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Genesis shows the tree of life as one tree among many in the garden, yet the Aramaic Targums and Genesis Rabbah describe it as impossibly huge and placed in the middle. Their picture connects it to the idea of a world tree at the center of creation.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 2:9
Hebrew Bible
8 The Lord God planted an orchard in the east, in Eden; and there he placed the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow from the soil, every tree that was pleasing to look at and good for food. (Now the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the middle of the orchard.) 10 Now a river flows from Eden to water the orchard, and from there it divides into four headstreams.
Pseudo Jonathan Genesis 2:9
Targum
8 Before the creation of the world, a garden had been planted by the Memra of the Lord God from Eden for the righteous, and He made Adam dwell there when He created him. 9 And the Lord God caused to grow from the ground every tree that is desirable to see and good to eat, and the tree of life in the middle of the garden, whose height was a journey of five hundred years, and the tree whose fruit enables those who eat it to distinguish between good and evil. 10 A river goes out from Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four river-heads.
Genesis Rabbah 15:6
Aggadah
Rabbinic
“The Lord God grew from the ground every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:9). “The Lord God grew from the ground […and the tree of life]” – it is taught: [The tree of life is] a tree that spreads out over all the living. Rabbi Yehuda bar Ilai said: [The extent of] the tree of life is a walking distance of five hundred years and all the waters of creation branch out from beneath it. Rabbi Yudan in the name of Rabbi Yehuda bar Ilai: It is not merely that [the extent of] its branches are a walking distance of five hundred years, but even [the extent of] its trunk is a walking distance of five hundred years.
Date: 500 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Genesis 2:9 ... compare Targum Pseudo Jonathan Genesis 2:9; Genesis Rabbah 15:6; j. Berakhot 1:2 and Song of Songs Rabbah 6:9 which all state that the tree of life covered a five hundred years’ journey ..."
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