Plants in the Bible 1: Why Did God Plant Us a Garden?

In Genesis 2, God forms the first human — and then plants a garden for him to live in.

Picture this: God planting. Not speaking the garden into existence, but planting it. Designing it, tending it, and preparing it to be a perfect home for humanity. Only then did he set us inside, within the protection of the garden. This specific detail, which can easily slide past us in reading, actually carries a great deal of weight. In Hebrew, the word for garden, gan, carries the meaning of something enclosed and guarded. The garden wasn't a prettier version of wilderness — it was a deliberately designed and bounded space, shaped for habitation before its inhabitants even existed.

This first episode in our Plants in the Bible series uses the garden as a lens for some surprisingly difficult questions. Why plant a tree that humans clearly couldn't resist, and then leave it accessible? Where was the garden, what was the forbidden fruit, and do relics of them even exist on our version earth? We explore the possibility that barring access to the tree of life after the fall may have been an act of protection: eternal life in a broken state would have meant eternal suffering, blocking our path to restoration. 

The garden, it turns out, was never just a setting. It's a statement about what God wants for us — and a preview of where we're heading.

Also, a fig is a fig and a date is a date, and neither is an apricot.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Welcome back, and we are excited to start a new series today on plants in the Bible and how they're represented. I don't know if you knew this, but Rachel is a an avid plant lover and plant saver. I do love plants. But you too. Well, you save my plants. What are you talking about? Well, I've tried to save some of your plants. I did get a text message once that said she had my aloe plant, and it said, I thought this was gonna be a surgery, and it ended up being an autopsy.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yeah, that's exactly what happened. By the way, like breaking news alive on air, your palm is not producing.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Is it done? It's done. Sometimes people will just put plants on Rachel's doorstep like people used to do in the olden days with like babies in baskets and just ask for revival.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Yeah, sometimes I can do it, but you need to give me your plants sooner.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Um well, I that's the it's me on the problem. Like I the palm looked alive. Yeah, but when you touched it, it was like crunchy. I know. The palm, like the aloe I fully knew. To be fair, the aloe like fell on me. Yeah, it jumped out of the pot. They do that, and I just put it back and tucked it away and then pretended I didn't see that.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

So we like plants. So yeah. I think when we first had the idea to talk about plants in the Bible, it was because we really like plants. Totally. And gardens, and it's just like a fun theme. But when we started to talk more about it and like look into it and think about it, it was not an episode.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Because there's just no way to talk about in general plants in the Bible in an hour.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah, we just wouldn't get the depth that we think it deserves because plants are actually really symbolic and important.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

So the idea here is why did God start with a garden? The garden was created before humans were created, even. And so what's the significance in that being the first thing that God started to totally sort of set up once he had all of the world structures created?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Yeah. And so today we are talking about the garden. It's a beautiful gateway, it is the home of plants.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

So we talk about a lot the garden as like a paradise or and like that's where we'll end back up in the garden.

unknown 3:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

And have never really dug into all of the details of like why and what and how. I always just sort of thought of it as an alternative to heaven being in clouds and gold streets. Yeah. Maybe the alternative is like a garden. And like I kind of like that. But it's not that simple. That's as it goes in a 2,000-page Bible. So, how have you thought of the garden? Do you think of that as the first thing that God created, or was it just like a natural progression in creation, or like what's your kind of relationship been with the idea of the Garden of Eden?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I don't know if I ever, because on the first day he created the heavens and the earth. So is it actually implied that when he created the earth, he also created Eden? I'm gonna answer your question with a question. I don't think that that's the case. Oh, okay. I don't know if I've ever thought about it to that extent, other than just understanding that it was a glorious place, but still a place to be tested, similar to the wilderness in that there was still something that was challenging, which was you cannot eat from this tree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

You know, I kind of always thought that too. Like the garden, it's in this progression of creation. And we have the wilderness, which we've learned is like dangerous and kind of inhospitable. And then the next kind of leveling up from wilderness would be a garden, which is still nature, but not as dangerous, but it's still wild. The Hebrew word for garden that they use gone. Gone. Gan. Gan. G-A-N. Yeah. The root word that it comes from means protected or guarded or enclosed.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

So that's adding to when we say garden, we just think of lots of plants and like flowers and things intentionally grown. Yeah. And I think such a short word, like three letters, it's carrying all that meaning. It obviously has plants and it has been planted, but it's also enclosed and protected. Yeah. So it's almost like the opposite of wilderness.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Where it is nature.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Totally. It's interesting because in the Bible project, I don't know if I'm going to say it right though, but Tim was basically like, no, they could have learned the same lesson in the garden as they did in the wilderness. It wasn't like they had to have a wilderness in order for society to flourish because there were still restrictions and there would have still been life lessons. And I thought that was a cool take on it because we often think within a really good, healthy space, can you learn? It's like, yeah. Yeah. You don't have to always have hardship and suffering in order to maybe grow. I mean, sometimes yes, but I don't know if that's necessarily a healthy thing to think either, I guess, you know?

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Yeah, but then like you said, there's the one tree that you're not supposed to eat. So is that creating like attention that makes it a place that you can grow? Because in the way that it was set up, if they're eating from the tree of life, they're gonna be in the garden with God forever and they're gonna create more humans. Yeah. We talked about their mission was to multiply while they were still in the garden.

unknown 6:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

So that's like what life was supposed to look like. But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was always there and it was always gonna be there. Yeah. So you would always have to have humans willing to not go to temptation and actually just listen to God all the time. And you know what? I never thought of this before, but saying it like that. If Adam and Eve couldn't do it, is there any chance that a multiplication of humans could have lived with that tree in the middle of the garden and nobody ever Well, I mean, Cain killed Abel, second kid. After they ate from the garden, though.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Oh, that's true. But same people. I mean, same like true instincts, I guess. That's the point, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Is like there was never gonna be an eternity of humans breeding and living eternally in that garden without taking from that tree.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Like it's clearly in our anatomy to have these moments of resisting authority, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

I don't know if that's the way to put it, but and it's like a need for independence and autonomy. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Freedom is what that feels like even though that's like is that really freedom?

SPEAKER_01 7:17

But yeah, but it is, and because that's what's so beautiful. What I never understood. I was always like, why would God set us up to fail? Basically, exactly. And it's because he doesn't want to just force us to be what he wants us to be. Exactly. He wants us to choose to live the way that he designed life to flourish. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

It's all free will, right? Which he is a big fan of. Apparently. Apparently. Uh going back to the Bible project episode. They see the Garden of Eden and the wilderness as connected in terms of testing or formation spaces. So both are places of choice. They both involve learning wisdom, they both have abundance and testing together, and they reveal like how humans are. And the wilderness can become a path back to having an Eden-like relationship. So because that is a dichotomy, right? Like you said, literal scarcity in a wilderness versus the abundance of a garden, but both can actually have similar stories learned, I guess. Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Which is kind of cool. And I think the big difference there is that the garden is protected and also tended. You know, I asked my husband recently, why do you think that it starts with a garden?

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

And he just looked at me like, what? Like, why would you ask me that? Yeah. Because it did. And he said, Because things grow in a garden. But I pushed back a little bit and I was like, things grow everywhere. Because his point was we're designed to grow. So people grow, plants grow. I said, Yeah, but everything grows everywhere. Like the way that life was created, everything grows. So like cancer grows, toxicity spreads, and sure, weeds, which I I have a soft spot for weeds, but like I mean weeds as in like not things that we're intending to be there. Yeah, yeah. Those grow too, and sometimes they grow even better than the things that we're trying to mold, tend, right? Yeah. I kind of pushed back and he was like, well, very simply, like the garden is like a control crafted space almost, so that growth is healthy and intentional. Sure. It's like a petri dish. In a good way.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

A good petri dish. Oh, I think of them as like research development. Yeah. But I mean, maybe they're nasty research development. But like, don't lift the lid off of it. Sure. Well, and look what happened when you know they did lift the lid off. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

And it went and gun. I think it's more like less a petri dish and more like a raised planter. Can we make this prettier? Yeah. Just think of what like raises out of a petri dish and like fumes. I don't know what kind of science you've been doing, but you know, when you open like a container of leftovers and you your body just knows that it can't breathe right then. Like, don't breathe. Okay. Okay. So anyway, the idea is like cultivated growth, not just purposeful. Right. Yeah. Not just random multiplication and also not taking over. So some of those more negative things like noxious weeds and toxic substances, those end up taking over and like killing what was in front of them. Sure. And I think the point of a garden is it's like it's in cycles and it's producing what it's meant to produce. You still have to work with it. It's like a system, it's like an ecosystem that works with itself. Sure, sure. It's not going to eat itself.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Do you think dandelions were in the Garden of Eden? I bet they were because dandelion greens are really good for you. Well, and also we can switch into this, but one of the first roles of humans was to tend the garden. That was the first job and role in the garden. And so it's interesting that there would have been work to be had. So perhaps there were weeds or not even necessarily weeds.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

If dandelions start growing, like they'll just grow everywhere if you don't contain them. But maybe the point is that they need to be contained so that you can have the best parts of them without having them take over and killing all the other plants.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Like, I mean, they refer to pruning, right? I mean, pruning is a huge biblical concept. And so he was probably literally doing that.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

So yeah, so I think that's really cool. So we had a job, right? God literally assigned us a job right after he created man out of the dust. Yeah. That job is basically to tend the garden. And I think that's a really interesting point that you're making because I always kind of thought, like, well, we had to have a purpose, otherwise, we were just gonna go A-WOL. So why not give us a purpose that's gonna keep us like toiling forever? That's the thing, like a garden is never done, right? You have to just keep working it. But what you're saying is making me think it's actually even more powerful than that because a garden can't actually flourish without a tender. Right. And so that kind of goes back to that idea of leadership is serving, like you're serving the garden. Right. It's not to dominate it or control it, it's to help it have like a long, yeah, healthy cycle.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Totally. And I think another cool thing about just the job description is that God asked Adam to tend the garden and to have a job before sin entered the world. Basically, jobs aren't punishment. That hard work doesn't always have to be seen through the lens of punishment. Not like that people always do, but that the grand design of a job and of doing things very purposefully wasn't a punishment, but instead probably there to glorify God and to, you know, do kingdom work. That's like was kind of the first role of kingdom work was to tend this garden.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Yeah, and I I like that because I've heard that there's work to do even in heaven, like e in the new creation, like we still have jobs. Yeah, and that also always felt strange to me because growing up, I thought it was just you get to heaven and we're done and we're just why work? We're always happy, we're singing forever, right? And we're gonna see our loved ones, and that's it. We're gonna play harps. Yeah. Well, and I guess some harp players are working. It could be a job, yeah. But when you think of it as not the work that we're doing now, we're almost serving systems to survive in a culture. Sure. And I think the work in the garden is you're serving like the ecosystem of the garden to keep the garden flourishing. And then the gardens are literally providing us with abundance.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Absolutely. So that's pretty cool. It gives fruit back, like our relationship with Jesus, right? When you have a good flourishing relationship that you're tending to Jesus, you get the fruits of that, much like a garden.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Yeah, like we work for paychecks today, but then we also have to pay to live. So it's like we're gonna charge you money to be here.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

And we'll give you money for working, but then when you think about it, we're actually just paying to work.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

It's circular where a garden isn't actually charging you dues or anything like that, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

It's like energy, really. Yeah. Yeah. So I think this is good to read a little bit about scripture directly speaking about the garden. Here is Genesis two, four through seventeen. 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, 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. 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, 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 Pishan, it is the one that flowed around the whole land of Hevala, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good. Bedelium and onkstone 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. 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. So that is the first introduction to the Garden of Eden and what the landscape looks like, as explained in Genesis.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

So I think it's interesting, the garden actually didn't come until after God rested. So he created like the structures of the earth, and then he rested. What's interesting is when he made the garden, the language used there is not the same as when he was creating everything else. He was just speaking. But when it comes to the garden, he planted the garden.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

It's almost like a beloved thing when he was creating all these big things, obviously so important and foundational. But after he rested, it was almost like after we rest and we like, oh, we did a big great thing. Let's do something joyful. Oh, I'm gonna make this beautiful garden, you know?

SPEAKER_01 16:32

The word used there is literally plant. So that's saying God planted before we planted. Yeah. And then God tasked us to basically tend what he planted. Yeah. And then the fact that the word for garden has this imagery of being enclosed or protected. Right. So it almost feels like God, like very lovingly preparing a space. It's it wasn't just like, oh, we need flowers over here and like palm trees over there. He was like setting a foundation for something. Totally. And then he was gonna ask us to take care of it.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Yeah. And the Bible never says how long Adam and Eve lived in Eden before eating the fruit, you know, which is interesting. There's not really any indication, not even like fortnight. It just makes you think one day. Right. I mean, like how fast that afternoon. And that afternoon, exactly. But yeah, going back to the rivers, it's really interesting to have them listed out so specifically. And two of those rivers today still stand, the Tigris and the Euphrates. Yeah. So do we know the other two rivers where they are today? Nope. It's kind of a mystery. Yeah. It is kind of an unusually geographically detailed part of the Bible for such an ancient story.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

I think you see more details maybe later on in the New Testament, but it feels like we should know where that is.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

We know that I don't like unsolved mysteries. Unsolved mysteries, the two rivers.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

I'm sure there's probably a history channel on this. Okay, so the Tigris and the Euphrates still exist and run through modern day Iraq and surrounding regions as it is today. And the other two, Pishon and Gihan, are unknown, and that's where most of the mystery comes from, like you said. You're like, no. There are the four theories of these mystery rivers. The Mesopotamia theory, since the Tigris and Euphrates are both in Mesopotamia. Many scholars place Eden somewhere in or near southern Iraq. Some think Eden may have existed in an area now underwater beneath the Persian Gulf, especially because sea levels were lower thousands of years ago. We have the Arminia-Turkey theory. Others point northward near the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates in Eastern Turkey or Arminia. And then finally the symbolic, more cosmic view, which is some theologians Eden is not meant to map neatly onto modern geography at all, but rather represents a sacred space where heaven and earth overlapped. I kind of wondered that too, like which would make sense almost to say the earth part is the Tigris and the Euphrates, literally, and then the other two rivers symbolically mean the other half.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

And then when we were shut out of the garden and the garden is guarded and we can never get back to it, then now maybe we're just like earth.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

So I kind of like the symbolic cosmic view. Yeah, that's interesting. Because I think Eden quite literally is both I don't know if it says that specifically, but a combination of both heaven and earth. I mean God is walking in the land.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

And and we know that he blocked it off. So yeah, you can't get back there and until you're redeemed and no man can redeem himself. So if it was just an ancient earthly place, first of all, why with all of our technology do we not know where it is? Yeah. And second of all, if he planted the flaming swords in the cherubim, which it says he did, why wouldn't they just still be there?

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Sure. Right? Right. Like that would have gone sucked back up to the heaven realm when sin entered, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Either that or it would just stay there.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

And it would be a thing of like we all know where it is, but we can't go because the swords and the cherubim are blocking it.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Yeah. And another kind of interesting note too is that, like I guess moving away from rivers, but there's not a ton of mention of specific plants in Eden, but throughout the Bible, there's a lot of different types of plants mentioned. And so really all we know is there was a fruit tree of some kind that Eve ate the fruit from. Yeah. You know, obviously people say apple, but it doesn't say apple in the Bible. And then we have the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life. And then, you know, because they sewed fig leaves over themselves, we know that there was a fig tree. And so the fig tree does become a major symbol throughout the Bible. It is also kind of cool because fig leaves would be easiest to sew. So there is like a relatability there. Like that makes sense. You know, it wasn't like they sewed daffodil petals. Dandelion greens. Yeah, exactly. It's like, what? That's not gonna work well. Yeah, totally. So yeah, they're easy to sew together. So there's a realistic kind of part to that. But figs are first mentioned in Genesis 3, which really is kind of a big statement. Like we're associating fig leaves with like covering humans and really covering vulnerability. That fig leaf literally was a representation of that moment. So I think that's a big thing. Interesting. Later in the Old Testament, sitting under your vine and fig tree symbolizes safety, peace, maybe. It's an image instead of stable life and rest. So yeah, later in the book of Micah, 4.4, the fig tree is brought back and it says, But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. And then again in the first book of Kings, 4.25. And Judah and Israel lived in safety from Dan even to Beersheba, every man under his vine and under his fig tree. And so it's interesting because there it's almost peace.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

So serenity. The fig tree is covering, just like it covers in Genesis, except we were using it to cover shame, basically.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

This sounds like it's more now using that metaphor, and now God is covering your shame, basically. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

I don't think it necessarily has to be representing something negative. Right. It's not a problem with the tree. Yeah, it's not the tree. Man, it's not the tree. And so then, in regards to Israel itself, prophets sometimes use the fig tree as a picture of Israel's spiritual condition, healthy figs meaning faithfulness, and then barren figs meaning corruption. In the New Testament, Jesus curses a barren fig tree in the Gospel of Mark in Mark 11. Many interpret it as symbolic judgment against outward religion without inward fruit. This is kind of interesting. There's evidence of fig cultivation in the ancient Near East from around 11,000 years ago. Wow. That's pretty cool. That's a long time ago. Fig fun fact. I wonder why figs, you know.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

And it could have been geography, or it could even be the makeup of the plant. Like you said, if the leaves are like sewable and I imagine they're very large, you know, I have. A fig recently. You did? It did not make it. I was not good at tending my fig tree.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Figs, dried apricots?

SPEAKER_01 22:53

No. No.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

What is a dried apricot? A date. Oh, wait. Is a date a dried fig?

SPEAKER_01 22:57

I think a date and a fig and an apricot are different things.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

No, wait, hold on.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

I think a date is a date, whether it's dried or not. I think dates come from palm trees. A specific kind of palm tree. Prune. Okay, prunes are dried dates.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

No dates are dried prunes. Are they? Yeah, because dates are like dried, you know, and squishy and pretty. But they come from a palm tree. What does? Dates. Dates come from palm trees? I think so. Dates grow on date palms.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Wow. So what are prunes? A prune is a dried plum. There you go. A prune is a dried plum. Okay. And a raisin is a dried grape. A dried date is a dried date. It's just a date a date. A date is a date and a fig is a fig. Yeah. And an apricot is an apricot.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

And it's actually cool because fig trees are still grown in modern day Iraq. And in some areas, they're still considered a major traditional crop. So that is also regionally appropriate. And some Iraqi towns reportedly have hundreds of thousands of fig trees, and figs have been cultivated there for generations.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

So that's kind of cool. So I've also heard that it could have been a pomegranate tree.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

That um Eve ate from. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But what if it was a fig? Dun dun.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

I mean, yeah, it could have been. I think the Bible doesn't specify, so we don't know. Yeah. I think we can say though that the apple is just completely off base. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Yeah, like where did that even originate?

SPEAKER_01 24:13

I'm sure it originated like during the Renaissance.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

I would put money on that. Because I'm sure it just spread like wildfire, right? Like one person drew a painting of an apple and everyone's like Bob New. That's why I feel like it was probably the Renaissance because they were like, we like apples. I know. In Latin, the word malum can mean both apple and evil, depending on pronunciation and form. So when the Bible spread through Latin-speaking church, this word connection probably influenced art and interpretation. And as you said, medieval and renaissance artists in Europe often painted the fruit as an apple because apples were common and symbolically recognizable there. You wouldn't just be like some weird made-up fruit. You would want it to be recognizable. I guess. I always thought though that it would be a weird evil fruit. Like a pomegranate is like, how do you paint a pomegranate and have it be because like an apple has a stem, but a pomegranate is just like a red bulbous bulb? I guess. How would you be people would be like, is that a bowling ball? No, dude, that's a pomegranate, you know? Yeah. Or an orange even. Apple has the stem. Yeah, that makes it recognizable. I'm just making that up, but just in my mind.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Well, totally. Many fruits are just bulbous balls. Right. Is that a hamster that's balled up? Like, what is that? Right. So we don't know what it was. I actually probably feel like it was not a random fruit that we have today on earth. Oh, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, people do suggest that fig is an option only because they immediately use fig leaves after they eat it and they're like, ugh. And maybe that was just like nearby.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

But maybe also figs were like predominant in the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil had a specific type of fruit that then when we got blocked out of the garden, it's just a fruit that we've never come into contact with. If I stole the fruit from the tree and then had to hide myself, I would grab leaves from another plant. Right, because like I'll take the leaves off of that tree and then be like, oh, I didn't do anything.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Right, but they're also not like they haven't been reading like murder mysteries like we have, Rachel. True. Even isn't like up on her janiting bottom. They weren't probably weren't planning that.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

They're like, how can I be shisty? Yeah. It's probably not just like a random fig or pomegranate.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Well, and it's such a magnificent magical tree that it wouldn't just be like an apple. Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Also, why would it be not okay to eat that fruit then? But then God would just let us have the fruit for the rest of humanity. Right, and we know that pretty much all fruit is good for our bodies.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Right. And like here we are having apple pies and selling them at farmers' markets. Yeah. Like I don't I can't imagine that. I just don't feel like they're forbidden. They're so good for you. Also, wait, pomegranates, you have to have the little seeds and you have to like and spit out the seeds, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

That'd be a lot of work. It is, but they're very full of antioxidants.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

I mean, I love them. But does it say that Eve took a bite from? What is the actual verbiage? Let's see. Because like you don't take a bite, in my opinion. You lap up a bundle of pomegranate seeds. It's not like a bite. You know what I mean? Maybe I'm being picky here.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

So Genesis 3, 6, the NIV says, when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. And she gave some to her husband. Sure. Does that mean some of the fruits, or does it mean like some of the one fruit she was eating? Totally. If it was It doesn't say. I know. Gosh, so much conjecture.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

But I do think it's fair to say that if you ate that fruit and were filled with all of this knowledge, I just can't imagine it would be a fruit that we have here on Earth now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

You know I've eaten pomegranates before and not felt any wisdom gained. You weren't like play-doh all of a sudden. Right. I mean, maybe we already have the wisdom, but I don't know. Yeah. Anyway, so those are the only two trees that are named. We know there was fig trees there because they specifically mention the fig leaves. Right. But otherwise, the fact that they're not naming plant species.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

First of all, was a little disappointing to me because I wanted to learn about the first plant species. But it's not about the specifics of what was in the garden, but it was more the plants in the garden as a whole and like what they represent.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Almost like in our Holy Spirit series where we talk about how once we have specific names for individual things, we tend to separate them and make them in the two hierarchies and just like what we basically did with fruit.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Yeah. Five minutes ago. Imagine if we knew if the forbidden fruit was a pomegranate. I think you would have people specifically eating that fruit to gain some sort of knowledge. And what you would also probably have a lot of people specifically not eating that fruit because we think that it was at one point banned and then we're being more evil than we normally are. Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Like it becomes problematic when you have things so specific because that's not the point to say this one is superior over others. It's rather like, look at this beautiful garden system working as a whole and someone tending it.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Exactly. And it talks a lot about the design of trees and plants. So it talks about seed-bearing plants, which tells us that more important than the specific type of plant is the fact that plants bear seed and the trees bear fruits. It's so it's defining how plant life works more so than introducing us specific plants.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Exactly. Because now I'm just harping on the fig. This is exactly not the point. But I also think it's cool because they grow well in dry regions and produce heavily. But I think there's something cool with that, right? Like they prosper regardless, you know.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Similar to avocado, different region, but avocados, you can like live on just avocados because of their makeup, the fat.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

But in our region, kale, what? You can grow in almost any condition. Kale is the fig of the leafy family.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

So end of the worlders, if you're collecting seeds, stock up on the kale. So I'm just asking you a question. What does it actually say about the tree? Does it describe them at all? Of the tree of knowledge versus the tree of life? I think it just says that they're there. Okay. So there's no like descriptive. Let me pull it up.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Genesis 2 9 is when those trees first appear. Okay. So it says 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. And then it moves into the rivers. And they were alongside each other. Yep. But it does not describe more than that. It does say in the middle of the garden. Oh, okay. Almost as if it like fuels the rest, you know. And then in verses 16 and 17 is when God gives the command.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

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 from it, you will certainly die. So again, he says don't do it, but he doesn't describe what it would be like.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Yeah. Okay, so we have in Revelation 2 7, this is New King James Version, it says, To him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God. So we gain access again. So it's also specifically mentioned in the book of Proverbs and is directly alluded to in the prophetic vision in Ezekiel. But in the Old Testament, the exact phrase tree of life appears only in Genesis and Proverbs. While Genesis treats the tree as a literal physical object in Eden, Proverbs uses it more metaphorically as we know because that's how Proverbs rolls. So Proverbs uses it kind of to describe the life-giving nature of divine virtues versus its physical tree nature. In Proverbs, for instance, 3.18, it says, She, as we know in this is wisdom, is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, those who hold her fast will be blessed. And there's other instances as well.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

But yeah, so there's wisdom is a tree of life. There's desire fulfilled, which is a tree of life. That's interesting. Then there's also the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. And a gentle tongue is a tree of life.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

So it's basically like almost if you follow those tenets, you will maybe prosper or have good fruit.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Or I think you're bearing life-giving fruit at that point.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

That's cool. And yeah, I mean, also, like I said in Ezekiel, it's not mentioned specifically as the tree of life, but in Ezekiel 47, 12, it describes a vision of trees that many scholars believe refers to the same concept. So he basically sees trees lining a river flowing from the temple, whose leaves, quote, will not wither and whose fruit, quote, will not fail, which serves for food and healing. So this is essentially like the exact attributes later ascribed to the tree of life in Revelation. Yeah, that sounds like the tree of life. And Ezekiel does like a good prophetic moment.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

So the tree of life is in the literal garden. Yep. And then we are exiled from the garden. We can't get back to it right now.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

And then so it makes sense that through the rest of the Bible, you might have calls back to it, but they can't literally interact with it. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

Which is why in Proverbs it is so metaphorical.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

It's wisdom. Yep. Something that we can't quite grasp, but still exists.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

But then in Revelation, when things come full circle, in the new creation, the tree of life is literal again, and it's in the middle of the new city.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Yep. The new Jerusalem. Yeah. Yep. Restoration of eternal life. Yeah. So it's it really is bookends. Seems very specifically placed the way that it is.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

So you had a good insight earlier. We were talking about they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil after they were told not to.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

And so then God says we have to get them out of the garden so that they don't eat from the tree of life lest they become like us. I always read that as almost, I know that God has all the power, but it almost sounds like God is then threatened by us becoming both like enlightened and immortal.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

And so I always read that as like our punishment for not being okay with how we were, is that we have to be put away so that we can't actually have life. But you had an interesting perspective that feels a little bit more loving than that.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Yeah. So a theme, I think, of that situation is mercy in a way, because Genesis says that God prevented them from eating from the tree of life after becoming fallen in order to quote unquote live forever. So after they were fallen, he was like, no, no, no. Because the idea is that eternal life in a corrupted state would be tragic rather than good. He doesn't want humans to suffer. And in a way, even though that seems counterintuitive to be like to stop someone from having eternal life, but the eternal life that they would have would be corrupted. We were in the wrong state at that point.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So it's actually preventing us from an eternity of suffering.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Yep. Which is pretty cool. It's super cool.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

And it does reframe it as a merciful gesture, even though if you just read it like he stopped humans from having the tree of life, it sounds maybe harsh, but and it makes the whole prophetic story make more sense because I always felt like why would you set us up to fail and then punish us for doing so? But then also create out of your own son a sacrifice that would redeem us many millennia later. Yeah. Like why? It's just like a big why circle. But if you look at it that way, that because of the choice to take the fruit, in that instant, he had to create the restoration story. Like, how am I gonna bring this back to where humans can still have eternal life in a non-corrupted state?

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Yeah, exactly. It's almost like the entire biblical story after that is a type of wilderness. Similarly, I think the Bible does this little pockets of parallel stories, but of Israel, right, walking in the wilderness for 40 years when we know that actually would have only taken one to two weeks. Right. And it's because they weren't ready. It's the same idea. Wait, you are still corrupt. We can't get you to the promised land, you need more time.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

It's kind of the bigger biblical theme, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

So what I think is still really cool out of this story is well, a lot of it's cool. It's all cool. But the fact that even in the very beginning, when things were good, before they made choice that ended in corruption, yeah, the way that we had life was through a plant. I think that's pretty cool. Like God planted the plants, gave us access to the plants to eat from. Yeah. God literally walked in the garden with them.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

And then even in the wilderness, plants keep us alive. Yeah, you're right. Plants are like the earthly access that we have to living.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Totally. It's almost like branches of God Himself in a way, right? Yeah. Because they are rooted so strongly in the earth. Mm-hmm. I I once saw a debate on whether or not earth should be considered a living thing. That's a whole nother hey, that's a podcast for another time, as I'm saying. Sounds like it. But in a way, right? So like trees, their roots can go so deep and they're so old, and some trees are connected. In a way, trees are like this extension of God Himself to give us shade and food and shelter and it's life.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

Yeah. And the next topic that we're talking through is actually the parallels between humans and trees. So I think it's interesting that you say that because if God made man in his image, when you look into like the biological design, even though trees can't freely walk or talk yet. Yet just kidding. The way that they sort of make and sustain life, it's literally mirroring humans. Yeah. So if trees are kind of an extension of God and then man is made in that image, and then you see the parallels between trees and humans, it's really cool. That's cool that we're doing that next week.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

I know. I want to do it right now. I'm right. We are excited for you guys to come back next week as we continue our series on plants in the Bible. And we hope everyone stays salty. Thanks for listening.