Kerryn

Hello Cheryl,

been doing some follow up thinking and work on your comments to Michael above. I have very limited Hebrew skills – but from what I can tell using interlinear/language tools it seems clear that the “you” in Gen 1:29 to whom God gives “every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed” is indeed plural. Which supports your reading that God is talking to not just Adam but his companion Eve too.

I had never noticed this before until you mentioned it above. So thanks. Following this line of thinking a bit further… do you reckon that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – which is clearly a ‘one and only’ of its kind and is not mentioned again in Scripture outside of the Garden of Eden – clearly wouldn’t need to have ‘seeds’ in its fruit as from what we can tell from scripture God wasn’t intending for it to propogate into more trees. What do you think?

Contrastingly (is that a word?!), Revelation 22:2 tells us that the Tree of Life is found not only in the Garden of Eden, but also in the eternal City of God and exists on “each side” of the river (can a ‘single’ tree be on more than ‘one side’ of a river?) in the City of God. God only stopped Adam and Eve eating from the tree of Life (Gen 2:16) when he banished them from the Garden (Gen 3:22-24) following the Fall – thus it would follow since they were allowed to eat of it in Eden and that it was a seed-bearing tree??? thus there can be more than one Tree of Life? (of course our Creator can make something from ‘nothing’ anyway…but interesting stuff i think?)

I dunno (Aussie for “dont know”!) – perhaps this is getting too ‘literal’ in my reading of this kind ancient narrative genre? a mountain out of a ‘mole hill’? and perhaps just a total ‘side’ issue – but i just thought it was interesting…!

Regards
Kerryn