The Other One
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— Genesis 3:22 NASB
Tree of Life – We’ve investigated this verse in the past.[1] Perhaps it’s worth reading those investigations again before we take another look. They help us set aside the ubiquitous influence of Greek mystical religions in the Christian belief in an eternal soul. That means this verse is not about getting to heaven without God. They also help us see that the context of this verse is Egyptian thinking, not Greek and certainly not Western. This verse closes the door on a prominent Egyptian objective, i.e., living forever.
So, good, we have some background. Now we need to ask some further questions. What is the Tree of Life? Why is it distinct from living? How is the Tree of life tied to the idea of immortality? “Become like one of us” – one of who? Doesn’t this imply endless temporality for the divine? Why doesn’t God simply command, “Do not eat of the Tree of Life”? Does the first commandment imply that Adam and the woman could eat freely of the Tree of Life before the Fall? Finally, why is God worried they will now eat of the Tree of Life? Can He not prevent them for doing so?
Ah, so much to consider. So little time to do so.
So now man knows good and evil. If we are correct in the previous investigation, this is not a moral condition. It is an attempt to convert the nishmat hayyim (breath of life) into a possession rather than participation. This quest is impossible. Life does not exist independently of YHVH, even if it appears to. But the further men go to force conversion, the more they remove themselves from the true presence of life. There is no solution expect teshuva, return. The Tree of Life cannot be acquired. It can only be experienced. While God knows both good and evil, i.e., the difference between true life and all of its counterfeits, man is now deceived into believing that he too can determine the difference between true and counterfeit on the basis of his own investigation. In other words, he now believes that he can independently construct his existence. He has taken up the role of God.
What is the Tree of Life? Later rabbinic thinking noticed the connection between the Tree of Life and Torah. But this story suggests an even deeper foundation. Man is animated by the nishmat hayyim, God’s breath. The ‘ets hayyim recalls this animation. It is symbolic for participation in divine energy, the vitalizing force of all living things. Now that man knows what it means to die, he may attempt by whatever means necessary to forestall death, to seize the sovereignty over life and death for himself. Not only does this verse close the door on Egyptian mythology, it also sounds the warning that man is not and will never be the author of life and death. Man may attempt to grab this role, but all he will hold in his hand is the fruit of the Tree from which he ate. He will be the harbinger of death, but never of life.
The Tree of Life is distinct from living because the Tree is about sovereignty, not existence. It is about who controls life and death. And without God’s breath, man can bring about only termination. God’s action prevents man from imagining that the power of life is in his hands. It is not about Adam’s intention to live forever. It is about humanity’s egotistical pretention in the claim over life and death. As the rest of the story unfolds, we see the result. Death everywhere men trod.
This is why the Hebrew text uses the verb laqah, “to take, grasp, seize.” God does not fear life can be wrested from His control. He fears that man will attempt by any means to gain this power, and in doing so, man will drive himself further and further away from life’s true source. Power corrupts. The power over life and death is the ultimate corrupting power. Only God can handle its ferocity. Any man who thinks otherwise is still salivating over the other Tree.
“The cry for life beyond the grave is presumptuous, if there is no cry for eternal life prior to our descending to the grave. Eternity is not perpetual future but perpetual presence. He has planted in us the seed of eternal life. The world to come is not only a hereafter but also a herenow.”[2]
Topical Index: Tree of Life, ‘ets hayyim, Genesis 3:22
[1] https://stage.skipmoen.com/2012/06/05/gods-rival/ and https://stage.skipmoen.com/2012/06/08/once-more-into-the-breach/
[2] Abraham Heschel, I Asked for Wonder, p. 98.
What is death? Being anywhere but here-and-now. If I were to be able to choose when-and-where I wanted to be on that Greek mythical “River Of Time”, either one second before the present, or the present: either the past or now, it would be a choice of whether I wanted to be living in yesterday or today. Um, that would be the same as saying I could choose whether I wanted to be dead or alive! Wow, I don’t know, um, what a hard choice! Not! The only power I will ever experience is the power over the future that comes from the freedom to choose that can only be found in the present. That is the power that life gives to me.
The choice of evil is to choose to experience what is not real, for the good consists of all that is real. It is the choice to fracture my participation in – my connection to – reality. To experience the da’at (which, as Mel Sorensen points out, we translate “knowledge”, but which, in Hebrew, means “intimacy, relationship, the touch of soul and soul”. Thanks, Mel!) with evil, is to experience, essentially, LIVING IN THE PAST. Sorry for shouting. But, to me, that is what that pair chose to do. I think the first thing they started to do was to regret it!
What do we find in the past, which also means in the place where reality has already happened, so we have lost the power to choose, which is the power to CONTROL? To me, evil literally means to choose not to choose, which is to choose a position of being either dead or a slave. It also means to experience the fear, guilt and shame that is the result of realizing you just handed over the key to your own existence. You have just skunked yourself, and the stench is that of your own demise. To me, life means choice: the power of choice, the access to the results of choice. Death means no choices, no power, and no access to the above. The Tree of Life represents that access on a continuing basis. Evil means no choice; or, to be forced. To choose to sin is to choose to be forced, which is to choose away my freedom in that place.
Adam and Eve held the power of their own life in their hands. They chose to throw away that power, for love IS to be plugged into the current of power over life coming from the Throne – to share in the breath that the Holy Spirit breathes through us. To sin is to gasp for the breath that we lost – to try to stay alive one more minute, at whatever cost, and so we continue to gamble gold for dross, and we trade away ever smaller pieces of the capital we started out with in a vain attempt to stay alive, one minute longer.
Gone from our grasp is the connection with forever – with that participation in the eternal breath(s) – and so we are left trying vainly to gasp our own. There, of course, is no such thing. That is all the knowledge of evil is. Period. I think that is all those two found. Evil is not some profound revelation. Evil is just disconnection from everything. If love is equal to the sum of everything else, then evil is the negation of it all. Evil is sitting on your branch and sawing off the wrong end of your only connection to your own tree. Whoops. There’s the tree thing again!
I am sorry that wasn’t any shorter, y’all. I always seem to find myself having trouble trying to explain evil.
You and most of humanity.
“And the tree of life also in the midst of the garden,
and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
It is in “tree” form that spirit realities are perceived.
“Tree of Life”: Totality of the “Godhead”?
“Knowledge of good and bad / right and wrong” = Justice [GeBURaH]?
A&H chose to submit to being judged on merit instead of accepting the Grace (Loving kindness) in which they were walking.
This strip them of their Spiritual Covering / Protection and they were naked in the presence of The “Glory”.
YHWH Elohim knowing their choice will cause them to ALWAYS fail (be found guilty), had to have them removed from Eden to prevent them from trying to become (thinking of themselves as) elohim.
How many of us step into both traps (asserting a right to Justice and thinking we are gods)?
Thank you Skip for asking the right questions for those of us who normally wouldn’t. I love you and learning form you so much precious brother.
The human singularity movement is the quest to survive on self-generated power — completely disconnected from the Source of life. Man is convinced that knowledge is all that is needed to create life, yet without the working power of the Spirit, man has no discernment between good and evil. His wires remain crossed, calling good evil and evil good. Knowledge gained without the Creator’s wisdom to use it for good, is at the core of man’s thirst to extend himself beyond the limits of death. Another Genesis 6. Singularity is nothing more than humanity becoming united with himself—solo intercourse that conceives nothing and bears nothing.
Laurita: To me, life means choice: the power of choice, the access to the results of choice. Death means no choices, no power, and no access to the above.
Harsh words but the truth. It is also true that when we keep transferring the blame we keep transferring the privilege to bring about change. It is only when we accept faults that we can seek growth to overcome them. Humble submission finds a new meaning to imply humble responsibility for what we are and become…
Derek: Knowledge gained without the Creator’s wisdom to use it for good, is at the core of man’s thirst to extend himself beyond the limits of death.
What great words. Jesus said seek first the kingdom and not care for the morrow as each day has sufficient concerns or evil of its own. Don’t we easy fall in this trap of postponing as tomorrow is another day and it is here that we learn to regret…
Interesting that when I study the devoted Jew I find a prospering individual who refuses to retire as life is the now, the being and not the maybe…
Seeker, I like your point about accepting responsibility for the problem also gives us the power to change it. I wanted to clarify something from my experience, however, and this is that we have to be careful not to try to take the responsibility that belongs to someone else (that would be the responsibility for their life) in an effort to ‘fix’ their lives for them. For years, I attempted to put someone else’s shortcomings above my own, thinking that I had to ‘fix’ their problems first. Well, I only found that I had signed on to responsibility for something I had no authority over. I was attempting to do the Holy Spirit’s work in the life of another. Didn’t work!
Nowadays I have made a decision to only accept responsibility over things (that would be, mostly, my own stuff) that I also have the authority for, too. This also tends to make things go much smoother in all my affairs. I have found that people will pile problems on anyone they can find that is willing to take responsibility for problems, but they seem to be a lot less willing to come off the authority that it takes to actually be able to change the situation. These days, I try to only check out both conditions from life’s library simultaneously. If people try to lay a guilt trip on me about “not caring” if I don’t jump to accept responsibility for something, I can point out to them what authority to be able to care they need to come off of and hand to me in order to take that responsibility. I have noticed that heaven follows this principle, too. I can complain all day long that heaven doesn’t seem to care about problems in my life, but then heaven is likewise waiting for me to hand over the authority necessary to make the changes that that care requires.
Laurita a wise man once said “It is a strange compensation of life that we are truly only helping ourselves when we help others…” I add to this for then the good done echos in eternity.thing
And yes we do not help others by taking over their responsibilities we help others by sharing our talents so that they can develop theirs…