2. They are composed of Binary Opposites
     -Like the pagans that surrounded the ancient Hebrew, they tended to see things as falling into pairs...such as : male/female, earth/heaven, mountain/valley. While the pagan views this dualistic pair as being equal in importance and power, the ancient Hebrew understood that the power of Creation and Good was always superior to the power of Chaos and Evil.

Question: Does the Bible use binary opposite terms?
     Yes: Light/Dark, Understanding/Ignorance, Feast/Famine

Note: The Bible does not condone or teach dualism. It teaches that evil is something that    God allows and has complete power over and controls it to complete His own purposes.

 3. Involves Symbolism
       The study of motifs is really an exercise in the study of symbolism and this leads us to an interpretation issue. We often hear teachers tell us that we must differentiate between those section in scripture that are literal and historical and those that are symbolic and interpret them accordingly. This distinction would have been foreign to the ancient Hebrew.

     Where the ancient Hebrews were firm believers in the importance of actual history, they often wrote their history in symbolic language for a certain theological effect.

Example:
 OT: Ex. 14:21 When God saved the Israelites at the red Sea, there is a conscious effort to explain the event in 'creation terminology: the wind (ruach=spirit Gen. 1:2) dry land and waters were divided Gen. 1:6-10).
    By using this kind of symbolic motif language, Scripture raises this historical event to one of cosmic dimensions on a theological level. That is, God is 're-creating' a new people by this event, an event as important as creation itself.

 NT: When stilling the storm at sea, Jesus 'rebuked' the waters.  The disciples who knew OT symbolism understood that Jesus was rebuking the 'watery deep' which symbolized for them chaos and evil. Jesus' rebuking showed his power over the forces of chaos and only God had that power.

     The symbolism used in rebuking shows not only that he could calm the storm but that He was in fact, God and He could bring peace and calm where there is chaos with the power of His word. (God speaks and it is Gen. 1-2) What this proves is that symbolism and actual history merge in the Bible.

II. Tree Motif Traced Through Scripture
     My purpose here is to trace the development of the biblical motif, 'tree',  as established in the book of Genesis and culminating in the book of Revelation.  I will be examining 13 occurrences of the 'tree' motif throughout Scripture. There are over 40 clearly distinguishable  episodes of the 'tree' motif, however, time does not permit me to examine all incidents. I have limited my study to the 13 most prominent occurrences of the 'tree' motif in Scripture.
    A. Genesis 1:11
Read: Gen. 1:11
Question: Trees were created by God to be what?
       -fruitful, and they were.

 God blessed them and declared them,  good. This, I believe, is the inception of the 'tree' motif in Scripture. The 'tree' motif represents the optimum way we are to live as humans... we are to produce fruit and to be in good relationship with God by doing so.  By doing this we are blessed by God.

     As the motif develops in Scripture, it shows either the creation connection which exhibits  one who is in close  relationship with God, the creator,  and who is producing spiritual fruit or the chaos connection (dark side) which is one who does not bear fruit and who is not in close relationship with God, the creator, who is essentially in rebellion to the creation order.

    B. Genesis 2:9
Read: Gen. 2:9

Question: God is the giver of all life and this is represented in the creation of  which tree in the Garden of Eden?
    -the tree of life.

Question: What was the purpose of the Tree of Life?

 1. Some believe that it was a tree that would grant the one who partakes of it's fruit, immortality. But how was this done? Was it by a one time eating of the fruit or by a habitual eating? Did Adam and Eve eat of this tree?

 God blessed all the trees in the garden and told Adam and Eve that they could eat of all the trees in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Some would say that they never ate of the tree of life.

 2. It is also these people who would say that to do so once would have made Adam and Eve immortal, since they weren't immortal, they must not have eaten from the tree.

Question: What do you think?

 I see the tree of life as being God's way of sustaining man in His 'perfect' garden existence. It was a way of communing with God and experiencing His power. I further believe that it was necessary to continually eat of the tree to sustain life.

 Man must have continual fellowship with God to walk in His ways and to experience God's blessing on his life. We see this developed though out Scripture.

  I personally believe that Adam and Eve did in fact eat from the tree of life as there seems to be no indication in Scripture that they did not. Since Adam and Eve enjoyed fellowship with God and were in a 'perfect' garden state, I see no other possibility.