Making Sense of Genesis 2: The Garden of Eden

What comes to mind when you think of “The Garden of Eden”? Chances are that your mind will immediately jump to some picture you saw from a 3^rd grade Sunday School class. Right now, you are imagining it: a lush, Amazon-like jungle, filled with a whole bunch of different animals: a gazelle here, a lion over there; a bear playing duck-duck-goose with…you know…ducks and geese. And right there, at the edge of a clearing, but still in the underbrush, are two people, a man and a woman, looking in wonder at everything all around them. And although they are both clearly naked, a few strategically placed fern leaves are covering their private parts. The story might tell us they were naked and unashamed, but in our versions, well, we’ll just cover them up even before God does, thank you very much.

Well, Genesis 2 is all about the Garden of Eden and the creation of both the man and the woman. (The woman isn’t named “Eve” until Genesis 3, and “Adam” as a proper name for the man until Genesis 4). But in any case, I have to tell you right now that the picture I just described for you—the one that inevitably popped into your head as soon as I said “Garden of Eden”—has to go. It is a picture that we need to get out of our heads if we are to understand what really is being described here in Genesis 2.

A Different Creation Story
The first thing to realize is something that virtually every Bible scholar will tell you: what we have here in Genesis 2 is a different creation story than the one in Genesis 1. No, it’s not a contradictory one, but at the same time, if you insist that Genesis 1-2 follows some chronologically accurate, historical timeline, then you are going to run into a whole mess of needless trouble and problems. Let me give just one example.

In Genesis 2:4, we are told, “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.” Someone (we’ll call him Richard) will say, “A ha! Genesis 1 says it took six days, with God resting on the seventh day, but here in Genesis 2:4, it says it all took place on one day, and it doesn’t mention God resting! That’s a contradiction! You see? The Bible is just full of fairytales and myths (“myths” being, of course, used in the wrong way)! Why would anyone believe such nonsense written by people from the Bronze Age?” Richard thus concludes that just because Genesis 1-2 doesn’t fit into his assumption that it is straightforward, chronological history, that therefore it’s just a waste of time.

In response, someone else (we’ll call him Tim) will say, “No, Genesis 2 is just zeroing in on Day 6! There’s no contradiction! That phrase “in the day” simply is referring to Day 6! The Bible is true!” Tim says this because he thinks the reliability of the entire Bible is dependent on Genesis 1-2 being a straightforward, chronological history. But then Richard will say, “How’s that possible? We’re told in 2:5-7 that God formed the man from the dust before there was any bushes or plants, and we’re told in Genesis 1 that vegetation was created on Day 3, and that man wasn’t created until Day 6!” And in response to that, Tim will make up something that explains away Richard’s observation.

But the problem is that both Richard and Tim are assuming things that the original audience would never had assumed. To the point, since the original audience of ancient Israelites living in the ancient Near East would not have considered these early chapters to be giving “accurate scientific/historical information,” they would not have gotten bent out of shape over Genesis 1 speaking of creation happening in six days, but then Genesis 2:4 referring to one day. It would not have bothered them that Genesis 1 has the plants and animals created before man, but then Genesis 2 has man created before the plants and animals, because they weren’t interpreting Genesis 1-2 as an accurate, blow-by-blow historical account of exactly how God created everything in the first place. Rather, they understood these stories to be teaching the truth about who God is, what creation ultimately is, and who humanity is, and what is human beings role in God’s created order.

In fact, Philo, a first century Jewish philosopher, fully acknowledged that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 were two different stories that weren’t intended to perfectly match up with each other. Genesis 1 was intended to emphasize that creation was a gift, whereas Genesis 2 focused on what it meant to be human. In any case, these chapters aren’t doing history. They are providing the worldview lens through which we can interpret history; they are constructing the stage upon which the drama of history will be played out. And because of that, they shouldn’t be judged by historical standards. If you do, then you are going to misinterpret them, and fail to understand what they are trying to teach.

The fact is, Richard would be wrong to reject Genesis 1-2 because of the so-called “historical discrepancy” between Genesis 1-2, and Tim would be wrong to frantically try to explain away the so-called “historical discrepancy,” because it’s not a discrepancy or contradiction, because it’s not even trying to do history in the first place. We’d be much better off putting all that to the side, and instead, realizing that Genesis 1 sets out the themes of one God, a good and orderly creation, and man being made in God’s image, and Genesis 2 elaborates on what it means to be human, and the role God intends for human beings to have within His creation.

YHWH Elohim
Before we specifically look at the description of the garden of Eden though, there is one interesting thing to note in Genesis 2:4, at the beginning of the second creation story. It concerns the way in which God is described here in Genesis 2—and I guarantee you that it is something that most people overlook. If you go back to Genesis 1, you will see that all throughout that chapter, God is referred to as God—or Elohim in Hebrew. Elohim is simply the generic Hebrew word for God. Interestingly enough, Elohim can also refer to gods, but the context of any given passage will make it clear if it is referring to gods or God. But in any case, read through Genesis 1, it is Elohim (i.e. God) all the way through.

As soon as you get to the beginning of the second creation story starting in Genesis 2:4, God is now referred to as The LORD God—with LORD being entirely capitalized in most English translations. Here’s what is going on: in Hebrew, the actual word is YHWH—it is the actual name God gives Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3, when Moses asks what His name is. “Which god should I tell the Hebrews has sent me?” God says, “Tell them I AM sent you!” “I AM” is what YHWH means.

Now, over time, the Jews came to regard YHWH as so holy that they didn’t want to chance “taking the name of YHWH their God in vain,” so even though they kept the word in the Hebrew text, they wouldn’t actually say it. Instead, they would either just say, “the Name,” or they would substitute the word Adonai, which is the Hebrew word for…lord, as in “master.” Then, in the time shortly before Jesus, when Greek-speaking Jews translated their Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, they used the Greek word “kurios” (which means “lord” or “master”) instead of YHWH, as a way of honoring the Jewish practice of using Adonai instead of YHWH.

Therefore, our English translations sort of keep that tradition alive by using the English word “lord” for YHWH, but writing in all capital letters, so that you know that the actual Hebrew word is YHWH. Now some scholars believe that the reason why YHWH (i.e. LORD) is used here in Genesis 2, the reason we have the LORD God (YHWH Elohim) instead of just “God” (Elohim), is this: now that God has created everything, He is now LORD over it. He is the Lord, the Master, the King over creation.

What is The Garden of Eden?
With that, let’s now get to the specifics we are told about the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 2:4-14, we are told a number of details: there is a garden, it is in the east, it is in Eden, there are variety of trees there, there is a river that goes through the garden and then breaks up into four other rivers that go out to the rest of the earth; there is also the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Now, as I’ve emphasized numerous times before, in order to understand what it being described, you have to see all that stuff through the eyes of people living in the ancient Near East. And yes, it goes back to those original creation stories.

In the ANE, most of the creation stories start with the waters of primordial chaos—in this respect, Genesis 1:1-2 is no different. And in the ANE, most of the creation stories describe the land somehow coming up out of the waters to provide a place where human beings could live—again, Genesis 1 is no different. And in the ANE, most of the creation stories then describe some sort of hill or mountain, where the gods would dwell in their royal palaces (i.e. their temples)—and believe it or not, here in Genesis 2, what we have isn’t that different. For we should understand Eden to be, not some sort of Amazon jungle, but rather God’s holy mountain, the place of His royal palace…His Temple.

And once you understand that, you will then get a better idea as to what kind of garden Genesis 2 is describing. Think of a literal king, living in his palace, high on some mountain overlooking the city and surrounding lands. What does that king have all about his palace, on the royal grounds? That’s right: his royal gardens. Therefore, we need to see that just as a king often would have walled-off royal gardens that surround his royal palace, the garden in Eden should be understood to be as the royal garden of the God, the King of creation of creation Himself. That is actually quite a different picture that the stereotypical picture we encounter in Sunday School curriculum. What is being described is the royal residence and gardens of the King of creation, not some sort of wild jungle.

In addition, the garden of Eden is depicted as the source of life for the entire creation. That is why we have the imagery of the river that flows out of Eden, then breaks up into four other rivers that go throughout the earth: the Tigris, Euphrates, Pishon and Gihon. Now, we know where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are, but the Pishon and Gihon are a bit of a mystery. Some think they might be referencing the Nile, or the Jordan, but it pretty much conjecture. The point, though, should be obvious: the reason there are four rivers is because it is understood that they go out to the “four corners” of the earth. This imagery of the river of life flowing out to the four corners of the world shouldn’t be surprising, for God Himself is the ultimate source of creation, therefore it is fitting to portray His royal residence (i.e. His Temple) as the source of life and center of His creation.

Incidentally, this Eden-like imagery is associated with the Temple throughout the Bible. Both the original Tabernacle, as well as Solomon’s Temple, were decorated with imagery of fruit trees and other Eden-images. In Ezekiel 47, Ezekiel envisions a future Temple out of which would flow a river that would water the entire earth. And in Revelation 22, when John goes into the New Jerusalem (which is described in dimensions that recall the Holy of Holies), he finds, you guessed it, both the Tree of Life and the River of Life, that flows out to water the entire earth.

In fact, in Jesus’ day, during the Feast of Tabernacles, there was a ceremony in which the priests would a lead a procession from the Temple to the Pool of Siloam, scoop up water in jars, then make their back to the Temple, where they were pour out the water on the altar. They did this because it was believed that the Temple was essentially the “navel of the earth,” and that in the age to come, that there would be a river that would flow out of the Temple and be the source of life for the entire world. (This is the ceremony, incidentally, that was probably being done when Jesus says in John 7:37-38, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”) In any case, all this clearly has its roots in what we find here in Genesis 2, with its description of Eden.

It is also significant to note that the rivers in Genesis 2 are associated with gold and various precious gems, because the gold and gems mentioned in Genesis 2 were part of the priestly vestments that the Levitical priests wore when serving in the Temple. The point should be obvious: everything about the description of the garden of Eden highlights the idea that it should be understood in terms of God’s Temple—His royal residence on His holy mountain, the fountainhead of life for all creation.

In my next post, I will look specifically at the creation of the man and the woman.