Beneath Every Green Tree

When the universe was young and the barren earth untouched, God called forth from the soil a lush and verdant garden.

- Laurie Martin-Gardner

Clear waters meandered through the soft grass as vines unfurled their tendrils and buds burst forth with the first fragrant flowers to perfume the gentle breeze. Eden. Paradise. The gift of the Hebrew God, Yahweh, to the first man.

But for all its beauty and bounty, something darker lurked in Eden’s heart. At the center of the garden grew two trees, one of knowledge and the other of life, their branches heavy with tantalizing fruit and the promise of death to anyone that could not resist their temptation.

Even for those outside the Judeo-Christian faiths, the creation story set down by the Hebrews in the Old Testament book of Genesis is a familiar one. Chances are, you know the rest. God placed the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, into the garden with only one rule – do not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But along came a wily serpent that tempted Eve into eating the forbidden fruit and sharing it with her husband. From that single transgression, humanity was damned to suffer and die. And Paradise was lost forever.

On the surface, it’s a simple story – God issued a commandment that was then broken and consequences were meted out. The book of Genesis contains only one of many tales from antiquity that attempted to make sense out of an often cruel world where life was dangerous and death inevitable. But the roots of those forbidden trees run much deeper.