Carlos Flores wrote: |
Hi, guys —
Regarding the First Sunday of Lent readings, specifically Genesis 2:8 . . .
- What is the significance of planting the garden "in the East"?
First Sunday of Lent Lectionary: 22
First Reading: Genesis 2:7-9; Genesis 3:1-7:
2 7 The LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being.
8 Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground, the LORD God made various trees grow that were delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. |
Carlos
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{ In Genesis chapters two and three, what is the significance of planting the garden "in the East"? } |
Eric replied:
Carlos,
I have a couple references that answer your question.
"The reference "to Eden" being "in the east" (Genesis 2:8) should not be taken (as in later Jewish tradition) to mean that it lay on the E, edge of the world. Rather it indicates a position E, of where the author of Genesis 2:10–14 lived."
Alexander, Philip S., "Geography and the Bible: Early Jewish Geography," ed. by David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 979 |
However:
"The site of the garden is referred to in Genesis 2:8 as miqqedem, usually translated "in the East." This has been used to support the idea of a Mesopotamian location for the story. The phrase could also be translated "from of old" (cf. Psalms 77:6, 12; 78:12; 143:5; Proverbs 8:22–23, etc.) and possibly in earlier forms of the narrative it had a temporal rather than a geographic reference."
Wallace, Howard N., "Eden, Garden of (Place)," ed. by David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 283 |
Eric
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