Click here to read the full article at RENEW.org: https://renew.org/the-vanity-of-knowledge/ 

Check out other great articles on RENEW.org here: https://renew.org/articles/

With what set of assumptions do you begin as you open the pages of Scripture?

I find myself in agreement with James B. Jordan, Protestant theologian, with Matteiu Paggeau, the Greek Orthodox polymath, and even the insights of the Jewish mystical texts: To interpret Genesis 1–3 only as historical narrative may be correct on one level, but it misses the deeper meaning. The opening chapters of Scripture do not merely recount events—they unveil the architecture of reality.

To understand Genesis, one must think not only historically but symbolically, for the Bible itself trades in the currency of symbol.

And at the root of it all—pardon the pun—stands the tree.

There are three trees explicitly named in the Garden of Eden: the Tree of Life, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the fig Tree, whose leaves Adam and Eve used to clothe their shame. But then, curiously, God also points to “every other tree of the garden” and says to Adam, “You may freely eat” (Genesis 2:16).

Why so much attention to trees? Why not flowers or mountains, or meadows? Perhaps because the very structure of creation mirrors the form of a tree. Reality itself is arboreal. It is fractal—that is, it repeats its structure at every scale.

The branching veins in a leaf, the rivers on a map, the bronchi in your lungs, even the wiring of neurons in your brain—all mirror the same pattern. Roots, trunk, branch, twig: the same design, echoed and re-echoed in miniature. As Solomon wrote, “What has been will be again; what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9, ESV).

Listen for more...

Join RENEW.org's Newsletter: https://renew.org/resources/newsletter-sign-up/

Get our Premium podcast feed featuring all the breakout sessions from the RENEW gathering early. 

https://reallifetheologypodcast.supercast.com/ 

Join RENEW.org at one of our upcoming events: https://renew.org/resources/events/

Be sure to like, subscribe and follow on social media! 

You can find us on: