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Hebrew Mythology

The Garden of Eden

Book of Genesis, compiled 500 BC, Hebrew, Middle East.

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

God created Adam and gave him a nice garden to play in. At its centre was an orchard amongst whose trees was the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. Around these trees there curled a snake. Adam was instructed that he could eat fruit from most of the trees but not to eat any fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Next, God created Eve from one of Adam’s ribs to be a comfort to him at night. But the snake who lived in the orchard persuaded Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and she in turn persuaded Adam to eat some as well. When God saw them both feeling a little embarrassed in his company, he knew that they must have eaten fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and that, like Percephone before them, who had eaten a pomegranate seed given to her by Hades, they now had to return to the garden after spending a little time in the world outside. The snake was vilified and man was given full authority over woman.

Like the Olympian god Zeus, the patriarchal Hebrew God has inherited an orchard that he is not certain he wants to have much to do with. He knows that to eat its fruit is a prelude to rebirth into the real world outside, so, when Adam and Eve eat the fruit, it is into the real world with them!