Homeland
Exile
God exiled the human from The Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken
Death and exile are viewed as the natural consequences of losing the Tree of Life
In biblical cosmology, humanity’s purpose in the universe is to know God as the perfect answer to the riddle of Life and Death. However, in the story of The Garden, Adam and Eve were not fully prepared to deal with this paradox at greater scales. Therefore, they were strictly forbidden from eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad (TKGB).
As shown in the following diagram, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad (TKGB) is itself an unresolved Tree of Life. In other words, the TKGB poses the possibility of transcending “good” versus “bad” with a higher identity. The answer to the riddle is a higher form of Life that transcends regular life. In this case, the tree must no longer be referred to as the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad (TKGB)” because the bad has been transmuted into a higher good.
Ultimately, all the stories in the Bible are about the problem of transmuting the “evil of change” into a higher good that can properly host the Creator of all things. Unfortunately, this mysterious operation is risky, because eating from the TGKB without the ability to answer this paradox causes “exile from the garden.”
In the Bible, transitioning from the dominion of Space to that of Time is called “losing the land” and is experienced as “going into exile” and then “wandering in strange lands.” This comes in contrast with “seizing the land,” which is experienced as “returning from exile” and then “inhabiting the homeland.” 2
In Holy Scripture
In Story
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Footnotes
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Pageau, Matthieu (May 29, 2018). The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis: A Commentary (“LoC”). ch 55 ↩
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LoC. ch 33 ↩