Adam and Eve. The name Adam means man, or to be red, and speaks to the physical and material aspects of humanity. The woman’s name is Eve, and means to breathe, to live, or to give life, and refers to the spiritual. The names communicate the inexplicable connectedness of matter and spirit that results in a living being.
The names of the Garden of Eden and its characters were carefully chosen to communicate a more profound truth: The Garden of Eden is probably a metaphorical reference to the hidden eternal dimension in us that are in union with God. The word Eden comes from the Hebrew word ednah, which means delight, pleasure, and is closely related to the words eternal, moment, and presence. Interestingly enough, the Hebrew term for heaven or paradise is in fact Gan Eden—meaning the Garden of Eden.
We begin with the backdrop to the story, because otherwise this tale of trees in the Garden of Eden can be pretty depressing. Before the Hebrew writers (who had been slaves and were now in exile in Babylon) share the story of trees, they want future generations of Jewish people to know that in spite of what they had experienced, they believed in the goodness of humanity.
When you step back and observe the Bible from a broader view, what stands out above all is that over a period of two millennia, the Jewish writers’ perception of God progressed—not always in a straight line—toward a more equitable and less tribal world.
This may be a good time to share why I think the Bible is still worth reading. Because I get it: unless we are afraid to question what we read in the Bible (which is not uncommon in many church circles) most of us may at times find the Bible to be out of touch, confusing, and morally suspect. There’s just a lot in the Bible that’s weird.
Many years after my youthful experience with a tree, I learned how trees throughout history have had a mysterious and at times symbolic connection with the ego. Buddhism, for example, finds its origin in the Buddha who spent 49 days of meditation under a fig tree. Later, that tree became known as the tree of enlightenment because it symbolized the place where Buddha experienced freedom from the sufferings of the egoic mind.
