Sacred Trees in the Garden of Eden and Their Ancient Near Eastern Precursors

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-301
Author(s):  
Michaela Bauks
Keyword(s):  
Sacred Space ◽  
Tree Of Life ◽  
Wisdom Literature ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
1 Enoch

Interpretations of the trees in the Garden of Eden misunderstand their significance by focusing on sin or a theological “fall.” A tradition-historical approach to the motif of trees in ancient Near Eastern literature and imagery reveals their multivalent quality. Trees are connected with fertility and goddess devotion but also with the power and divine sanction given to kings and dynasties, and with the potency of sacred space, on which humans and the divine come together and meet. As cross-temporal motifs, trees are regularly associated with life-giving and blessing (a plant of rejuvenation; a tree of life); a connection of trees to knowledge and meaning appears as well, in wisdom literature, and in the book of 1 Enoch. Language of a world tree or cosmic tree, though useful conceptually, is a modern imposition on the ancient evidence. More evident from the ancient setting is the image of felling trees, which indicates the downfall of human leaders, especially kings, because of their hubris. Ultimately, sacred trees have an ambivalent value, as a source of both contestation and progress.

scholarly journals Die makrososiale ruimte van die Boek van die Wagte (1 Henog 1-36)

2002 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
P.M. Venter
Keyword(s):  
Social Space ◽  
Social World ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Wisdom Literature ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Enoch 1 ◽  
Spatial Aspect ◽  
Book Of The Watchers ◽  
1 Enoch

The macro social space of the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36)An analysis of the material of the Book of the Watchers ( 1 Enoch 1-36) indicates a preference for the spatial aspect in these revelation narratives. In an attempt to understand this preference, an investigation is launched into the macro social world of the narratives. Themes in Enoch from literature in the Bible, the Syro-Phoenician world, Pseudo Epolemus, Zenon Papyri, Persia and Greece, are identified. Ptolemean Palestine is also investigated as the context within which an Enochic tradition was formed. Amongst other traditions an opposing Mosaic Judaism and Enochic Judaism are identified. Both take up the challenges of the third century with its Hellenistic onslaught and explosion of knowledge. The Book of the Watchers represents an Enoch tradition, which forms an early trajectory of apocalyptic thinking, and which is being influenced by various traditions such as wisdom literature in its mantic form, cosmological schemes of the world, and mythic traditions.

scholarly journals Identifying Intentional Ambiguity

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nephtali Meshel
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Wisdom Literature ◽  
Multiple Representation ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Erotic Poetry ◽  
Single Text ◽  
Poetic Texts

Identifying Intentional Ambiguity   It is widely acknowledged that certain genres in ancient Near Eastern literature including the Hebrew Bible are characterized by intense ambiguity. In particular, divination, Wisdom literature and erotic poetry thrive on a special type of ambiguity—“double-edged words”—in which a single graphic or phonetic sequence is employed to convey a message and its precise opposite, at one and the same time. However, it is often difficult to demonstrate that a specific case of “double-edged wording” is in fact intentional rather than a product of an eager reader’s over-interpretation. The proposed paper offers three criteria for identifying intentionality in the formulation of ambiguous texts, based on examples from Biblical and other ancient Near Eastern divinatory, Wisdom and poetic texts: (1) Ungrammaticality: Sometimes an author is forced to use an ungrammatical form in order to preserve two opposite meanings. This happens when smoothing the grammar would have been achieved only at the price of losing the ambiguity; (2) Multiple representation: At times the same exact ambiguity is evidenced in identical contexts, but in different words and by means of different sentence-structures (occasionally even in different languages, e.g., Hebrew and Aramaic); when it can be demonstrated that coincidence is highly unlikely, the argument for intentional crafting is strong; (3) Straussian “Art of Writing”: When the author addresses an issue that was demonstrably contentious (from the author’s perspective), potentially-subversive formulations are particularly suspect. The intersection of two or three of these criteria in a single text strongly suggests intentionality

The Intertextual Network of Job and the Selective Nature of Genre

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Kynes
Keyword(s):  
Salient Feature ◽  
Wisdom Literature ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Recent Scholarship

The Wisdom Literature category has never been able to contain Job’s vast intertextual potential, and the category’s exclusive application distorts the book’s meaning through canonical separation, theological abstraction, and hermeneutical limitation. Job is embedded in a dense intertextual network. Appreciating the book’s distinctiveness requires reading it in relationship to as many literary groupings as its content and form justify. These include pre-modern genre designations, such as poetry, prophecy, and drama, as well as those produced by ancient Near Eastern parallels, such as the exemplary-sufferer texts. In recent scholarship, some of these have been resurrected, along with proposed adapted genres, such as dramatized lament or metaprophecy, and meta-genres, such as parody and polyphony. As selective perspectives, each of these proposed textual groupings underscores some salient feature of the book and thus combining them reveals the complexity and nuance of its meaning.

Wisdom Traditions and the Writings

2018 ◽  
pp. 83-98
Author(s):  
James L. Crenshaw
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Wisdom Literature ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
Wisdom Traditions ◽  
Wisdom Of Solomon ◽  
History Of

This chapter explores the wisdom literature and teachings of sages and scribes in ancient Israel, with a special focus on the postexilic and early Roman periods. Definitions of wisdom, sage, and scribe, their social status, their literary identities, and their teachings are discussed. Pertinent comparisons with ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature, Torah and Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and the history of ancient Israel anchor presentations of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Sirach, and Wisdom of Solomon. The importance and pertinence of this literature and its teachings for ancient and contemporary seekers of wisdom are argued throughout.

The Arbores of Joachim of Fiore

1956 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 124-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Reeves
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Tree Of Life ◽  
Young Shoot ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
New Jerusalem ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Joachim Of Fiore

The image of the tree has been powerful in the human imagination and therefore fruitful as a source of metaphor. In ancient mythologies it appears as a cosmic symbol and it is entwined, root and branch, in Christian thought. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil overshadows Man's fall; the ‘Tree’ of the Cross dominates his salvation; the Tree of Life, which sheltered him in the Garden of Eden, heals him in the New Jerusalem. In the great prophetic image of Isaiah, the turning-point of history becomes the young shoot of an ancient tree:And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots.In course of time, too, the great crisis of wickedness also appears in Jewish thought under the same figure:And there came forth out of them a sinful root, Antiochus Epiphanes. Again, in Jewish thought good men are trees that flourish:And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither.

Untangled Branches: The Edenic Tree(s) and the Multivocal WAW

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Makowiecki
Keyword(s):  
Tree Of Life ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
As If

Abstract This narratological study of Genesis 2–3 examines whether the principal trees in the Garden of Eden—the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—are two in number or one and the same. While the answer to this question seems self-evident, namely, that the Edenic trees are two, the woman’s description of the forbidden tree as if it were an amalgam of both makes this conclusion uncertain. This ambiguity creates a certain tension in the text; a tension which commentators have been trying perennially to resolve. Yet rather than join the long list of attempts to eliminate this tension, this article explores its role as a narrative feature and is thus able to show how conflicting details function cooperatively within the text. This leads to the conclusion that the principal tree(s) in the Garden of Eden should not be understood as one or two in number but as one and two in number.

scholarly journals Ancient Near Eastern Wisdom Literature and the Bible

1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-222
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Kitchen ◽  
Yoshiyuki MUCHIKI
Keyword(s):  
Wisdom Literature ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Bible

Advice

2021 ◽  
pp. 16-28
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Vayntrub
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Developmental Model ◽  
Wisdom Literature ◽  
Circular Reasoning ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Broad Category ◽  
Ben Sira ◽  
Identification And Characterization

Challenging long-held assumptions about the identification and characterization of Wisdom Literature, this chapter examines: (1) how the scholarly category of biblical Wisdom Literature entails a developmental model of literary development in which the book of Proverbs functions as a paradigmatic text; (2) the circular reasoning involved in evaluating texts according to vocabulary and genre; and (3) other literary strategies shared by these texts, including notions of knowledge, its transmission, and survival across generational lines. Beyond a developmental model, a broad category of knowledge production and literary craft facilitates comparisons between texts like Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Ben Sira, and others. These texts build and comment on the ancient Near Eastern literary and social institution of father-to-son instruction. The advice given in these instructions, and their framing themselves, reflect on the transmission of life-preserving and life-enriching knowledge across generational lines that enables the father to transcend his own individual death and persist in the success of his descendants.

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