Genesis 2

There is symmetry between the days as to the various created domains and what was created to inhabit and order each domain. During days 1–3, God made the forms (or "domains") of the cosmos, and in days 4–6 He filled the void within each domain.

On the sixth day, God indicated that his work was finished and He instituted and rested on the Sabbath. Likewise, Jesus indicated that "It is finished" on the Cross (John 19:30), and then proceeded to rest on the Sabbath (creation –> new creation). In both instances, this is not to take a break because God is tired, but rather, God is taking His seat as King and Lord. Where man failed to keep this Sabbath-rest, Jesus fulfilled it on man's behalf, resting in the tomb on Great and Holy Saturday, destroying sin and death, and rising on the first day of the week. He is thus man's Sabbath-rest, inviting all to find rest in Himself (Mt 11:28–30).

Numerous commentators, ancient and contemporary, have observed that this pericope contains a second creation account. Source-critical scholarship attributes each creation account to a different source (the first to P and this one to J). A number of features about this creation account subverted the expectations of readers in the ANE.

"Generation" here is from γενέσεως (geneseōs), which serves as the basis for the title of the book in Christian tradition: "Genesis."

It is also the תּוֹלֵדוֹת (toledot) / γενέσεως (geneseōs) marker on the cosmos, represented as a merism¹ of heaven and earth. Some do not consider this to be a true section marker. See note on Toledot formula.

The Hebrew word for "fountain" (or "stream") is challenging to translate (Hebrew: אֵד / ēd; Greek: πηγή / pēgē). It may refer to "the subterranean stream of fresh water, groundwater" or "the celestial stream."¹ A similar word appears in early Sumerian and Babylonian mythological accounts in reference to an underground primordial river.

The Fathers indicate that God's Spirit / breath gave man his spirit/breath/animation, differentiating the spirit from the body, the latter of which came from matter. However, the result represents the union of the divine and corporeal into "a living soul." The animals were not animated by God's Spirit / breath, so this distinguishes humans from other creatures.

St. John uses the same verb (ἐνεφύσησεν / enephysēsen) when he imparted the Holy Spirit to and sent His disciples, showing the beginning of the new life / new creation:

21Again Jesus said to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” 22After saying this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

John 20:21–22

Christ is the New Adam who breathes the Spirit of Life into the new humanity (the Apostles as firstfruits of the Church).

The Hebrew contains an etymological pun on "man" (אָדָם / adam) and "dust" / "ground" (אֲדָמָה / adamah). Robert Alter's translation which seeks to maintain this wordplay in English is clever: "… then the LORD God fashioned the human, humus from the soil…"¹

The Greek κατὰ ἀνατολὰς (kata anatolas, translated "eastward," is clearly geospatial. But while "east" could be a reference to direction, the Hebrew מִקֶּ֑דֶם (miqqedem) could also be a temporal (rather than geospatial) reference and thus translated "in ancient / prehistoric times," "in days of old," or even "in the beginning" (e.g., Psalm 76(77):6, 12; 142(143):5; Proverbs 8:22–23).

As previously noted, the LXX assumes it is geospatial, but other early translations assumed it was temporal, including other Greek translations (e.g., Aquila [ἀπὸ ἀρχῆθεν / apo archēthen = "from the beginning"], Symmachus [ἐκ πρώτης / ek prōtēs = "from the first"], and Theodotion [ἐν πρώτοις / en prōtois = "in the first"]),¹ Aramaic translations (targums), the Syriac, and the Latin Vulgate (a principio).² The ambiguity may be intentional.

What is striking, however, is that this yahweh forms a regular human being—not a king—and installs him in a garden—not a city. Furthermore, this garden is said to be "in the east," an oblique reference to the direction of Babylon.³

The rationale for the direction is unclear, but could reference the rising sun / Son as the location of paradise, the direction of Mesopotamia / Babylon relative to where the author is writing, or something else (assuming its geospatial and not temporal).

Because of this we all look to the East for prayers, but few of us know that our ancient fatherland, the paradise that God planted in Eden, was in the East.⁴

Notice the implication that Adam was likely created outside the garden.

St. Ephrem the Syrian observed that the garden of paradise was planted on the third day (Adam on the sixth), specifically noting that vv. 2-9 are discussing paradise/Eden due to the reference of the Tree of Life in v. 9.¹

Here we have the Tree of Life planted on the third day, and after Christ's death on the tree of the Cross, he is risen to new life on the third day. Likewise, humanity is first created three days after the Tree of Life is planted (and humanity was re-created beginning in Jesus' resurrection three days after the Cross was "planted").

St. Gregory of Nazianzus notes the typology of the Cross and how God restores us by the Tree of Life.²

ANE temples are depicted with sacred gardens (especially trees). The cosmos itself is depicted as God's temple:¹

48Yet the Most High does not dwell in temples made by human hands, just as the prophet says,

49‘Heaven is my throne,

and the earth is my footstool.

What house will you build for me, says the Lord,

or what place is there for my rest?

50Has not my hand made all these things?’

Acts 7:48–50

The Fathers and Orthodox hymnography frequently connect the Tree of Life with the Life-Giving Cross.

The Tigris and Euphrates were well known to early readers, but the Pishon and Gihon perhaps less so. A literal place that can be found was unlikely to have been intended.

The four rivers set Eden within the ANE picture of the garden of the gods: a divine dwelling marked everywhere by beauty, springs, trees (often with supernatural attributes), and fertility. This garden is the source from which the world's life-giving waters issue (similarly in other ANE accounts such as that of Enki and Ninhursag).¹

The prophets describe how water flows from the Lord's sanctuary on Mt. Zion (Ezekiel 47:1–12; Zechariah 14:1–21; Joel 4:16–18). In Ezekiel's vision, the water brings life to everything it touches.

… the Gihon issuing from Paradise is connected by homonymy (that is, by having the same name) to the spring "Gihon" in Jerusalem, and by association with the river which flows from under the platform of the Temple in Jerusalem to bring freshwater to the entire land and the Dead Sea (Ezek. 47:1–12). Over and again in the Scriptures, especially in the Book of Revelation, the Genesis or original state of things is understood to have been lost in the here and now, but to have a surpassing restoration in the new heavens and new earth (e.g. Rev. 21–22)….

It seems intended that the reader is not given a fully drawn map, confirming that the garden and its river lie beyond the reader's reach. As if to say, "Paradise is now completely lost." Contrast Genesis 10:19, where the borders of Canaan are defined through reference to places of familiar location….²

The Gihon is also where Solomon was anointed king (3 Kingdoms (1 Kings) 1:33, 38).

Ultimately, what makes the garden divine is not its fertility but the presence of God Himself. Thus Eden's rivers are more theology than geography.

The word παράδεισος (paradeisos), from which the English word "paradise" is derived, has been translated as "garden" by Brenton (ENGLXXUP) here and in v. 8 (and throughout).

Brenton translated παραδείσῳ τῆς τρυφῆς (paradeisō tēs tryphēs), following GRCBRENT, as "garden of Delight," but τῆς τρυφῆς is a variant reading not present in Rahlfs nor in Göttingen's LXX, but is seen in witnesses including some Latin traditions, Ambrose, Jerome's Quaestiones V 13, and the Vulgate "reliqua."¹ The Vulgate seems to have followed this reading with its equivalent translation, "paradisus voluptatis".

Symmachus reads παραδείσῳ τῆς ἀκτῆς (paradeisō tēs aktēs),² which might translate to something like "paradise on the coast."³

The term Eden itself may be a Sumerian loanword having to do with "delight" and "luxury."⁴ So the variants may be trying to translate concepts not readily apparent from a mere transliteration of עֵדֶן to Eden. Ausloos contends that

the term "Eden" seems to be used with a double entendre: on the one hand, the author intended to use the term עדן as a toponym; on the other hand, in his word choice, it appears that the author aimed to characterise the specific nature of the "Eden" as a place of plenty and wealth.... [T]he Septuagint translator of Genesis, alternately transliterating and translating עדן, ... succeeded in producing a faithful rendering of the term.¹

Ultimately, this is a garden for the divine King. That mortals could once enter (and will again!) goes against the expectations of the ANE reader.

ANE deities delivered their laws or law codes to their appointed kings, and here God commanded Adam concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Let us fast, my children, do not listen to those who say that fasting is nothing, and that this is something from monks. This is not from monks, my children, forgive me, God says this. The first commandment of God is fasting, and our Christ fasted.¹

The Fathers emphasize that the tree of knowledge of good and evil wasn't bad or evil. Humans would have eventually been invited to eat from it, but they weren’t ready yet.

Notice the commandment is here given solely to Adam, before Eve is created.²

Eve has been promised. She is then withheld for two carefully framed verses while God allows the human creature to perform his unique function as the bestower of names on things. There is implicit irony in this order of narrated events. Man is superior to all other living creatures because only he can invent language, only he has the level of consciousness that makes him capable of linguistic ordering. But this very consciousness makes him aware of his solitude in contrast to the rest of the zoological kingdom. (It is, perhaps, a solitude mitigated but not entirely removed by the creation of woman, for that creation takes place through the infliction of a kind of wound on him, and afterward, in historical time, he will pursue her, strain to become "one flesh" with her, as though to regain a lost part of himself.)¹

God points out that "it is not good that the man should be alone."

The self-same Goodness provided also a help meet for him, that there might be nothing in his lot that was not good. For, said He, that the man be alone is not good. He knew full well what a blessing to him would be the sex of Mary, and also of the Church.¹

In line with a functional ontology, by naming the creatures, Adam is participating in ordering the creation (for something to "exist," it generally had to be given a name and a purpose).

St. Augustine and other Fathers believed the primary way in which Eve was a help to Adam was her ability to bear children.¹ However, others believed that Adam and Eve lived in virginity prior to the Fall so look to other attributes in which she was his help.

The Fathers discuss God's mercy in causing Adam to sleep so as to not feel any pain during this process. Contemporary commentators have speculated that Adam being asleep emphasizes God's creative role in the creation of woman—Adam contributed part of himself but personally was not any kind of co-creator of woman.

The Fathers also commented on the process of God removing Adam's rib, and some fathers believe God caused him to dream for the first time during this process, whereas others focus on the wound on Jesus' side compared to the "wound" of removing Adam’s rib.

Just as Eve had no earthly mother, Jesus had no earthly father.

"Of whom was Eve begotten in the beginning? What mother conceived her who had no mother?" But Scripture says she was born from Adam's side. Now then, if Eve was born, without a mother, from the side of a man, may not a child be born, without a man, from the womb of a virgin? A debt of gratitude was due from womankind; for Eve was begotten of Adam, not conceived of a mother, but, as it were, brought forth from man alone. Mary, then, paid the debt of gratitude when, not of man, but immaculately of her own self, she conceived of the Holy Spirit by the power of God.¹

St. Paul alludes to Adam's song/poem and calls this union as one flesh a "profound mystery," but relates this relationship between husband and wife to that between Christ and His Church, respectively (Ephesians 5:30–32). Also, just as a husband must leave his parents and "cleave" to his wife, Jesus (in a sense) left the Father (becoming human) to find and redeem His Bride, the Church. The Fathers frequently comment on marriage as an example of the relationship between Jesus and the Church.

The first recorded words of Adam are his song/poem in praise of woman.

[T]he woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.¹

Brenton's translation (ENGLXXUP) doesn't lay this out poetically (at least not in the USFM markup I used for the source text). Here is a proposed layout (from the WEB translation which follows the Hebrew MT):

This is now bone of my bones,
    and flesh of my flesh.
She will be called 'woman,'
    because she was taken out of Man.

The Hebrew contains etymological wordplay with "man" (אִישׁ / ish) and woman (אִשָּׁה / ishah), which is generally also present in English (man & woman). Brenton's translation (ENGLXXUP) doesn't show this Hebrew wordplay (woman... husband), but "husband" is a faithful translation of the Greek LXX's ἀνδρὸς (andros).

There is wordplay in the Hebrew connecting 2:25 with 3:1. "And the two of them were naked (עֲרוּמִּ֔ים / arummim, which is the plural form of arum)…. Now the serpent was shrewd (עָר֔וּם / arum)…."

The pun ties together the creation of Adam and Eve and their temptation, and it points to the futility of disobedience: "The nude humans have been duped by the shrewd serpent; they want to be shrewd, but in the end they are only nude…."

Although "nude" would make the pun more obvious in English, "naked" is the right word because of its association with vulnerability and shame.¹

The Fathers indicate that Adam and Eve were clothed in glory prior to the Fall, but then this glory was stripped away from them and they wore a garment of sin. This brought about shame and hence awareness of their nakedness. The Fathers connected their nakedness to the baptismal practice in the early Church of entering the water naked.

After the anointing, then, it remains to go into the bath of sacred waters. After stripping you of your robe, the priest himself leads you down into the flowing waters. But why naked? He reminds you of your former nakedness, when you were in Paradise and you were not ashamed. For Holy Writ says: Adam and Eve were naked and were not ashamed, until they took up the garment of sin, a garment heavy with abundant shame.

Do not, then, feel shame here, for the bath is much better than the garden of Paradise. There can be no serpent here, but Christ is here initiating you into the regeneration that comes from the water and the Spirit. You cannot see here beautiful trees and fruits, but you can see spiritual favors. You cannot find here the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, nor law and commandments, but you can find grace and gifts. For sin shall not have dominion over you, since you are not under the Law but under grace [(Romans 6:14)].¹