Sneaking Back into Eden

The Bible portrays most human sin as various attempts to sneak past the Flaming Sword back into the Garden of Eden.

It’s not possible to describe life before the Fall. What we have are characterizations and Hebrew parabolic language in the Bible plus all sorts of highly varied symbolic tales in other ancient traditions. Only Western Civilization has an obsession with precise and literal descriptions. But a part of what we can discern suggests Adam and Eve didn’t have to do the hard labor in the Garden that folks did outside it. The Garden itself fed them and beatific visions of any future paradise includes the same basic idea. Turning stones into bread is an extension of this same sort of thinking. It’s not as if Adam and Eve did no work, but it was obviously not the unpleasant sounding thing in the curse: “By the sweat of your brow will you eat your bread.” Whatever they did wasn’t like the work we do today.

Instead, it is implied that they worked by the Word of God (a primary meaning of the symbol of the Flaming Sword). In Hebrew thinking, the terms “Word of God” and “Laws of God” are interchangeable. His will, His Word is Law. Throughout the rest of the Bible, particularly in the miracles of Jesus, we see where He often spoke the will of God and Creation changed to match it. In Hebrew intellectual tradition, we rightly read this back into the Eden narrative: Adam and Even lived in the Garden and managed it by the power of God’s Word. In like manner, Satan suggested to Jesus that He could command stones to become bread.

From that moment of the curse onward, we are given the sense that mankind forever tried to go back into the Garden. Not literally, since it was never portrayed as a literal place (never did those four rivers come together in any geography). Rather, we see a wealth of ancient non-biblical sources using the same symbolism, highly varied but fairly consistent in trying to reclaim the joys of Eden. Much of what we translate into English as attempts at magic were aimed at regaining mythical powers and controls over nature as was portrayed in biblical Eden. However, a critical missing element is failing to grasp that the Garden symbolizes obedience to the Laws of God. The entrance to the Garden, from where man stands outside it today, is guarded by the Flaming Sword. You have to pass through the self-death of confessing God’s Laws in order to receive the bounty of His divine order for human life on this earth. Not simply mouthing the words of the Law, but “speaking” as a synonym for living and acting accordingly. People would rather not have to do that, so they have ever sought ways to bypass the Flaming Sword to reclaim Eden.

In our Western society we are taught to snicker at the notion that arcane knowledge of nature was magic. Most ancient “magic” was simply taking advantage of common ignorance and doing stuff people didn’t think was possible. Or even more cynically, we are told it was merely smoke and mirrors, an appearance of change. We aren’t permitted to believe in any real change of reality without some deep science. So our “magic” today is science, as if the whole nature of reality could be understood by man’s mind. And have we not wrought wonders?

No. It seems in the long term we keep running into limitations of knowledge. We pushed into genetic manipulation of food plants so we could turn our stones into bread, as it were, but we have spawned a new generation of super weeds and other pests that are quickly taking over the arable land of the earth. It’s not as if all science is inherently wrong, but it is inherently flawed. It’s a crap shoot; sometimes it works out okay. Right now, there are problems with our scientific applications that are right near to destroying us all. It’s silly simplistic Western legalism to assume the Bible prohibits all scientific study. What’s missing from this whole question is one very important thing often noted here on this blog: If you don’t seek first to perceive that moral element God wove into His Creation, you cannot possibly comprehend where to draw the line between safe and unsafe scientific experiment. If you petulantly dismiss moral considerations, or mishandle them so utterly as Western religions do, you are going to take a few chops from that Flaming Sword when you try to sneak back into Eden.

Science won’t get you back into Eden, either.