” As I’ve already pointed out, Adam was subject to decay already. The implication here is that when he disobeys God, he is making the choice to be separated from God’s presence and from access to the tree of life. His ultimate death would be a marker of his separation from God.

The next passage is another one that people arguing about length of days and all that (rather than looking at the purpose of the story being told) get hung up on. This next set of events is not reasonable to represent the events of a single day. But put in the context of Adam’s life and work in the garden, it makes perfect sense.

“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’“

The point of this passage is to remind the reader that humans are unique from the rest of the created world. As I stated in my previous Creation post, I believe that humans (and actually every species of plant and animal) were specially created by God and did not evolve from something else. But more importantly, humans alone bear the image of God and are special to him. He desires to live among us and have fellowship with us. And our relationship with one another is a reflection of our relationship with Him.

In the above passage, when Adam was naming the animals, I believe the point of this is to demonstrate that he was recognizing the differences between himself and the animals. I do not believe that God brought him penguins, polar bears, koalas, and kangaroos to look at. The specific animals are irrelevant. But Adam said “at last” when God introduced him to Eve. He recognized that he and she were unique among all of God’s creation.

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.“

Here we see that it is God’s intention for marriage to be unique as well. It is unfortunate in our modern culture (and in many cultures before ours) that marriage is held in such low esteem. A husband and wife (and their respective genders) are a unique part of their creation as well, and the fact that they were unashamedly naked is simply a foreshadowing of the turn of events that we’ll read about next time in Chapter 3.

As a final thought, I recognize that there are some (possibly many) Bible believers who might balk at the way I’m laying out these discussions of Genesis, saying “but you’re not believing the Bible.” I want to reiterate that I DO believe the Bible, and while I am not a bible scholar, I have studied this for most of my life and I do believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. What I disagree with is the definition of the word “literal.” I disagree with some interpretations that ignore all the evidence that God has provided about Himself in his dual revelation of the books of scripture and nature. And as my pastor says every Sunday, if you have questions – and I hope you do – please ask and lets talk about them. And as another former pastor of mine used to say, we are not a perfect church, but at the head of our church is a perfect Savior and it is He whom we serve!