If we consider these concepts together, did God intend all people to have their own "Gardens"? Was the earth full of separate similar "gardens" for Adam's children to populate? The text, of course is silent as to this, but I think it is a fair extrapolation of what God intended. If Adam and the Garden represented an ideal plan, and man is told "to be fruitful and multiply", then we could expect that God would want to replicate the plan for Adam's children worldwide.
Adam and the Garden (verses 8-9, 15-20)
Here, we see God's ideal plan for the role man and plants. In Genesis 1, man is told to "rule" over animals and is given plants for food. We see an example of the intended relationship here.
For plants, Adam is told he can eat of every tree except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (v. 16-17). He is also told to "work" and "take care of the garden". The Robert Albert translation of Genesis translates "work" as "till".
Even in the Garden of Eden, Adam was not so supposed to be a lazy participant. He was supposed to "work" or "till" the so. How much? If we jump ahead to Genesis 3:17-19, we find out that tilling becomes difficult after the fall.
What is overlooked is the directive to "take care" of the Garden. It is the Garden that God planted for Adam, and Adam is to take care of it. If we extrapolate this concept to the earth, then the earth is the garden that God planted for mankind and it is man's duty - from God - to take care of it. On a personal note, I am appalled by the anti-environmental attitudes of many Christians in America today. I think it is un-Biblical and dereliction of an important duty.
Animals have a special relationship to Adam. First, they appear in the text only after God's declaration that "it is not good for man to be alone". (v. 18). This suggests that animals have a companion role to humans that plants cannot fulfill. I think this concept is easily understood for anyone that owns what we call "companion animals", dogs, cats, and horses. Perhaps, before the events of Genesis 3, more animals filled the role of "companion" in a similar manner to dogs.
Second, Adam is told to name all the animals. Whatever he choose the name is what the animals name. God blesses this choice by Adam.
If we extrapolate this concept to all of mankind, we see that man has done that. But the situation is a little different in that we have a multitude of languages with a different name for the various animals in each language. God blesses them all.
Adam and the "woman" (verses 18, 20-25)
None of the animals are proper companions to Adam.
So, God puts Adam in a deep sleep and from Adam's rib God creates a woman. Adam later names her "Eve", which the text places after the fall in Genesis 3:20.
But Adam's response to seeing Eve is that we finally see the first recorded words from any man. It is a love poem to his wife. We know that Adam has spoken as he named all the animals. But the emphasis of the first recorded words are those to Eve underscore the special relationship between man and woman. It is this special relationship that forms the basic building block of civilization.
What is this relationship? Here, we have the first marriage. The text does not give details of a ceremony, it just is understood as happening and it provides an example for the rest of us:
" This is the reason that a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife, and they become one flesh." (v. 24)
Paul cites to this verse while discussing the problem of sex with prostitutes. (I Corinthians 6:16). The relationship that God created is that men and women can unite and be "one flesh" through a sexual union. It was present in the Garden of Eden and continues today.
A few other interesting things about Eve come to my mind.
Both Adam and her share the same rib. It is commonly understood that they were intended to be side-by-side partners.
Eve is made from a rib - an already intact living material. In contrast, everything else up to now was made directly from soil. What significance does this have? I cannot say. But it certainly is an interesting reversal of gender roles. For everyone else, we came out of woman. For Eve, it is different, but similar. Humans give rise to other humans. No one emerged from the soil except the first, Adam.
Woman coming from Adam's rib also gives man an older age than woman. This might be the author's attempt to explain why men generally like younger women and vice versa.
It is also interesting that culturally, Eve is romanticized as a beautiful young woman. Actresses portraying her are generally very pretty, plus she is naked behind trees. Given Adam's reaction to her, this seems appropriate. However, if Eve was our actual ancestor, our great (insert many generations) grandmother, then that might be inappropriate.
Adam and the tree of knowledge (verses 9, 16-17)
We will see more of this later. From Genesis 2, we know very little about it. We do know it was in the middle of the Garden. The tree of life was also in the middle of garden, so we can assume that they were near each other, or perhaps even next to each other.
This tree is contrasted with the tree of life. The effect of the fruit of the knowledge tree is death. (v. 17). So, we can probably rename this tree as the "tree of death", but one gets knowledge.
If I am correct, this is the only place in the Bible where someone is given a dietary restriction about plants. Leviticus is full about dietary restrictions about animal meat, but is silent as to plants.
What was this tree? Who knows. If the Garden of Eden is gone, then we can assume that this single tree is gone as well. But its fruit is inside each of us - the knowledge of good and evil.
This might not be a fair analogy, but perhaps the tree of knowledge is similar to a narcotic drug. Many narcotic drugs are derivatives of plants. By taking the drug, or here eating the plant, one's eyes become "open" to an experience that they want to relive. However, like the tree of knowledge, the tree is not the tree of life, but the tree of death.
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