Gardener divine

A friend asked how my trees were doing. It's been a busy schedule of teaching and other duties, I reported, but I do have snippets of time for my book project. I looked at the courtyard maples, ready to pop. Share something fun you found, she asked? 

Ok, said I. Someone's recently published a book debunking the received explanation for how the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden came to be identified as an apple (after centuries as a fig, grape or pomegranate). As part of his research he compiled a website of images of the fateful scene, one of which delights me to no end. 

It's from a 9th century French illustrated Bible known for where it now resides as the Bamberg Bible, although in Bamberg it's referred to as the Alkuin-Bibel. Anyway, the illustrations facing the Book of Genesis are out of this world. The depiction of the eating of the forbidden fruit in the second row clearly shows a fig tree - and it's leaves from that same tree that Adam and Eve use to cover their nakedness. But beyond the exquisite beauty of the whole thing, something else caught my eye. 

It's in the first row, which shows the creation of Adam and then, in a gorgeous explosion, of other animals. This is the sequence of the second creation account, where the man is clearly created to take care of the garden (2:15), indeed even before the Garden of Eden is planted. 

But look at the trees in that top row. They've all been pruned! That's how, I'm suggesting, everyone used to know that well-tended trees looks like. Trees in this world don't take care of themselves. If Adam is made in God's image (1:27), it's in the image of a gardener!