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About this book

Genesis

About this book

The Seventh Day

Chapter 2

1 The heavens and the earth were completed with everything that was in them.⁠ 2 By the seventh day God finished the work⁠ that he had been doing,⁠ and he ceased on the seventh day all the work that he had been doing.⁠ 3 God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he ceased all the work that he had been doing in creation.⁠

The Garden and the First Humans

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created—when the Lord God made the earth and heavens.⁠ 5 Now no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6 Springs would well up from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.⁠ 7 The Lord God formed the man⁠ from the soil of the ground⁠ and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,⁠ and the man became a living being.⁠ 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. 11 The name of the first is Pishon;⁠ it runs through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is pure; pearls and lapis lazuli are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is Gihon;⁠ it runs through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it runs along the east side of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it.⁠ 16 Then the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.”⁠ 18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.⁠ I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him.”⁠ 19 The Lord God formed out of the ground every living animal of the field and every bird of the air.⁠ He brought them to the man to see what he would name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man named all the animals, the birds of the air, and the living creatures of the field,⁠ but for Adam no companion who corresponded to him was found.⁠ 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was asleep, he took part of the man’s side and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the part he had taken out of the man,⁠ and he brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;⁠ this one will be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”⁠ 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife,⁠ and they become one family.⁠ 25 The man and his wife were both naked, but they were not ashamed.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 2:8 and Jubilees 8:19

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

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Summary

Jubilees reinterprets Genesis 2 by locating the Garden of Eden within Shem’s territory and identifying it as the holiest place on earth. Jubilees reshapes the Genesis setting from a simple origin story into a model for temple worship.

Passages

Genesis 2:8

Hebrew Bible
7 The Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 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.)
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

Jubilees 8:19

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
18 And Noah rejoiced that this portion was assigned for Shem and for his sons, and he remembered all that he had spoken with his mouth in prophecy; for he had said: 'Blessed be the Lord God of Shem And may the Lord live in Shem's home.' 19 And he knew that the Garden of Eden is the holy of holies, and the dwelling of the Lord, and Mount Sinai the center of the desert, and Mount Zion — the center of the navel of the earth: these three were created as holy places facing each other. 20 And he blessed the God of gods, who had put the word of the Lord into his mouth, and the Lord forevermore.
170–125 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jubilees

References

"... As the Nile is the western limit of Shem’s territory, the boundary now turns to the east. The geographical point named in the east is the Garden of Eden. Genesis 2:8 situates it there: “And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east,” and naming the Tigris and Euphrates as two of the rivers flowing from it suggests as much. The writer says nothing further about the location of the garden other than to note that one must venture even farther to the east to return to the Rafa Mountains and the mouth of the Tina River from which the sketch of Shem’s borders began. He also reproduces the distinction made in Genesis between the garden and the land of Eden (Genesis 2:8, 10; see Jubilees 3:9, 12) and includes the latter as well in Shem’s lot ... “He knew that the Garden of Eden is the holy of holies.” The author made clear in 3:8-14 that the garden was a sanctuary, since the times at which the first man and woman entered the garden were the bases of some sort of relationship with one another ..."
James C. VanderKam and Sidnie White Crawford, Jubilees: A Commentary on the Book of Jubilees (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018), 374.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Genesis 2:8 and Jubilees 8:19

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