Long have there existed myths of eternal life. The Spanish explorer, Ponce de Leon, was said to have discovered a fountain of youth in the glades of Florida. Herodotus, the Greek historian, recounts the attributes of the Macrobians, a mythical people believed to reside on the horn of Africa, who possessed a restorative spring "with a scent like that of violets." Akin Israel, the religions of ancient Egypt and Persia also had their trees of life.
As an antidote to old age imbued with the promise of timeless youth, it is not difficult to understand the idea's popular appeal. But is the Tree of Life - real or allegorical - something to be sought out? Ought its absence from this world be counted a major loss to our quality of life?
When seeking out the cause for Adam and Eve's banishment from the Garden, our attention naturally drifts toward the 'tree of knowledge of good and bad.' John Milton sums up the matter: "Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit/Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste/Brought death into the world, and all our woe..." (Paradise Lost: The First Book)
True, eating of the tree of knowledge led to certain consequences, "in pain shall you rear children ....by the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread." But perhaps it is a mistake to hang all of the blame upon the branches of a single tree. With the chapter's conclusion we read: "And the Lord God said, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever! So the Lord God banished him from the garden of Eden... (3:23)" Expulsion, according to Genesis, was not punitive it was preventative: lest Adam and Eve gain life eternal.
This is undoubtedly puzzling. Regarding the tree of knowledge, it was sufficient for God to warn woman and man not to eat. But for the tree of life, so determined is God that humanity not partake of its fruit that no choice is offered. What could possibly be so dangerous about a life unfettered by death?
It is always worth pointing out how much the garden narrative is full of dichotomies. Adam and Eve begin naked, but before they are driven away, the Lord God "clothes them in garments." In their innocence, they unabashedly eat of the tree, afterwards we read how they hid amidst "the tree of the garden" embarrassed and ashamed. Our slippery serpent is introduced as being "more clever than all the beasts of the field (3.1)" till God declares that he slither on the ground "more cursed than all the animals and beasts of the field. (3.14)" And so it goes.
One wonders, if in a way, the tree of knowledge and tree of life represent opposing polarities as well. Each perhaps embodies a contrasting temptation. While penned in Eden, in full possession of eternal life, humanity thirsted for experience. Elsewhere in the Bible, the expression "knowing good and bad," implies knowledge of all things on the earth. As in Deuteronomy 1.39: "your little children, who on this day, know not good or bad" - nothing, as it were. (Similarly, see II Sam. 14.17)
But to attain knowledge, there must exist distinctions and choice. Obedience cannot be appreciated unless man has some taste of the bitter fruit of disobedience. The satisfaction that comes with harvesting bread, raising children, is built on hard work and sacrifice. It is not just the 'tree of good and bad,' it is the tree of joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, loss and gain, work and reward. Sensibly, woman and man needed to be cast out of the Garden lest they eat of the tree of life. It is only through an appreciation of mortality that one comes to value the miracle of a beating heart.
Nevertheless, just as humanity turns to its pursuit of knowledge, another temptation ripens enticingly to take its place. The tree of life embodies our appetite for Eden, a utopia that requires neither labor nor sacrifice, a paradise where all food grows on trees without human assistance. (2.9) Who among us has not harbored some secret desire to live a life absent hardship or pain? What human has never wished to bury the hollow despair that accompanies loss? Would not ignorance and bliss be preferable to the knowing shame that accompanies wrongdoing and error? In a culture that worships youth, who has not dreamed of some elixir that defies death, some balm that vanishes age?
If eating the tree of knowledge made us human, eating from the tree of life would rob us of our very nature. There is no life without death, no good without bad. To eat of the fruit of life, would mean no life at all. "And so [the Lord] drove man out, and stationed Cherubim to the east of the garden of Eden, and the bright blade of a revolving sword, to guard the way to the tree of life (3.24)."
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