Abstract
Numerous scholars have proposed varied theories as to how the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2-3 arrived at its present text. In this paper, I will offer a different sense of the original Eden story stemming from a new perspective that differs from existing theories. In this paper I present sufficient evidence to derive the original Eden story from the present text of Genesis 2-3. Most importantly, Genesis 3:22-24 diverges from other parts of Genesis 3 as the subject of the action in Genesis 3:22-24 changes abruptly. As a second reason, I will point out the problem of overlapping narratives, and how more fundamental narratives can be separated. This paper uses these grounds to reconstruct the original Eden story.
Keywords
The repetition, contradiction, and inconsistency of biblical passages in Genesis 2:4b-3:24 have been pointed out by scholars for a long time (Budde 1883; Gunkel 1901; von Rad 1972; Westermann 1983; Carr 1993; Lanfer 2012). In light of these features, scholars have constantly been trying to determine the process by which Genesis 2:4b-3:24 came to its present form. In this paper, I will analyze the original Garden of Eden story in Genesis 2:4b-3:24 applying a new interpretation.
Literature Review
Karl Budde asserts that in the original story of Genesis 2:4b-3:24 there was only one tree and that the tree of life and other elements were added later. Hermann Gunkel argues that Genesis 2:4b-3:24 is a composite of the story of creation and the story of the Garden of Eden (Budde 1883: 48-53; Gunkel 1997: 1-40; Stordalen 2000: 187-198). Gerhard von Rad believes it is not possible to reconstruct the original story given the current state of the document because his view is that several stories were already put together before Genesis 2:4b-3:24 was written (von Rad 1972: 73-101).
Claus Westermann has also argued that Genesis 2:4b-3:24 was formed by combining the story of creation and the story of the Garden of Eden, claiming that several verses from Genesis 2:4b-3:24 were added as a way to combine the story of creation with the story of the Garden of Eden (Westermann 1983: 178-278). Terje Stordalen cites scholars whose objective is to find meaning integrally rather than reading Genesis 2:4b-3:24 separately (Stordalen 2000: 197-198). David Carr feels that it is not appropriate to seek the historical process in which the present text was formed. Carr argues that, given the Mesopotamian background of the motif in Genesis 2:4b-3:24, Genesis 2:4b-3:24 can only be understood integrally (Carr 2020: 54-56), and, in his recent writings, insists on reading Genesis 2:4b-3:24 synchronically (Carr 2021: 85-147).
Genesis 3:22-24
First and foremost, I would like to suggest that Genesis 3:22-24 is different from the other parts of Genesis 3 as can be seen in the first two quotes below in contrast with the third.
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 from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. [Gen 3:8]
The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. [Gen 3:21]
And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. [Gen 3:22-24]
The biblical passages in Genesis 3 quoted above concern the narrative where a man and a woman are expelled from the Garden of Eden after eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In Genesis 3:8, “the man and his wife” are mentioned. In Genesis 3:21, “Adam and his wife” are mentioned. However, in Genesis 3:22-24, the wife disappears from the narrative and only “the man” (ha-adam in Hebrew) appears.
In Genesis 3, the woman appears in the narrative along with the man until Genesis 3:22-24 where the woman is no longer mentioned. As it is clear that, according to the biblical text, it is “the man and his wife” (Gen 3:8) that go out of the Garden of Eden, it would seem that in Genesis 3:22-24 “his wife” (Gen 3:8) or “the woman” (Gen 3:6) should be mentioned. However, only “the man” is mentioned in Genesis 3:22-24.
The man referred to in Genesis 3:22-24 may be understood by the reader as a reference to include both a man and a woman, or “man” in the more general sense of the word. It may also be understood by readers that only one man is being described representatively. However, because “his wife” (Gen 3:8) or “the woman” (Gen 3:6) is clearly mentioned earlier in Genesis 3, the absence in Genesis 3:22-24, of “the man and his wife” (Gen 3:8) or “the woman” (Gen 3:6) as the subject of the act of leaving the Garden of Eden would appear to be a glaring omission. And yet, only “the man” is mentioned as the subject of the act of leaving the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:22-24.
Looking at the current text of Genesis 2:4b-3:24, in Genesis 2:4-17, at the beginning of the Eden story, only “the man” appears prior to Genesis 2:18-25 when a woman is created. After that, the man and the woman continue to appear together in the narrative through Genesis 2-3, except for 3:22-24, when only “the man” appears as the subject of the action. While Genesis 3:22-24 decisively concludes the Eden story, because it is the scene where the man and the woman are driven out of the Garden of Eden, in this pivotal scene, the man appears alone.
Reviewing the entire Eden Story in Genesis 2:4b-3:24, “the man” appears alone in Genesis 2:4b-17 and 3:22-24, but in Genesis 2:18 to 3:21 the man and the woman appear. The text from Genesis 2:18 to 3:21 can be divided into two parts. In Genesis 2:18-25, a woman is created. From Genesis 2:26 to 3:21, the man and the woman eat the fruit from tree of the knowledge of good and evil, following the temptation by the serpent. In the entire Eden story of Genesis 2:4b-3:24, the scene where the man and the woman appear together in the story runs from Genesis 2:18 to 3:21. In this situation, it seems logical to conclude that the scene between Genesis 2:18 and 3:21 in which the man and the woman appear was inserted into an original story of the Garden of Eden, in which only “the man” was the subject of action.
Genesis 2:15-17
While, as I mentioned, “the man” appears alone in Genesis 2:4b-17 and 3:22-24, the scene in Genesis 2:15-17, in which “the man” appears alone, especially needs to be analyzed in depth.
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’ [Gen 2:15-17]
The scene in Genesis 2:15-17 is the core of the story from Genesis 2:15 to 3:21. In Genesis 2:15-17, God warns the man that if he eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he will die. In the story from Genesis 2:18 to 3:21, which ensues directly after Genesis 2:15-17, the man and the woman eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because of the serpent’s temptation, and God pronounces death.
In the scenes from Genesis 2:15 to 3:21, 2:15-17 is inseparable from the narrative of 2:18 to 3:21. In Genesis 2:15-17, God sets limits that humans cannot exceed. The narrative from Genesis 2:18 to 3:21 is a story about humans breaking said limits imposed by God. Genesis 2:15-17 is an essential part of the story arc from Genesis 2:15 to 3:21.
The text from Genesis 2:15 to 3:21 can be divided into two parts: Genesis 2:15-17 and Genesis 2:18-3:21. Since the man and the woman appear in Genesis 2:18-3:21, this would not be the original Garden of Eden story in which “the man” appears alone. In Genesis 2:15-17, crucial to the narrative of 2:18 to 3:21, “the man” appears alone, suggesting that Genesis 2:15-17 would not have been the original Garden of Eden story in which “the man” appears alone. Therefore, I think it is appropriate to sequence Genesis 3:22-24 after Genesis 2:4b-9.”
The problem of narrative
Other aspects of the text also support the notion that Genesis 3:22-24 does not come after Genesis 2:15-17, but rather after Genesis 2:4b-9. I would like to offer here the problem of overlapping narratives in the entire Garden of Eden story of Genesis 2:4b-3:24.
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’[Gen 2:15-17]
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” [Gen 3:17-19]
Genesis 2:15-17 is a scene where God warns the man that he will die if he eats the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 3:17-19 is God’s proclamation to the man after the man and the woman have eaten the forbidden fruit. What God warned in Genesis 2:15-17, that the man will die if he eats the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, is fulfilled in Genesis 3:17-19.
However, the meaning of Genesis 2:15-17 and Genesis 3:17-19, which say that the man will die if he eats the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is actually reiterated in Genesis 3:22-24, which blocks the man from accessing the tree of life.
And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. [Gen 3:22-24]
As stated in Genesis 3:22, if a person eats the fruit of the tree of life, that person can live forever, thus the man now becomes mortal because he has no access to the tree of life. In the Garden of Eden narrative, if one does not eat the fruit of the tree of life, one cannot live forever. The fact that the man’s access to the tree of life is blocked means that he is doomed to die. The meaning of the scene in Genesis 3:17-19 in which God pronounces death is also included in the meaning of the scene in Genesis 3:22-24.
God’s warning in Genesis 2:15-17 that the man will die if he eats the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and God’s declaration that the man will die in Genesis 3:17-19, are already included in the meaning of Genesis 3:22-24. The import of Genesis 3:22-24 is more fundamental than that of Genesis 2:15-17 and Genesis 3:17-19, in that if Genesis 2:15-17 and Genesis 3:17-19 were absent from the current biblical text, the narrative consequence, the death of the man, would still hold. The reason for the man’s mortality is because access to the tree of life has been blocked. The scene where the man cannot eat the fruit of the tree of life is Genesis 3:22-24. Therefore, Genesis 3:22-24 can be seen as a more fundamental scene than Genesis 2:15-17 and Genesis 3:17-19.
Why does the man become doomed to die in the narrative of Genesis 2-3? This is because the man was driven out of the Garden of Eden to have no access to the fruit of the tree of life. This is the fundamental reason. Thus, Genesis 3:17-19, the scene in which God declares mortality to the man, is probably a scene added later, derived from the scene in Genesis 3:22-24.
Likewise, the scene in Genesis 2:15-17, in which God warns the man that he will die if he eats the forbidden fruit, could also be derived from the scene in Genesis 3:22-24. Genesis 2:15-17, where God warns of death, is closely related to Genesis 3:17-19, where God pronounces death to the man. Because God gave the warning of death, God announces the man’s death afterwards. Therefore, if Genesis 3:17-19 is derived from Genesis 3:22-24, Genesis 2:15-17 must also be derived from Genesis 3:22-24.
At the beginning of this paper, I pointed out the deviation that one person appears alone in Genesis 3:22-24, the concluding part of the Eden story. So, to posit the original Garden of Eden story, there would be two possibilities: for Genesis 3:22-24 to come after Genesis 2:4b-9, or to come after Genesis 2:15-17. Genesis 2:15-17 is a part where “the man” appears alone, so there was a possibility that it could be connected with Genesis 3:22-24, where “the man” likewise appears alone.
If indeed Genesis 3:17-19 and Genesis 2:15-17 were added later, Genesis 3:22-24 does not connect after 2:15-17 but rather after 2:4b-9. The repetition of the narrative suggests Genesis 3:22-24 ensues after Genesis 2:4b-9. Since Genesis 2:15-17 and 3:17-19 appear to be derived from the scene in 3:22-24 where the man is cast out from the garden of the tree of life, Genesis 2:15-17 and Genesis 3:17-19 would not have been in the original Garden of Eden story.
Genesis 2:10-14
The entire story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis in the current biblical text is Genesis 2:4b-3:24. As mentioned above, when Genesis 2:15 to 3:21 is excluded, Genesis 2:4b-9, Genesis 3:22-24, and Genesis 2:10-14 remain. I have already addressed Genesis 2:4b-9 and Genesis 3:22-24 where only “the man” appears as the subject of action. Genesis 2:10-14 introduces the four rivers.
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 Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. [Gen 2:10-14]
As von Rad correctly pointed out, Genesis 2:10-14, which mentions four rivers, is probably a later addition since the rivers do not reappear elsewhere after Genesis 2:10-14 (von Rad 1972: 79-80). Genesis 2:10-14 does not affect the plot of the narrative of the Garden of Eden story. Therefore, in this paper, I would like to propose the original Eden narrative exclusive of Genesis 2:10-14.
The original Garden of Eden story
In this paper, I argue that the original elements of Garden of Eden story are as follows:
When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens—and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then the LORD God formed the man(ha-adam in Hebrew) from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man(ha-adam in Hebrew) became a living being. Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man(ha-adam in Hebrew) he had formed. And 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. [Gen 2:4b-9]
And the LORD God said, “The man(ha-adam in Hebrew) has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever”” So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man(ha-adam in Hebrew) out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. [Gen 3:22-24]
I would argue that the transition omitted and deleted in the middle of the two paragraphs above could be rendered by a simple sentence, “The man ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” which would have been deleted by a later addition. As a result, the original Garden of Eden story would read as follows:
When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens—and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then the LORD God formed the man(ha-adam in Hebrew) from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man(ha-adam in Hebrew) became a living being. Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man(ha-adam in Hebrew) he had formed. And 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. [Gen 2:4b-9]
The man (ha-adam in Hebrew) ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. [My interpolation]
And the LORD God said, “The man(ha-adam in Hebrew) has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever”” So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man(ha-adam in Hebrew) out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. [Gen 3:22-24]
An important difference exists between the narrative of the current biblical text of Genesis 2:4b-3:24, and the narrative of the Garden of Eden proposed in this paper. The important difference is that in the Garden of Eden story as we point out in this paper, there is no command against eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.
The act of eating the fruit of a tree in a garden is not, in and of itself, an evil act. Eating fruit in a garden is perfectly natural. Even in God’s garden, the original Eden story would have set no particular limit on the person eating the fruit of the trees in the garden of Eden.
I believe that the original story of the Garden of Eden was simpler than the present biblical text. In the beginning, God creates man from the dust of the ground. God then puts the man into God’s garden. The pure man, who has just been created, happens to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden. God casts the man out of the Garden of Eden, fearing that the man will eat the fruit of the tree of life and live forever. Consequently, people lived by cultivating the land.
In this regard, the statements “there was no man to work the ground,” (Gen 2:5) and “So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken,” (Gen 3:23) correspond perfectly. The unity of the whole story stands out clearly because of the correlation of wording in the short paragraphs of the original Garden of Eden story.
The original Garden of Eden story seems to have had two main themes: one is to explain how man is destined to know good and evil, but not to live forever; the other to explain how people came to live by cultivating the land. The original Garden of Eden story seems to have had these two central plots.
My interpolation, “The man ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” the sentence in which I interpret the meaning of the deleted sentiment from the original Garden of Eden story and is the focus of this paper, is not possible to propose with any precision. However, I suspect that the deleted material from the original Garden of Eden story would follow the summary I have suggested since it does not substantively change the plot of the Garden of Eden story.
Genesis 2:4b-3:24
The biblical text Genesis 2:4b-3:24 was formed as follows. Genesis 2:15 to 3:21 were added later, in which the man and the woman ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in response to the serpent’s temptation.
Thus, the missing transitional sentence, “The man ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” was deleted by later authors because it was incompatible with Genesis 2:15-3:21. The scene in Genesis 2:15 to 3:21 is the scene where the man and the woman ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil precisely due to the serpent’s temptation. Therefore, the scene of Genesis 2:15 to 3:21 is redundant with “The man ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” So, I infer that the sentence would have been deleted.
However, later authors left the original text in Genesis 2:4b-9 and Genesis 3:22-24. The evidence remains intact in the word “the man” (ha-adam in Hebrew) in Genesis 3:22-24.
In Genesis 2:4b-9, “the man” appears alone. From Genesis 2:18 to 3:21, the man and the woman appear in the narrative, but strangely, in Genesis 3:22-24, only the man appears again as the subject of the action. Finally, Genesis 2:10-14, an explanation of the four rivers, is also added.
It is possible that the story of the creation of a woman in Genesis 2:18-25 existed independent of the original Garden of Eden story. It is also possible that the story of the man and the woman eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in response to the temptation of the serpent in Genesis 2:26 to 3:21, existed separately from the original Garden of Eden story. At some point, these two narratives would have been combined with the original Garden of Eden story.
Reexamination of theories related to the tree of life
The involvement of the tree of life in the Garden of Eden story has been long analyzed by scholars. Lanfer, in agreement with Geller, points out that the tree of life in Genesis 3:22-24 does not play a role at all in the narrative of eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil after Genesis 2:17 (Lanfer 2012: 7-8; Geller 1996). In Genesis 2:17, God commands the man not to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and, in subsequent narratives, the man and the woman break God’s command. Lanfer argues that the tree of life in Genesis 3:22-24 is completely unrelated to the narrative after Genesis 2:17.
Lanfer also points to the expression “the tree that is in the middle of the garden” in Genesis 3:3. Lanfer argues that the tree of life did not originally exist in the Garden of Eden story, and that only one tree, that of the knowledge of good and evil, may have existed in the original Garden of Eden story. Thus, Lanfer concludes that the tree of life did not exist in the original Garden of Eden story (Lanfer 2012: 7-8).
However, the tree of life in Genesis 3:22-24 cannot be a later addition. In fact, Genesis 2:15-3:21 appears to have been added to the original Eden story, so the tree of life in Genesis 3:22-24 does not affect the narrative of Genesis 2:15-3:21.
Preservation of ancient documents
Jean Louis Ska argues that the authors of the Pentateuch sought to keep the ancient sources as unaltered as possible. Ska points to examples of the Pentateuch that have been preserved despite later changes and additions.
There are three versions of the wife/sister episode, as we saw above. Many interpreters contend, with good reason, that the second episode, in Genesis 20, is a “revised” version of the first one (Gen 12:10-20). We still find the first version in Genesis, even though the second version could very well have replaced the first one. In the few cases in which we have two versions of the same event combined into a single account, as in Genesis 6-9, Exodus 14, and Numbers 13-14, the earlier version has not been suppressed [Ska: 170].
From this point of view, I think it is understandable why Genesis 3:22-24 was retained unaltered. Despite the awkwardness of the abrupt change to a lone subject in Genesis 3:22-24, the biblical author(s) respected the ancient sources and therefore preserved them.
Conclusion
The focus on the original Eden story in this paper considers three main ideas.
First, the man appears alone in Genesis 3:22-24. Since Genesis 2:18-25 is a narrative in which a woman is created, the man and the woman continue to appear in the narrative after that. In Genesis 3:8 and Genesis 3:21, the man and his wife appear, but in Genesis 3:22-24, the man again appears alone.
Second, this paper points out problems with narrative. The scene in Genesis 2:15-17 where God warns the man that he will die if he eats the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the scene where God announces man’s mortality in Genesis 3:17-19, offer the same plot points as the meaning of the scene in Genesis 3:22-24, making Genesis 2:15-17 and 3:17-19 repetitions of the scene in Genesis 3:22-24. Genesis 3:22-24 may therefore have been the original Eden story. In the narrative of Genesis 2:4b-3:24, the fundamental reason that man has to die is that he was expelled from the Garden of Eden so he could not eat the fruit of the tree of life. The scene In Genesis 2:15-17, where God warns that the man will die if he eats the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the scene where God announces death in 3:17-19 are derived from Genesis 3:22-24.
Third, the original Garden of Eden story would follow an ordinary act of eating fruit from the garden. Genesis 2:16-17 would not have been in the original Garden of Eden story because the act of the man eating the fruit of the tree in the garden was natural. Thus I propose an original Eden narrative, simpler than the present biblical text, and the concept that, at some point, the episodes which include the themes of human arrogance and God’s punishment were incorporated into the original narrative.