17: Creation

Biblical Times Podcast

The Book of Genesis tells of two different creation stories. One focuses on the world's creation in six days and the sanctification of the seventh day, on which God rested from His work of creation.

In the previous episode, we discussed how this story forms the basis for many social laws, teaching that social order is an organic part of the order of the world's creation.

The second creation story focuses on violating God's prohibition against eating from the fruit of the 'Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil', which we refer to here as a "Perfect Crime."

The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which God planted in the Garden of Eden, had two miraculous qualities, not found in any other tree. The first is embodied in the tree's name: The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

According to the Bible, knowledge has only one meaning and purpose: the ability to recognize God's existence, to hear and understand His words and laws.

Had man not eaten from the fruit that gave him this ability, nothing would have distinguished human beings from all the other animals God created.

If so, what logic explains the severe prohibition against eating this excellent fruit?

The answer is that the second quality of the fruit was death. And so, God said to the first man:

"for when you eat from it you will certainly die."

The ancients believed, and so in the Bible, in different degrees of impurity, the most severe among them being the body of a dead person.

The ancients believed that the impurity created in the body of a dead person was drawn like a magnet to the temples they built to honor the gods they believed in.

The impurity that originates in the dead human body contaminates the temple and causes the gods to be expelled from it.

This belief also exists in the Bible!

There is no dispute that the garden planted by God was the holiest and purest place on earth, and therefore the most vulnerable to impurity.

To maintain the absolute purity of this wondrous garden, no one was born or died in it. As a result, life in the garden took place in a sterile frozen capsule, that was hermetically sealed.

To set the wheels of the real world in motion, the first couple had to eat the forbidden fruit!

And the moment they did so, two things happened simultaneously.

The first was that their DNA, and that of all their descendants, was forever changed.

Thanks to eating from the forbidden fruit, of all the creatures God created, only humans are capable of recognizing His existence, and only to them did He give laws and commandments.

However, impurity, especially the impurity created in a dead body, became an inherent part of humanity. From this fact, it is clear that to maintain the purity of the Garden of Eden, God had to expel the first couple from the holy garden, along with all the animals.

The second result of the "perfect crime" was that the real world, which is far from being idyllic and pure, where people are born and die, began its long journey.

Finally, we have one more comment:

According to the Bible, the Garden of Eden was on earth, but in Jewish and Christian tradition, the garden resides in heaven.

We will discuss in the future how the garden ascended to blue sky and became the dwelling place for the souls of the righteous dead.