7 Images: The New Jerusalem

Thetis Blacker: "The Holy City" (1982)

Scripture recounts that Jesus will return in person to judge the nations and establish a just and benevolent rule over all the earth.

Prophesy is generally only understood in hindsight (or as it unfolds) when it comes to the exact meaning of many particulars, but we can make out the general idea. The nations will ultimately reject the just and benevolent rule of Jesus, after which everyone who rejected God will be judged. There will follow a new Heaven and a New Earth—a kind of return to the Garden.

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. (Revelation 19:11-16)

Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the LORD, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light. On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter. And the LORD will be king over all the earth. On that day the LORD will be one and this name one. (Zechariah 14:5b-9)

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10)

Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4-6)

Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain on them. And if the family of Egypt does not go up and present themselves, then on them there shall be no rain; there shall be the plague with which the LORD afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. (Zechariah 14:16-18)

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11-15)

7 Images: The Son of Man

 

Anastasiia Kulik: "Ascension of Christ" (2020)

Scripture recounts that God promised to send a prophet like Moses, "whom the LORD knew face to face" (Deuteronomy 34:10), to speak the words of God to Israel. 

Jesus claimed to be the prophet spoken of by Moses and the prophets, and the people marveled at much of what he said and did, but they stumbled at his claims to be born of the earth also but descended from heaven.

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ And the LORD said to me, "They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. (Deuteronomy 18:15-18)

“No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:13-18)

They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life." (John 6:42-48)

Perhaps equally perplexing were his statements about redeeming those who come to him by atoning for their sins with his death. Though prophesied in scripture, this was not understood by even his own disciples until after his death and resurrection.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:4-11; ref. 1 Peter 2:22-25) 

7 Images: The Circumcised Heart

 

Sadao Watanabe: "Hope" (1961)

Scripture recounts that God promised to send a messenger like Elijah to preach a circumcision of the heart before the Day of the Lord. 

A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of [YHWH]; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of [YHWH] shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of [YHWH] has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:3-5)

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says [YHWH] of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” (Malachi 3:1-2)

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of [YHWH] comes. (Malachi 4:5)

This must have seemed like folk legend to the people of Roman Judea in the early first century CE. The previous centuries had promised a Golden Age of self-rule under the Maccabees, a dynasty of self-anointed priest-kings,  had devolved into a civil war that Rome had adjudicated in typical Roman fashion by designating Judaea as a Roman Protectorate and appointing Herod, son of an Idumaean strongman, to rule as King of the Jews. Idumaeans, descendants of the ancient Edomites, had been forcibly converted to Judaism by the Maccabees but never accepted as co-religionists, so having an Idumaean appointed as King of the Jews was deemed scandalous. Yet after so many centuries without any word from God apart from the scriptures, into the cosmopolitan world of the Roman Empire came word that an angle had appeared to an elderly priest to announce that his wife would barren wife would bear him a son who would prepare the way for the coming of the Lord in the spirt and power of Elijah.

But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” (Luke 1:13-17)

And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” (John 1:19-23)

John preached a spiritual circumcision of the heart as prophesied (see Deuteronomy 30:1-6), whose ritual confirmation was immersion in water—signifying rebirth—the same ritual confirmation prescribed in the Talmud for physical circumcision of a convert (Yebamoth iv.ix). This same sign carried over as the public confirmation of faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus and a declaration of him as Lord, which is how Jesus comes to own our sins and we—even non-Jews—conversely take on his righteousness before God.

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:3-8)

And now the LORD says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him—for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD, and my God has become my strength—he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:5-6)

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:11-14)

Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Romans 10:9-10) 

7 Images: The Book of the Covenant

 

Marc Chagall: "Moses [iii]" (1956) 

Scripture recounts that God chose the descendants of Jacob to serve him as a nation of priests to the world. Whereas the covenant made with Abraham entailed exclusive devotion to El ("God"), the covenant made with the descendants of Jacob further established that no other god exists apart from El (ref. Deuteronomy 32:39a) who now revealed himself as YWHW, a name that not even Abraham had known. 

God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am [YWHW]. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God [El Shaddai], but by my name [YWHW] I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners.” (Exodus 6:2-4)

When the [El] gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.* But [YWHW]’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. (Deuteronomy 32:8-9) 

Moreover, the descendants of Jacob (i.e. Israel) were chosen to serve YWHW as a "kingdom of priests" to bring the wider nations to a knowledge of the one true God. The sign of this covenant would be male circumcision (females being subsumed under a male head of household) and the terms if the covenant would be such as God would dictate on Mount Sinai. Good standing as a priesthood was, however, conditional on Israel's fidelity to a vast priestly code promulgated at Mount Sinai. (ref. Romans 2:25-29) 

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.* (Exodus 19:5-6a) 

Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. (Isaiah 42:1; ref. Isaiah 41:8)

Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from [YWHW] our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike. (Deuteronomy 29:18-19) 

The Book of the Covenant (i.e. Mosaic Law) comprising these stipulations, particularly those regarding the Sabbath and the three major festivals enumerated in Exodus 23:14-19, were understood to be specific to Israel as a nation of priests of the one true God. The priests and high priests of Israel were further marked off within this nation of priests by special clothing, restrictions, and exclusive obligations exclusive to their tribe and office with the exception of the restrictions peculiar to the High Priest, which any ritually clean Israelite could take on for a specified period of time as part of a special offering called the Nazarite vow (Numbers 6:1-21). There were also, in addition to other votive offerings of various sorts, many prescribed animal sacrifices whose object was to ritually cover over personal, priestly, or collective impurity by spilling blood as a vicarious death penalty for entering into the presence of YHWH in an impure state. The point of all this was to engrain in Israel (a) some sense of the impossible purity of YHWH, (b) an awareness of the cost of human impurity, and (c) the hint of ransom from this conundrum by means of some unforeseen substitute as in the case of Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac.

And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, These are the living things that you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth...” (Leviticus 11:1-46) 

You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. (Leviticus 19:27)

The Lord said to Moses,“Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner.” (Numbers 15:7-8)

For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. (Leviticus 17:11)

Non-Israelites were not bound to the Mosaic Law, though they were understood to be subject to the so-called Noahide Laws common to all of humanity. Non-Israelites living in the land (i.e. under the jurisdiction of Mosaic Law) were nevertheless bound to certain laws that pertained to Israelites and non-Israelites alike. This is what lies behind the four laws stipulated by James as binding on Gentile believers as well as the curious justification regarding the Mosaic Law having been proclaimed in every city. 

Our Rabbis taught: “Seven precepts were the sons of Noah taught: social laws, [and] to refrain from blasphemy, idolatry, adultery, bloodshed, robbery and eating flesh cut from a living animal.” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin VII.56a)

I will set my face against any Israelite or any foreigner residing among them who eats blood, and I will cut them off from the people. (Leviticus 17:10)

It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. (Acts 15.19–21)

As it turned out, Israel had trouble adhering to even the pared-down requirements expected of non-Israelites. They moreover abandoned YHWH when times were good, only reaffirming their commitment when things were absolutely dire, a lack of constancy foreseen from the beginning when Moses warned the people against presuming that they would be protected by a covenant with YHWH from whom they would turn away (see above: Deuteronomy 29:18-19). Israel is nevertheless promised that those tribes that turn back to YHWH while in exile will return to the land and have their hearts consecrated by YHWH himself.

And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where [YWHW] your God has driven you, and return to [YWHW] your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then [YWHW] your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where [YWHW] your God has scattered you. (Deuteronomy 30:1-3) 

And [YWHW] your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love [YWHW] your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. (Deuteronomy 30:6) 

One might well wonder what the point of the Mosaic Law could have been given the history of Israel up to this point. The answer is twofold: on the one hand, Israel returned to the land a people reborn, having returned to its womb in Mesopotamia and passed through the waters to the land promised to Abraham, this time with a firm resolve never to forsake YHWH; on the other hand, many failed to understand that no one could actually be justified by the Law, sometimes going so far as to consider themselves righteous before YHWH of their own account.

[*A poetic allusion is made to the seventy sons of El, who in Canaanite religion were the gods of seventy nations (ref. Genesis 10).]

7 Images: The Knowledge of God

 

Salvador Dali "Abraham, Pater Multarem Gentium" (1964) 

Scripture recounts that God chose a man, Abram, from whom to create a people through whom "all the families of the earth" would be blessed. Little is known of Abram prior to his arrival in the Akkadian city of Haran from the Sumerian city of Ur, apart from a few sparse details regarding his immediate family and their descent from Eber (hence "Abram the Hebrew" in Genesis 14:13). The departure from Ur likely occurred during the brief period of Akkadian rule that ended with the city's destruction by the Elamites around 1980 BCE. Our story properly begins with Abram's departure from Harran, a major trade depot connecting Mesopotamia to the Levant, to the land of Canaan.

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. (Genesis 12:1-3) 

The Canaanites seem to have originally worshipped the collective heavens, which they envisioned as a host of Mighty Ones (Elohim) before conceiving of a single even mightier entity representing representing Time, whom they referred to as El (not an actual name) to whom Darkness and Chaos first bore Dawn a Dusk respectively, after which Chaos bore the Morning Star, the Evening Star, the Sea and the Earth, and seventy Sons of God (Bene Elohim) who rule the seventy nations.

However, Canaan in the days of Abram was in transition from a religion devoted to El to a religion devoted to the Akkadian "Lord of the Storm" (i.e. Haddad) who represented Justice and Fertility. They now hailed this new deity as Ba'al and even appropriated to him the massive horns previously used to represent Might as well the long white hair and beard. El meanwhile became an elderly ruler who yielded authority to whomever was mighty enough to seize it for himself. Only in the hinterlands of the Southern Levant was El still revered, as we note with Melchizedek, and it was to this land that God brought Abram.

When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. (Genesis 12:6-8)

As the Canaanites sowed the seeds of their future destruction by abandoning the some apprehension of God for a sense of material security rooted in the worship of a weather god, Abram placed his trust in the one true God, and God blessed him. As the writer of Hebrews comments: 'whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him' (Hebrews 11:6). 

After these things the word of [YHWH] came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord [YHWH], what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” And behold, the word of [YHWH] came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed [YHWH], and he counted it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:1-6) 

The last verse cited above is astonishing inso much as it indicates that being right with God is (and has always been) a matter of (a) believing that God is both Good and True to his Word and (b) placing oneself in his hands. Having doubled down on the promise to bless Abram with heirs by further promising their number will be beyond counting, God now gives him the name Abraham and promises that his descendants will comprise nations and kings of nations. He moreover promises possession the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants as an inheritance in perpetuity. This effectively establishes Abraham as King, which Melchizedek (High Priest of El Shaddai) effectively solemnifies by bringing Abraham refreshments in recognition of his routing of the ten invading kings. The Canaanites, having turned away from an intimation of God, thus found themselves dispossessed of their land, and even their language, which has survived to this day in the form of Hebrew.

When Abram was ninety-nine years old [YHWH] appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am [El Shaddai]; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.” (Genesis 17:1-8) 

The sign that will mark those included in this covenant (whether descendants or anyone under the authority of a descendant) was male circumcision. Females would (by inference) come into the covenant via father, husband, or owner.

And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant. (Genesis 17:9-14) 

Note: Though the descendants of Abraham through Ishmael and Esau were also circumcised as part of this covenant, only the descendants of Jacob would become a people set apart for a sacred purpose as part of an additional covenant made at Sinai where God would create from Jacob a people, sacred to himself, to serve as priests to the nations.

7 Images: The Serpent's Proposition

 

Alexander Sulimov: "Forbidden Fruit" (2019)

Scripture recounts that sin entered the world through a lack of faith in the goodness of God, which marred our faithfulness as his image and now compromises every act of goodness that we attempt. Adam and Eve, though tasked putting each creature in its appropriate place, allow the serpent* to reverse roles and raise a fundamental question regarding their own place in the larger scheme of things. He sows doubt about the goodness of God by asking why God has surrounded Adam and Eve with food while inexplicably denying them to partake of any. He thereby maneuvers Eve into bringing up the subject of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil of which they have indeed been forbidden to eat. The serpent then sows additional doubt about God's goodness and their own self-fulfillment by claiming that God has deceived them because he does not wish for them to truly become like him. 

Now the serpent* was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:1-5) 

The fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil does not of itself necessarily impart any knowledge, and other creatures of the garden may well have eaten some without incident. What imparts knowledge of good and evil is the act of defying God, though such knowledge might also have been gained by regarding the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as a testimony of the absolute trustworthiness of God, which is exactly what the serpent seeks to undermine by conjuring a sense that they lack something essential that they deserve, which God has selfishly denied and which they have at hand to take. Such is the essence of all temptation. 

The immediate consequence is that Adam and Eve feel vulnerable and seek to conceal themselves by fashioning coverings for themselves and by hiding from God. They thus forfeit their original intimacy with God and with each other for a counterfeit intimacy with each other based on shared complicity. 

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (Genesis 3:6-11)

 The more serious consequence is that Adam and Eve forfeit their status as faithful images of God and become creatures of the wilderness like the serpent. The man who was to subdue the earth by extending the boundaries of the garden while being sustained by the fruit of the garden must now spend his days laboring in the fields just to sustain his growing family. The woman who was blessed with the exhortation to be fruitful and multiply is advised that this labor will now involve pain: puberty and loss of virginity, pregnancy and birth, rearing and separation, etc. The serpent, having assumed the posture of a man and presumed to speak more truthfully than God with a view to orchestrating the downfall of his images, must now go about on its belly licking the dust with the knowledge that a future progeny of the woman he deceived will one day crush his head.

[pending edit]

The expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden does represent one singular act of mercy though: God blocks their access to the Tree of Life, thereby eliminating the risk that they eat of that tree and thereby condemn themselves to eternal living death.

[pending edit]

Expelled from the Garden but still possessed of an innate impulse to order the wilderness around them, Adam and Eve and their descendants begin a slow slide into self-determination that soon results in Cain murdering his brother Abel. The history of humankind from this point forward is a series of fitful attempts to reestablish a sense of order in the wilderness and some sort of reconciliation with God. The entire period from Eden until now, during which God himself executes a plan of redemption, is a vast detour leading back to a new and even more magnificent garden. 

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Genesis 22:1-5) 

[*The serpent is implicitly the cobra, which goes upright like a person.]

7 Images: The Garden of Eden

 

Gustav Klimt: "L'Arbre de Vie" (1909)

Scripture recounts that humanity was created in God’s image to rule the world in his name, which in practice involved assigning each living thing a place in the larger scheme of things. This expectation that everything has its rightful place is established from the outset in Genesis 1:1-2:3: celestial bodies with assigned places and prescribed orbits to rule night and day; flying birds with feathers and wings to roam the sky; free swimming fish with scales and fins roam the seas; and plant-eating animals to roam the fields and forests. 

This would seem to be the underlying logic of the laws enumerated in Leviticus 1:1-47 that define ritually clean animals (e.g. cattle, partridges, and carp) and ritually unclean animals (e.g. lizards, bats, and eels), a scheme that defines vast numbers of creatures as ritually unclean from the beginning and which Adam and Eve are tasked with incorporating into an orderly scheme.  

Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28)  

This notion of man as an image of God is made explicit in Psalm 8, which underscores the surpassing greatness of a transcendent God who has created a (miniature) god-like creature tasked with ruling over the Earth.  

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. (Psalm 8:3-8)  

The tasks of subduing and having dominion over the Earth are best understood in terms of the Garden of Eden, an exemplary area of limited extent, which Adam and Eve were to cultivate and protect.  

And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, hand the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:8-9) The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Genesis 2:15)  

The fact that Adam and Eve were tasked with cultivating and preserving the garden while also subduing the Earth suggests that they were to extend the borders of the garden until it encompassed the entire Earth. The garden was thus a template for the rest of the world, which is to say that humanity was to incorporate lands and creatures found beyond the garden as the garden’s boundaries expanded. This brings up the matter of Adam naming the animals, which connotes having dominion over them.  

Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. (Genesis 2:19-20a)  

The time allowed for this event is only a fraction of the sixth day, which includes: the creation of all the animals, the creation of Adam, the planting of the garden in Eden, the naming of the animals, the formation of Eve from a “side” of Adam, and God’s instructions to Adam and Eve. The implication is that only those animals initially present within the garden are named. The plan therefore was for humanity to serve as the Image of God to order and to multiply the goodness of creation by subduing the wilderness and assigning every living thing its proper place in conformity with the example of the Garden—but things did not turn out that way.