Shadowland: Beginnings: Week 7

Hebrew Lesson: Flash Cards

The Garden of Eden

Figurative Meanings

• 2:9 "In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life..." Revelation 22:2
• 2:10-14 Why are these details from a lost world included? Is there a hidden meaning? Revelation 21:18-21
• 2:14 Revelation 9:14
• 2:17 Eating of this tree was by definition, willful disobedience, and hence knowledge of good and evil. Not just knowledge, but perception and choice. Joshua 20:3-5 Deuteronomy 4:42

Literal Interpretations

• 2:5-6 No rain - watered by a mist. A lost world, that was profoundly different from ours.
• 2:10-14 The world which was, perished. 2 Peter 3:6 The rivers would have been changed by the flood, so locating Eden is somewhat hopeless. Nevertheless, the Tigris and Euphrates have their source in the mountains of Armenia near mountain lakes, and there was a Cush on the shore of the Caspian, and Asshur embraced northern Mesopotamia.

  Also, there are 4 river beds under sand in North Africa that match the description, and the post flood rivers would have been named after the memory of the now vanished rivers.

• 2:11-14 We switch from past to present - hinting that this narrative was written before the flood. But Genesis 10:11 mentions Asshur. Was Asshur named after something from before the flood? Or was the narative composed after the flood (e.g. by Moses)?
• 2:14 Tigris and Euphrates
• 2:16 eating, you shall eat
• 2:17 dying, you shall die
• 2:19 This is an elaboration of 1:25. See 2 Kings 6-7 for a similar narrative.
• 2:21 "rib" or "side" (of a pair). Consider that taking the X side of the XY chromosome pair would produce a woman.