The Literal Meaning of Genesis
BOOK EIGHT 41 take "Paradise" as figuratively spoken and yet do not want the physical reality to have a figurative meaning.3! But if in the case of narratives such as those about Hagar and Sarah and Ishmael and Isaac they admit that there is both historical fact and symbolic meaning,*? I fail to see why they do not grant that the tree of life both existed as a real material tree and at the same time symbolized Wisdom.
11. It should be noted, moreover, that the fruit of the tree of life was material food, and yet it had the power to give lasting health and vigor to man's body, not in the manner of other foods but by a mysterious communication of vitality. In the case of bread on another occasion, although it was ordinary bread, it had something more in it; and by one piece of it God kept a man from hunger for a period of forty days.3?
Shall we hesitate to believe that by the fruit of a tree, in view of its higher meaning, God gave to man protection against physical deterioration through sickness or age and against death itself? For we know that in another instance God gave to the food of man a property so marvelous that meal and oil in earthen vessels restored his failing strength and yet itself did not fail.*+ Let our adversary step forward and say that it was fitting for God to have worked miracles like this in our land but not in Paradise. But surely He worked a greater miracle in Paradise when He made man from the dust and woman from the rib of man than He worked in our land when He raised the dead to life.
CHAPTER 6
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2.9).
12. We must now consider the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.35 This tree was certainly visible and corporeal, as the other trees were. That it was a tree, therefore, there is no doubt; but what we must seek is the reason for its name.
For my part, after diligent study of that problem, I am strongly attacted to the opinion of those who say that the tree did not produce harmful fruit (for He who had made all things very