Genesis 2, 8-9

Here is the quote from The New American Bible: "Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the East, and he placed there the man that he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord 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 knowledge of good and bad." Jordan Peterson, an expert of Jungian dreams and the significance of these archetypal stories, will have a superior account of their import, which I do not have before me, so I will just interpret them as I can for now. Note that the Garden of Eden is an earthly paradise--if not created for human use and pleasure--was at least a paradise that humans were allowed to enjoy by God, and this gesture was both loving and a great honor and gift. Man has leisure, ease and plenty to eat. He is innocent and without experience of the world, of want, suffering, mortality and the removal of divine guidance, protection, assistance and comfort. Man at this point is good--actually and perhaps innately--and in the middle of it,unrestricted to human access, is the tree of life, of the knowledge of good and evil. Now if this tree of life is a different type of living existence then what is currently enjoyed by that first human, what life can it be? I will guess that the life of Adam, the first man, is the life of pure goodness, like a good angels or the Elves of the Tolkiens, good, perhaps immortal but in once sense--one-dimensional all good and immortal, but not part bad and mortal of the world. This tree of life is the life of a living creature cast out of heaven, living on earth where mortality, decay and death are real, and good and evil intersperse, and the awakened human is part beast and part angel, with an intellectual, emotive and realistic sense of good and evil and how it plays out in his daily life. Here is that quote from KJB: "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil."