The setting of Genesis 2 and 3 is a garden inside a region called Eden. Without the unbiblical constraints of perfectionism, this garden relays more than just idealistic beauty.
God filled this safe place with the best plants plus two unique trees. He made man and put him into the garden. The Creator made animals and presented them to the man inside the garden.
The Bible never says this garden was heaven, nor does it represent heaven on Earth. Nothing in the passage indicates the garden was ever perfect. It never even mentions immortal life forms, which includes the humans. The order that plants, animals, and people arrive in the garden does not dictate the order of their creation or the time it took to create them. The text does not say plants, animals, or man originated inside the garden, or that this one place contained the only ones on the planet.
Most accounts of this story require these kinds of additions. However, if they are not biblical, then why am I forced to believe them as God’s story of their creation. Instead of bolstering the story with truth, Christians lost the story in an ever-growing cloud of fantasy based on Greek philosophy. Such dogmatic ideals distort our understanding.
Genesis 2 does not mention weeds within the garden, but that does not decree their non-existence. There is no need to add an unbiblical redesign to creation. By removing perfection requirements, these plants simply did not bother the people inside the garden. God tells Adam that humanity’s relationship with nature was about to change. Instead of being gatherers, they were to learn farming and husbandry. Tilled soil grows inedible plants that thinned their harvest. Animals would take refuge in the thorniest bushes. The children of Adam would call these plants evil and the land that grew them cursed. However, God simply made them grow efficiently.
Removing those unbiblical additions lets the text say life began as God dictated. He did not need to recreate anything just because humans sinned. God also provided empirical evidence for us to determine the order and function of creation. We must decipher nature without the overburden of mythical theology. Through knowledge, he intends for us to identify and remove any untruth that hinders our understanding, no matter how sacred. The study of nature lets us rule justly and appreciate even the parts that we consider cursed.
We require a shift in relationship perspective. God created the plants, all the plants, even those we call evil, yet, he called them good.
To be continued:
2 Responses
And people we call evil he calls good.
I deliberately left that out hoping someone would make the connection. Thanks