The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life

The Garden of Eden must have supported an immense, fantastical orchard. The Bible notes a huge variety of trees — indeed, every kind of tree that looked nice and produced something edible. There were two special trees featured in the Garden: the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the Garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
–Genesis 2:8-9

The Tree of Life bore the fruit of immortality. Adam and Eve were not forbidden to eat from the Tree of Life, thus as long as they remained within the Garden of Eden, they could live forever. However, after acquiring the knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve became too God-like. Immortality and Wisdom being too potent of a combination, they were expelled from the Garden of Eden to toil under the weight of mortality.

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
–Genesis 3:22

Christian mythology gives few indications what sort of Tree of Life produces the Fruit of Immortality. Rather than a literal fruit, the Tree of Life may be a metaphor, a symbol for something too divine for humans to understand.

However, much like the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the Tree of Life also exists outside of Biblical references. There are numerous analogies in other religions and cultures:

• Assyria: The Tree of Life, a religious symbol, was depicted by a series of nodes and criss-crossing lines.
• China: The Tree of Life is frequently shown with a phoenix at the top and a dragon at the base. A Taoist story notes a tree that fruits every 3000 years, with a peach granting immortality.
• Egypt: Isis and Osiris emerged from an acacia tree, called as the Tree of Life or the tree in which life and death are enclosed.
• Germanic / Norse: Iðunn’s tree bears apples that grant eternal youth to the gods. Some have also noted similarities between the Tree of Life and various World Trees; Yggdrasil, oft depicted as a yew or ash tree, is a World Tree, located at the center of the universe.
• Mesoamerica: The Maya, Aztec, Izapan, Mixtec, and Olmec cultures all reference World Trees, often depicted in a similar fashion to the Chinese Trees of Life, with birds in their branches and roots extending into water, sometimes atop a water monster. The Mayans conceived of the World Tree as a ceiba tree.

SOURCES
Tree of Life – Wikipedia

IMAGE CREDIT
Peach by fredandcharlie, Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.0 license
Apples by Clairity*, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license