The Tree of Life
PAUL
WATSON
Institute for Christian
Studies
In the Genesis account of the origins of
humanity, a "tree of life" is
found growing in the
garden of Eden both when man is placed there
(Gen. 2:9) and when he is driven out
(Gen. 3:22-24).
Along with so
many other figures
in the narrative--the great river, the serpent, the
cherubim and flaming
sword, and of course the other tree ("the tree
of the knowledge of good and
evil")--this tree of life intrigues us and
leads us to ask a
number of questions: What exactly is it? How does
it fit into the larger story of
Genesis 2-3? Did Adam and Eve have
access to it before
they were expelled from
to the tree after their departure?
The scope of this exegesis precludes a
consideration of the Creation
and Fall in any detail. It is hoped
that this more limited investigation
of one particular motif in that
story will contribute to an understanding
and appropriation of the whole.
Historical Background and Development
As commentaries uniformly note, the
concept of life-giving substances
used by both gods
and mortals is found throughout the ancient world.
The
"tree of life" is one such substance. Similar substances include
other types of
plants; bread; and water.1 Outside the Fertile Crescent
one finds in the mythology of
deities obtain a
life-giving drink called "soma" in Sanskrit. From
Within
associated with a sacred
tree.
1 B. Childs, "Tree of Knowledge, Tree of Life," IDB 4 (1962), 695. Cf. H. Ringgren,
Religions of the
Ancient Near East (Philadelphia: Westminster,
1973), p. 108.
232
Watson: The Tree
of Life 233
Hathor and Nut dwelt
in the great tree of heaven and supplied the souls of
the dead with celestial food, while Nut appears in a
vignette of the Book of
the Dead in a
sycamore. The olive-tree was the abode of Horus and the
date-palm that of Nut
designed on a Nineteenth Dynasty relief with human
arms and breasts holding
a jar from which two streams of water emerge and
a tray of food.2
In
Sumerian mythology the gishkin
tree in the
"may well represent a tree of life."3 As for
the Babylonian and
Assyrian
literature,
Strangely enough the term "the tree
of life" does not occur in any Akkadian
text . . . . On the
other hand, pictorial representations are found of the king
carrying out certain
rites with a stylized tree, which in modern literature on
the subject is
often described as the tree of life.4
However,
if no tree of life per se is found in
the literature, notice
should be taken both
of the Gilgamesh epic and the Adapa creation
myth.
In the latter story Adapa,
following the orders of his father Ea,
unwittingly refuses the
"bread of death" and "water of death"
offered to him by the
gatekeepers of heaven, not knowing that had
he accepted their offer he would
thereby have gained immortality. The
epic of Gilgamesh is
even more instructive. In it the Noah-like figure
Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh
of a magical, life-renewing plant at the
bottom of the sea and
says, "If thy hands obtain the plant (thou wilt
find new
life)." Gilgamesh does a bit of deep-sea diving, secures the
plant, and tells Urshanabi, his boatman, "Its name shall be `Man
Becomes Young in Old Age.' I myself shall
eat (it) and thus return to
the state of my youth."
Gilgamesh's plans are thwarted, however, by a
serpent(!) who steals
the plant while Gilgamesh is taking a bath.6
Thus the concept of a life-giving tree
in the garden of Eden would
not have been strange at all to
2 E. O. James, The Tree of Life (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1966), p. 41.
3 So Childs, p. 695. Geo. Widengren (The King
and the Tree of Life in Ancient Near
Eastern Religion [
1951]
6) says, "That this kiskanu-tree,
in the Sumerian text gis-kin, is identical with
the tree of life is perfectly
clear."
4 Ringgren, pp. 78, 79. So also
Childs, p. 695. For examples of the art, see
Widengren, pp. 61-63.
5 See the translation by E. A. Speiser in Ancient
Near Eastern Texts Relating to the
Old Testament, edited by J.
B. Pritchard, (2nd ed.; Princeton:
1955) pp. 101, 102.
6
Again the translation is by Speiser, in Pritchard, ANET, p. 96.
234 Restoration
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she lived. What is a bit surprising
is the fact that relatively few
subsequent references to
the tree of life are found in the Bible. Four
times it appears in
Proverbs (3:18, 11:30, 13:12, and 15:4); and many
scholars think the
prophet Ezekiel at least alludes to the tree of life in
such passages as
Ezekiel 31:3-9 and 47:12. Beginning with Nebu-
chadnezzar's dream in Daniel
4:10-12, there is a growing use of the
tree-of-life motif in the
apocalyptic literature, as evidenced by such
passages as 1 Enoch
24:4; 2 Enoch 8:3, 5, 8; 9:1; 2 Esdras 8:52;
and T. 12 Patriarch 18:10-14.
Christian apocalyptic also utilizes the
motif, as illustrated
by the four references to the tree of life in the
book of Revelation
(2:7 and 22:2, 14, 19).
Literary Considerations
Having established the fact that the
concept of a life-giving tree was
quite plausible to
in Genesis 2-3 in which the tree is
mentioned.7 In the first passage
(Gen.
2:9) we find trees, trees, and more trees:
And out of the ground God Yahweh caused
to grow various trees that were a delight to the eye and good for eating, with
the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good
and bad.8
The
concluding verses of the narrative (Gen. 3:22-24) focus only on
the tree of life:
And God Yahweh said, "Now that the
man has become like one of us in
discerning good from bad,
what if he should put out his hand and taste also
of the tree of
life and eat, and live forever!" So God Yahweh banished him from the garden of
Even
at a glance both passages present us with problems. (1) The
syntax of Genesis 2:9
is very awkward, suggesting to some commentators
either that the
original text mentioned only one tree,9 or that we are
dealing with two
originally separate accounts, each having a different
7 I regret that I did not have access to
J. L. McKenzie, "The Literary Characteristics
of Genesis 2-3," TS 15 (1954) 541-572.
8 The translations of both Gen.
2:9 and 3:22-24 are those of E. A. Speiser as found
in Genesis (AB 1; Garden City:
Doubleday, 1964) 14, 23.
9 Speiser, 20.
Watson: The Tree
of Life 235
tree.10 (The syntax of the phrase "and (the) tree
of the-to-know good
and bad" and the vexed question
of what this "knowledge of good
and
bad" in fact was cannot be considered here.)11 (2) The syntax of
Genesis
3:22 is also more difficult than Speiser's rendering
of it would
indicate.12 Furthermore, verses 23 and
24 are taken by some to be a
doublet, thus giving
another indication of more than one source.13
(3)
The very fact that the tree of life is introduced in Genesis 2:9 and
not mentioned again until Genesis
3:22-24 seems strange. It is the other
tree-the tree of
knowledge-that is at the heart of the story (Gen.
2:17,
3:5, 6).14
What are we to make of all this? Do we
in fact have two originally
separate accounts now
rather clumsily glued together? More recent
scholarship generally
agrees that this is not the case:
It is recognized today that the
architectonic structure of the pentateuchal
narratives, and
particularly of Genesis, cannot be the result of chance or of
a
'scissors-and-paste' method of
compilation, but represents a religious and literary achievement of the highest
order.15
If,
then, the narrative is to be considered in its present integrity, how
are we to hear it? What is being
said about the origins of humanity;
and precisely how does the tree of
life fit into the story?
The key to the interpretation of the
story lies in taking Genesis 2:9
as the conclusion to the larger
unit of verses 4b-9. In this unit we are
told that man became
a living being when he was formed by God from
the earth and when God breathed his
own life-giving breath into man.
Thus
the ultimate source of life for man was God.
10 G. von Rad, Genesis (OTL
1; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961) 76-77. Cf. J.
Skinner, Genesis (ICC 1; 2d ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clar,
1930) 52-53, 58; and C. A.
Simpson, "Genesis," IDB 1 (1952) 496.
11 For a convenient summary of
the various interpretations of the phrase "good and
evil", see
Childs, 696. Significant recent ,articles are by B. Reicke, "The Knowledge
Hidden
in the Tree of
of Good and Evil in the OT and the
12 See the comments by
Speiser, 24, on the words rendered in the RSV
"Behold"
(Heb
hen) and "and now" (Heb we`atta).
13 Thus Skinner, 88-89. On the
cherubim and flaming sword, see Speiser, 24-25, and
von Rad,
94-95.
14 Indeed, the tree of knowledge is
said to be "in the middle of the garden" in
Gen.
3:3; but it is the tree of life that is "in the middle of the garden"
in
Gen.
2:9.
15 Gordis, 129. Cf. also
Childs, 696.
236 Restoration
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Having
given man life, God next gives man an environment-a
garden (more nearly a
park) filled with trees, at a time when the rest
of the earth had neither plants nor
herbs (Gen. 2:5). And we are told
specifically that two
trees-one of life, the other of knowledge-are
included in this
After inserting a geographical interlude
dealing with the great river
which watered
world, the narrator
quickly returns to his main theme and focuses
attention on the last
tree mentioned in Genesis 2:9, namely, the tree of
knowledge. Of every other
tree in the garden man may freely eat; but
of this one he may not, on penalty
of death. Verse 17 leaves the
narrator's listeners
asking themselves, "What will man do? Will he eat
of that tree or not? Will he obey
or disobey?"
The answer is postponed until a new
theme can be introduced, that
of woman as a partner for man (Gen.
2:18-25). With Genesis 3 both
strands of the
narrative are picked up and woven together in the story
of the Fall. And in the middle of
both the story and the garden stands
the tree of knowledge. It stands for
the tragic disobedience of both
man and woman; it is a mute witness
of their unfaith.
But the narrator has not forgotten (nor,
one would suspect, has his
audience) the other
tree, the tree of life. Can disobedient man remain
in the garden and still live
forever by eating of its fruit, thus escaping
his sentence of death? By no means. Man should not have eaten of
the tree of knowledge; now he cannot
eat of the tree of life. He is
banished--absolutely,
permanently--from
Thus the narrative functions as a
harmonious whole: Of all the
trees in the garden,
two are singled out for special notice. One becomes
the symbol of the decisive choice
man must make in response to the
divine command. Once
man makes his decision, the other tree becomes
the symbol of all man's shattered
aspirations, his dreams of what
might have been,
forever in his memory but always out of his reach.
Theological Significance
We may introduce our final
considerations of the tree of life and
how it functions theologically in
Genesis 2 and 3 with this question: If
Adam
and Eve had access to the tree while they were still in the
Garden,
and, if they had eaten of it, would it not have been too late
for God to cast them out? Would they
not already be immortal?
Some
have taken the position that eating of the tree of life was not
a once-for-all event, but rather a
matter of regular eating. This
interpretation, which cites
many parallels in comparative religions,
Watson: The Tree
of Life 237
takes the Hebrew word
gam in
Genesis 3:22 as "again" rather than
"also." But such an interpretation misses the urgency of
verse 22 and
the decisiveness of verse 24.
Whatever logical difficulties it may present
to the modern reader, the clear
implication of verse 22 is that man
has in some sense already become
like God by having eaten of the tree
of knowledge. But of the tree of
life he has not eaten; nor will he eat.
How then are we to understand God's act
of denying man access to
this tree? One
interpretation suggests that God was, in effect, doing
man a favor, since eternal life coupled
with a knowledge of good and
evil would be
intolerable.16 However, the
clear implication of
verses 22-24 is that a
punishment is being carried out and not that a
favor is being shown.17
Another interpretation suggests that the
tree of
life somehow
represents a false substitute for the genuine life offered
by God and defined as a harmonious
coexistence with him.18 But
again, the tree of
life as it first appears in Genesis 2:9 does not seem to
be a mythical and ultimately
unsatisfactory substitute for real life,
but rather the symbol of it.
As has been
observed, Genesis 2:4-9 pulsates with life itself. God
creates man and infuses
him with life. God then prepares the perfect
environment for life in the
form of a beautiful park at the very center
of which is nothing less than the
tree of life. Man may thus anticipate
living indefinitely,
with God, in
But is man willing to live such a life
in such a place on God's terms?
That
is the unavoidable question put to man in the form of the tree
of knowledge and God's restriction
concerning it. To his everlasting
regret, man is not
content with God's arrangements and must have
"knowledge." "Knowledge" man acquires; but in
the process he loses
"life."
At this point some of the observations of
Dietrich Bonhoeffer seem
particularly cogent. In
commenting on Genesis 3:22-24, he says,
The whole story finally comes to a
climax in these verses. The significance
of the tree of
life, of which so remarkably little had been said earlier, is only
really comprehensible
here. Indeed, it is now obvious that the whole story
has really been about
this tree. . . . Adam only reaches out for the fruit of
the tree of life
after he
16 J. Willis, Genesis (Living Word Commentary; Austin: Sweet, 1979) 135-136.
17 Von Rad,
98, says: "All in all, it (the narrative) closes in profound
sadness."
18 B. Childs, 696-697.
238 Restoration
Quarterly
has fallen prey to
death.... Adam has eaten of the tree of knowledge, but the
thirst for the tree of
life, which this fruit has given him, remains
unquenched. . . . The tree
of life is guarded by the power of death; it
remains untouchable,
divinely unapproachable. But Adam's life before the
gate is a continuous
attack upon the realm from which he is excluded. It is a
flight and a search
upon the cursed ground to find what he has lost, and
then a repeated,
desperate rage against the power with the flaming sword.
That this sword of the guard cuts, that
it is sharp--this the biblical writer
says, not without
reason; Adam knows this, he feels it himself time and
again: but the gate
remains shut.19
As dismal as the concluding verses of
Genesis 3 are, however, they
are not the final word of God. Even
before they are separated from the
tree of life, Adam
and Eve anticipate the procreation and thus the
continuation of human life;
and God himself provides for them the
clothes they will need
outside the Garden (Gen. 3:20, 21). Try as he
will, Adam cannot
regain access to life on his own; witness the
pathetic efforts of
Adam's descendants at the
(Gen. 11:1-9). But God, who
provided life initially and who sponsors
the continuation of that life even
if it is now life-in-death, can and
will himself bring
man back to life--life that is once more abundant
(John 10:10) and eternal (John 3:16). Man shall in
fact have access to
the tree of life once again, not by
overcoming the cherubim who guard
it but by being allowed to share in
heaven's victory over death:
To him who is victorious I will give the
right to eat from the tree of life that
stands in the
clean! They will have the right to the tree of life ..." (Rev. 2:7;
22:14).
19 D. Bonhoeffer, Creation
and Fall (London: SCM, 1966) 89-92.
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