Genesis 2:9, How many trees in the Garden of Eden?
And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
//Lots of trees in the garden, but two were special, the two that were planted in the middle of the garden … or was it just a single tree? God refers to only one as he instructs Adam:
And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” –Genesis 2:16-17
Later, the serpent tempts Eve, asking her what she is allowed to eat. She mentions only the one “in the middle of the garden”:
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'” –Genesis 3:2-3
Could the two trees have been one and the same? When Revelation is penned promising a new Eden, why is there only one great tree there? Is the tree of life also the tree of knowledge? After all, what did Adam and Eve learn to do with their new knowledge? They made life.
Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. –Genesis 4:1
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Twice before Lee Harmon has written about Christian topics, once on the gospel of John and once on the book of Revelation. But the question people keep asking him is this: As a liberal Christian, why do you care so much about the Bible? Others wonder whether he is truly a Christian at all.
The Way It Happened
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| Revelation: A love story gone awry. | The Gospel: A love story set aright. |
What really happened 2,000 years ago? How did a persecuted minority of end-time believers known as Christians, with their dreams of Armageddon and a conquering Messiah named Jesus, evolve into the largest religion in the world? Author Lee Harmon explores the period in which the New Testament was written in his books about John's Gospel and Revelation.
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Lee Harmon interviewed on The God Show about the History Channel's miniseries The Bible and Lee's latest book, John's Gospel: The Way It Happened.
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Hello! I'm an author, historical Jesus scholar, book reviewer, and liberal Christian, which means I appreciate and attempt to exercise the humanitarian teachings of Jesus without getting hung up on any particular supernatural or religious beliefs.
The Bible is a magnificent book that has inspired and spiritually fed generations for thousands of years, and each new century seems to bring a deeper understanding of life’s purpose. This is true of not only Christianity; through the years, our age-old religions are slowly transforming from superstitious rituals into humanitarian philosophies. In short, we are growing up, and I am thrilled to be riding the wave.
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The tree? Google First Scandal. When you get there, go to the top of the page and click on “Can you explain…” Please note: this website you reach will be deleted on November 1, 2012.
Though one could also argue that they ‘made death’. Not only did they sign their death warrant by eating the fruit, but almost as soon as they ate, God appeared with the skin of a dead animal. This marker of death would have been a suitable symbol of the darker post-Eden world to come. Cain, the first-born of this new age, was of course the world’s first recorded murderer, and his progeny would know war, famine, oppression and widespread species extinction.
If that’s all the work of the Tree of Life, then it’s difficult to see why it’s spoken so fondly of in Revelation.
Because without the real tree with real consequences, there would be no possibility of real choice. Without the real choice there would be no possibility of real relationship with God, and thus true love. It would all be a play by unwilling machines.
Twelve trees divided into three at four cardinal points.
Trees in the garden are metaphors and not literal, physical trees, but different areas of teaching and learning. Mankind has the potential to be like God b/c Adam and the Woman were in the image and likeness of God. She was deceived, but he wasn’t, that’s why the curse is on him
Cassisa, cinnamon, myrrh, calamus/cannabis are the plants that make up the holy anointing oil, also known as the chrism, also known as the tree of knowledge. And finally the 5th and final tree of eden, tada grape, the tree of life..