Digging Deeper In the Garden

Modern readers are prone to project their beliefs and cultures on the characters and events recorded in their Bible – and aren't even aware of it. Are you ready for a shock? The original Hebrew Scriptures were not written to be read by the public at large. The text of the Hebrew Bible was not part of the popular culture. To the public, the scrolls of the Hebrew Scriptures were icons of a body of knowledge accessible only through the oral instruction presented by religious experts – the Temple scribes. Scribes wrote for scribes and studied it in the scribal workshop of the Temple. They used special linguistic devices and techniques to make and highlight important points. Many of these were lost or became unrecognizable in modern English translations. Today, we are going to attempt to take a trip back in time to the Temple in Jerusalem and the scribal workshop and take another look at one of the best known sections of the Hebrew text – the Garden in Eden. When the scribes gathered to study this text they focused on what was written, how it was written, why it was written, as well as what was not written. So, turn your BS (belief system) off and tune in to the world of the Jewish scribes and get ready to dig much deeper in the events in the Garden. Read the complete article at -- http://biblicalheritage.org/DTB/1214_DTB_Digging_Deeper_In_The_Garden.pdf