Tricksy Trees
Creation Story Two: 2:4b-25
The Lord God planted a garden in Eden… and there he put the man he had fashioned… And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 2:8-9
Our winsome ramble through the exotic palaces and sweet groves of Genesis is about to end in a broken foot on the roots of a gnarly theological tree. Amid all the verdant beauty, we’ve understandably avoided facing the full implications of the watery chaos of Creation One. And is it any wonder? As the peerless Mr Eliot reminds us:
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.1
We skirted the subject in our reflections, trying to pick out the positives, showing why Creation One must be blinded by His grace, but Creation Two is now calling our cards and for good reason.
There’s no mention of initial watery chaos in this new story. At all. From the outset, we find ourselves in an idyllic, misty garden. That’s it. The writers clearly understand the principle: out of perfection, perfection comes! They are aware of the profound problem inherent in the primordial chaos. How could it even exist from the start? Its presence is deeply problematic for portraying a perfect deity.
So, remove the chaos, solve the problem, right? Not quite. The writers of Creation Two also know it’s much more than a simple story device; that it represents something genuine and fundamental in human experience. After all, these same writers will continue the story into chapter three.
Alas, we’ve arrived at the foothills of arguably the central problem of Christian theology, ie, the problem of evil.
The intrepid writers of Creation Two recognise the necessity of a deeper dive into what the primordial chaos represents. It has to be more than no-thing or a negation, otherwise where’s the threat? But even though it hints at evil, it can’t really be so. Chronologically speaking. What would be its origin? They need to find a solution to the conundrum through an appropriate and abiding image.
Time for some Keats:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.2
There’s profound wisdom here. In the story of The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, Jesus reproaches the parsimonious virtue signalling of His table-sharers with this phrase:
Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.
The New Testament Greek here is ‘kalon ergon’ which can be translated as ‘good work’ or, similar to the above, ‘wrought something beautiful’. In other words, when we’re searching for the most profound truths, our eyes ought to be set upon the good and beautiful. Because they’re three sides of the same story.
And now we have it! Trees. Of course. Who doesn’t love a good tree? We’re informed that all the trees in the garden are beautiful and enticing, and by linguistic inference, full of fruit. It being paradise n’all, you might expect us to have the pick of them. But this is where the real story genius kicks in, and it’s pure Chekhov’s Gun! In other words, two of the trees have special names, a detail which might be easily passed off as incidental. Except…
Then the Lord God gave the man this admonition… ‘of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die.’ (vv 16-17)
WHAT!? We’re mid-piazza in sun-soaked paradise park eating tutti-frutti gelati, when God drops this on us. There’s a tree, just within pinky-reach, that comes complete with hazard warning lights. The gun is just left there, hanging on the wall. The man isn’t even given voice to reply with the world’s most obvious questions: ‘Err, Lord God, what’s evil, and, whilst we’re at it, die?’
Ok. So, this is what’s known as the set up. We’re slowly being given clues to the forthcoming disaster. At this stage, there’s still no sign of the antagonist’s arrival. Because there’s one more story device to employ before he turns up.
The woman is not yet created in this account. Only the man hears God’s prohibition in person. Later, the woman has clearly received word of God’s admonition (3:2-3) but she adds new details of her own about not touching and, indeed, the fruit – as though it has long been tantalising her imagination. The reader is invited to wonder: have these extra elements come from lingering observation, or private conversation with God, or are they due to Adam’s poor recounting, or, is she deliberately embellishing? These ambiguities alert us to a potential weakness, ripe for exploiting.
The gravity of the original prohibition is clear enough, but, come on, this is paradise – did God really mean it all so forcefully?
The crucial question of human freedom, upon which the whole narrative hinges, is brilliantly left unaddressed; lurking in the subliminal layers.
Everything’s now set, apart from that ruckus backstage. It turns out that’s the writers of Creation One bellowing, ‘We told you not to go there! You should have just kept it vague and abstract like us. Good luck with the can of worms you’ve just opened!’
Indeed, there’s something to their misgivings. Already, before Ole Fork-Tongue arrives, (who will himself need a fair bit of explaining!), a storm is brewing. Because it’s looking exactly like a set up. As in, a total stitch-up. Alert readers will find themselves grappling with a very unnerving question: given the fruit’s allure and the clearly natural curiosity of humans, why plant such a tree in Eden at all?
If this were fiction, there would be no question over the story. The narrative is brilliant, the setting literally perfect, and all is tinged with gathering dread. Big questions are raised and already begging for resolution. Sparse but highly telling details and imagery abound. We’re building for a fall.
But this isn’t fiction writing. It’s truth told as story. And now we’re in a theological tailspin. As a solution, we might suggest that God is testing the man, even though this isn’t stated explicitly in the story. But this still begs the question: why, in paradise of all places? The traditional answer is: because humans are given freedom, there has to be an opportunity for them to exercise it definitely for the good, as a loving response to their loving Creator. Fine, but it’s worth noting how big these leaps are relative to the story itself. And, in any case, that hasn’t stemmed the flood tide of questions. Because, what if humans don’t choose the good? Wouldn’t that be disastrous? With human freedom in the mix, this oh-so-juicy paradise begins to look precarious from the very start. Great drama. Terrible reality.
There will be time enough to talk Karamazov further on. Suffice to say, there’s already a deeply troubling issue, that touches directly upon God’s omniscience: He must have known it would all go south, yet still created in this way.
The writers of Creation Two appear to be aware of the problem, even trying to anticipate it. Later, the Lord God asks the man, Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat? (3:11). Clever. Like He didn’t know so can’t be to blame. Again, nice story device - cuddly ole God turned to disappointment and anger upon discovering His friends have taken advantage of His goodness. But this can’t be literal because it doesn’t stack up with the portrait of the omniscient God already established in Creation One.
Turns out the trees have created more problems than they’ve solved, and we’re back to theological square one: if God has perfect foresight, why set everything up so spectacularly to fail? Or, tougher still: why create anything at all knowing the disaster that would come of it?
By the way, this story device is called a cliffhanger…
Header photo: Wendy Aros-Routman, Unsplash
T S Eliot, Four Quartets, Burnt Norton, I.
John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn.