One month after the Woodstock Music and Art Festival in 1969, Joni Mitchell wrote and performed the song, "Woodstock," based on what her then-boyfriend Graham Nash told her about the festival.[1] The song repeatedly declares, "We've got to get ourselves back to the garden."

We are all haunted by the dream of paradise. What does it mean to "get back to the garden"? Genesis 2 offers a glimpse.

Genesis 2 provides a second account of creation that expands upon the first. Genesis 2:4 serves as a hinge to connect both together: "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens..." The noticeable shift from "the heavens and the earth" to "the earth and the heavens" connects the two accounts, and directs our attention to a much more particular and localized account.

The following chart highlights the similarities and differences of the two accounts:

Having established that creation is structured in order to promote human flourishing in Genesis 1, Genesis 2 focuses on humankind and the particularities of life on earth. Genesis 2 reveals the beauty, wonder, and joy of living under God's original blessing. It is this original state of things that provides a pattern for redemption. In many ways (but not in all ways), redemption is a return to Eden.

The Garden of Eden

The various names of the Garden indicate it luxurious nature. The Hebrew name is gan-eden - the garden of delights. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures) translates this as paradeiso truphes, that is, a luxurious paradise. The Latin Vulgate translates this as paradisum voluptatis - the pleasure paradise.[2]

As the account begins, the garden awaits a gardener. The creation of the man involves a two-fold process and arises from two distinct sources. He is "formed from the dust of the ground" and then God "breathes into his nostrils the breath of life" (Genesis 2:7). Man is fashioned from earth and then given life by the breath of God. He therefore has affinities with earth (dust) and God (animated by the divine breath). This two-fold process reveals humankind's greatness (he is given life directly by God) and lowliness (his source is human clay). We are creatures of great dignity, and yet at the same time, we should remain in a stance of deep humility because of our connections to the earth.

The ancients maintained the tension of humankind's unique relationship to God and to the earth by teaching that humankind exists as the nexus between heaven and earth. Humankind shares in the divine life and yet also is deeply grounded in the earth. As such, humankind is a microcosm of reality - encompassing divinity and creation. This particular combination of qualities is communicated by the fact that humanity bears the divine image (Genesis 1:26-27). In other words, though we are creatures, we are creatures who are no less than image-bearers of God.

God places the man in a garden that God "planted" (Genesis 2:8). Ancient interpreters believed that the garden was located at the top of a great and high mountain from which an abundance of water - a precious and life-sustaining commodity in the ancient world - poured forth and channeled through the garden for irrigation purposes (see Ezekiel 28:13-14; Revelation 21:10).[3]

An ancient garden was unlike a contemporary garden (a rectangular plot with flowers and vegetables). It was more like an arboretum (think of the Botanical Gardens) - a park-like setting connected to a palace featuring trees, landscaping, pools, and paths. It was a common feature in palaces. A well-watered garden attached to a palace represented abundance, peace, and protection. Clearly, life was abundant and beautiful in the garden.

The garden is God's gift to the man. The first hint of culture is a gift of God, for "a garden... is not just nature: it is nature plus culture."[4] By cultivating the garden, humankind is thus called to "make something of the world." Andy Crouch teaches that culture is "what we make of the world." He continues, "Culture is, first of all, the name for our relentless, restless human effort to take the world as it's given to us and make something else."[5] The garden reveals the pregnant possibilities of God's good creation.

In order to make the most of his world, the man is called to "till and keep" the garden (Genesis 2:15). The Hebrew literally reads, "to serve and obey" (see Deuteronomy 10:12-13). This phrase is repeatedly associated with the work of the priests in the temple (Numbers 3:7-8; 8:26; 18:5-6). Creation requires cultivation. Humankind is to "make something of the world." The human vocation to till and keep is originally a gift and not a curse. It is a means through which humankind stewards God's abundant gifts and makes of them something good that honors God.

God's placement of Adam in the Garden of Eden reveals God's love and Adam's special place in creation. His world is filled with an abundance of possibilities. God provides more than the basic necessities of food and clothing. God provides a rich variety of pleasures, a full spectrum of beautiful sights and sounds, a rich feast for the senses. The pleasantness of life in the Garden is emphasized in Genesis 2:9: "Out of the ground the Lord God made 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 the knowledge of good and evil." How magnificent it must have been to awaken to this! The man's eyes would be filled with beauty, his tongue would be overwhelmed by varieties of taste, his nose with aromatic scents, his ears with the music of creation and the ability to hear and respond to God's voice. Once again the truth is clear: creation is good - a gift of God!

The Creation of the Woman

And yet, something is not quite right. After the litany of God's declarations of creation's goodness in Genesis 1, it is shocking to discover that here, even in paradise, something is "not good": "It is not good that the man should be alone" (Genesis 2:18).

The text reveals a profound truth. God is not enough. The man needs a "helper who corresponds to, or agrees in kind with" the man. The Hebrew word for "helper" is used to speak of God in numerous places throughout the Old Testament, and is not meant to be demeaning to the woman. It actually ennobles the woman - the man needs help!

For those schooled in the ancient texts of Christian mystics, it may initially seem disconcerting to hear that God is not enough, that humankind needs other humans. Adam is in a state of innocence in a good environment, with the immediate presence of God. Why would he need anything else?

But God has made us not only for a relationship with the divine, but also for a relationship with one another. God does not intend to be our sole "helper." We must help one another. Rowan Williams gets it right when he states that

we human beings, who live in relationships where we are both givers and receivers, both depending and controlling, can reflect the life of God in every aspect of what we are; we are no less in God's image when we acknowledge our dependence or when we offer thanks than when we are taking decisions or showing God's love to another. That isn't actually an easy message for a world very much in love with the ideal of absolute self-sufficiency - but that's another story.[6]

The profound truth is that humankind is not created solely to commune with God. Humankind is made for God and for other humans. A relationship with God takes place in the midst of a relationship with others, that is, in human community. Our created purpose is not to have a relationship with God at the expense of human relationships. Even in paradise, this is "not good." It wasn't good in paradise, and it is not good now!

We cannot live a truly human life alone. We need community. We need helpers. In fact, if we think about it, we can probably think of a dozens of important helpers and companions who have aided us in our journey through life.

God takes care of the man's companion problem. In doing this, God places Godself at the service of the "good" of the human being, presenting possibilities to him. Phyllis Trible observes that God, who dominates the narrative up to this point, now recedes into the background "not as the authoritarian controller of events but as the generous delegator of power who even forfeits the right to reverse human decisions."[7]

A parade of animals passes before Adam. God makes room for Adam's creativity. Adam gives names to all of them, but fails to find a partner corresponding to his unique nature. Let's face it, a dog can be a very good and loyal friend, but it can't be a true companion that corresponds completely to our human nature. We need others to talk to and rely upon.

God offers another solution to the man's need in the "building" of the woman (Genesis 2:22). The Hebrew verb translated "build" shows a skilled artisan at work - a divine craftsman molding a piece of art. The woman is made from the man's rib. Contrary to some interpreters, this entails no hint of subordination. The woman is no more subordinate to the man than the man is subordinate to the ground from which he was crafted.

The woman is created apart from any help from the man. He is placed by God in a deep sleep. And he awakens to the glory of another who is like him - a companion suitable to his nature - and yet unlike him.

Now the man sings! The first human words are words of poetry, a love song to his beloved, a response of pure elation.[8] "At last" he finds someone like him, but unlike him as well. "Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" celebrates the similarities - "She's like me!" But she is also different - a fact that Adam's naming of the woman recognizes.

It is important that we recognize both - men and women are similar and different. Though men and women are different, we are not from different planets (remember, Men are from Mars, and Women are from Venus). And though we are different, we have more in common than not.[9]

Again, it is important to note that no subordination is implied in the creation of woman from the man since both share the same common origin. Unfortunately, throughout church history, some have failed to recognize this. For example, in Augustine's Interpretation of Genesis, he argues that the only way a woman helps a man is in regard to child-bearing, since a man can do everything else on his own (a sexist comment if ever there was one). He writes,

Now suppose the woman was not made for the man to be his helper in begetting children, then how would she be made to help him? It would hardly be the case that she would be made to till the earth with him, for there was not yet any labor required to make her help necessary. In any case, if there were any such need, a male helper would be better, and the same could be said of the comfort of another's presence if Adam were perhaps weary of solitude. How much more agreeably could two male friends, rather than a man and a woman, enjoy companionship and conversation in a life shared together. And if they had to make an arrangement in their common life for one to command and the other to obey in order to make sure that opposing wills would not disrupt the peace of the household, there would have been proper rank to assure this, since one would be created first and the other second, and this would be further reinforced if the second were made from the first, as was the case with the woman. Surely no one will say that God was able to make from the rib of the man only a woman and not also a man if he had wished to do so. Consequently, I do not see in what sense the woman was made as a helper for the man if not for the sake of bearing children.[10]

Augustine is clearly wrong here. His sexism is on display in his comment. The Puritan Matthew Henry comes closer to the divine intention when he poetically writes,

Woman was taken out of man;
not out of his head to rule him,
nor out of his feet to be trampled underfoot;
but out of his side to be equal to him,
under his arm to be protected,
and near his heart to be loved.

One Flesh

The truth that the man and woman are made for each other to support one another in a relationship of mutual giving and receiving is highlighted by the fact that in marriage they become "one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). Walter Brueggeman writes,

Verse 24 stands out from its context by the way in which it makes explicit reference to a later time--namely, when children are born and one can speak of fathers and mothers. The narrator thereby links God's original intention for creation and later practice in providing an etiology of marriage.[11]

There is no mention of child-bearing or children in Adam's song of elation or in the commentary added by the author of the Genesis account. The focus is on the man-woman relationship, not on the woman as bearer of children. They are made for each other. They will help each other in God's creation.

What was once "not good" is now good. "The man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:25). They stand before one another in complete harmony and peace. Paradise is as it should be, with humankind in a peaceful relationship with God, others, and the environment.

Unfortunately, this paradise will soon become a prison through human sin and disobedience. The remainder of the biblical story will have to do with the regaining of paradise.

Until then, we are haunted by paradise. As the old 60s song says, "We've got to get ourselves back to the garden." The only shortcoming of the song is that we cannot do this ourselves. We can only do this through union with Christ who has forever united humanity and deity through the incarnation and lifted humanity into the embrace of the Triune God through the resurrection and ascension.[12] Though we must help one another, our ultimate help comes from the Lord, the Creator of heaven and earth, for whom and through whom all things live, move, and have their being.

© Richard J. Vincent, 2008