SOURCE: “Dream Form in Genesis 2.4b-3.24: Asleep in the Garden,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, No. 37, February, 1987, pp. 3-14.

In the following essay, Burns analyzes the apparent inconsistencies in the Adam and Eve story, maintaining that such inconsistencies are only problematic when viewed from a logical, rather than literary, standpoint.

The story of Adam and Eve as told in Gen. 2.4b-3.24 contains a number of apparent inconsistencies that challenge interpreters, and that draw the careful reader in for a closer look. The garden in Eden contains not one but two talismanic trees, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life, yet the central part of the narrative knows nothing of the tree of life. Additionally, God warned Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge, ‘for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die’; nevertheless, Adam goes on to...