Stories of Eden: Beginning and Naming
Specially-commissioned reflections by Pádraig Ó Tuama for the Final Week of Easter
The Garden of Eden has captured the imaginations of artists for centuries. We will explore little corners of it over the next five days.
The writers of Genesis tell us these were the days when Giants walked the earth and the Stars Sang Together for Glory. Such a strange thing, this garden, tucked away in a place called Between Two Rivers. The word Eden can be translated as Paradise, or Delight.
The story of Eden is narrated from the second to the fourth chapters of the Book of Genesis. Who is the narrator? We don’t know. What did they do? Well, they certainly wrote. But they also farmed.
Everett Fox has a magnificent translation of the Book of Genesis and in his hands, the agricultural insight of the poets is evident. In the garden there are trees — desirable to look at and good to eat — and a river, to water the garden, a river that divides and turns into four tributaries. The poet of Eden describes gold and precious stones - bdellium and carnelian. The soil of Eden — the Hebrew word for soil is ‘adamah’ — is the source of all things that live, and from this soil come animals, and trees and every growing thing that grows.
In the anxieties of fundamentalisms and literalism, something of Eden is lost: the poet of Eden was fascinated by soil and even named the first being after the soil. Soil, on earth anyway, contains mineral and organic matter. It’s not known what the soil-like-substance (called the regolith) on other planets and moons contains. From soil comes life, in the imagination of Eden. From soil sprang an Adam, an Earth-Man. Remember you are soil, and to soil you will return. The poets are also interested in genus and species. Herd animals and the fowls of the heavens were brought to the Earth-Man, and he named them all.
In this we see that farmers have always been involved in the names for things. To know the names for things might mean that you know whether it will work with you, or for you, whether you can eat it, or whether it might eat you. Knowing the names of things gives power. Sometimes that power can be used for good.
There is much to name in these strange times of viruses. What do you name? What is the Eden around you?
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet and a theologian. As well as writing books of poetry and prose, he is the host of Poetry Unbound, a podcast from On Being Studios. He lives in Ireland.http://www.padraigotuama.com/.