The trees of life and the titans

["Thomas Friese" <tfriese@intergate.bc.ca>]

Nice to get back to a more important subject...!  (We all have our biases.)

With respect to these two trees, I recall reading a related passage
somewhere in Eumeswil, one which always puzzled me. Junger says that of the
catacomb school and the forest school, the former were oriented/working at
the tree of life and the latter at the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil ( I don't remember the exact formulation and am now myself in the
British Columbia rain forest without a copy of the book!). Anyhow, I always
thought this relationship should be reversed.  If the catacomb school is the
titanic one, are not the titans obsessed with knowledge rather than
immortality? Or is it rather that knowledge is accessible to their
technigues but life is not and thus they focus on what is not allowed them?
Comments?

By the way, in the Sumerian conception, the two trees were one - the fruit
conferred life and knowledge - divinity. How did they get divided?
(Speaking personally, why should God deny humans immortality? It should not
(and does not) come free, but why covert it? )

TKF

-----Original Message-----
From:	owner-ernst-juenger-l@maillist.ox.ac.uk
[mailto:owner-ernst-juenger-l@maillist.ox.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Rebing
Sent:	June 27, 1999 12:22 PM
To:	ernst-juenger-l@maillist.ox.ac.uk
Cc:	Wahe@aol.com
Subject:	Re:  [ejlist] DIE SCHERE #38: Notes: Der Baum des Lebens

" As far as I recall Adam and Eve ate fruits from the tree of knowledge of
good
and evil and were expelled from paradise and forced to establish or found
human civilization in order to keep them away from the tree of live - of
which up to then nothing had been said."

Walter,
you are right, but the  biblical text has it a bit more complicated. There
are
two forbidden trees in paradise. If you eat the fruit of the one you will
know
good from evil, and thus be like the gods. If you eat the fruit of the
second
one, you will be even more like the gods because then you will live for
ever.
Touching the tree of life is obviously the greater crime and more difficult
because now, after the first crime of Adam and Eve, the path to it is
guarded by
Cherubims and a flaming sword.

Genesis 2,9: "And out of the ground made the LORD God 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 knowledge of good and evil." It is obvious that
there are two different trees which are more important than all the others.
God's famous Verbot is at this point clearly about only one of them: ""But
of
the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the
day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Gen. 2, 17) Eve is aware
that
there is one tree that is prohibited even to touch: "And the woman said unto
the
serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the
fruit of
the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye shall not eat
of
it, neither shell ye touch it, lest ye die." (Gen. 3,3). Which tree she does
not
say, but again the serpent reminds her which one it is and why God is so
particular about it: "in the day ye eat thereof^Ċye shall be as gods").

The seemingly even more important role of the tree of life emerges at the
end of
the same chapter (Gen. 3,22-24): After the two humans have touched the
forbidden
tree of knowledge and eaten its fruit, the Lord specifies their crime: "And
the
LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us (1), to know good and
evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of
life,
and eat, live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the
garden of
Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man;
and
he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword
which
turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."

By referring to this story I tried to explain EJ's sentence: "Der Baum des
Lebens wird berührt." Atheists don't care about divine prohibitions, if they
are
ready to rob time from the gods this is tantamount to touching the forbidden
tree of life.

(1) Having been told and believed for a lifetime that the Old Testament is
the
manifesto of monotheism I am intrigued to learn that the Lord refers to
Himself
as one of several or even many gods here ("the man is become as one of us").
Or
does he express solidarity with his angels here? ((:-))

Günter



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