Interpreting the Tree(s) of Life

Undoubtedly, the tree of life motif might be interpreted in multiple ways.  The ancient Jewish rabbis taught that there were four levels of meaning in the interpretation of text in biblical study, 1) the plain or contextual meaning, 2) the allegorical or implied meaning/hints, 3) the metaphorical meaning as compared to other scripture and literature, and 4) the hidden or mystic meaning.  Symbols may suggest multiple meanings, for example baptism may suggest the death and burial of the old evil person, or our rebirth into a new life, or remembering the death, burial and resurrection of the Savior and his atonement for our sins, or represent a covenant to follow the example of Christ in our lives.  None of these interpretations is wrong.  The Savior often spoke in parables, which only the spiritually attuned could understand.  We have sometimes been advised as temple workers, when asked about the meaning of various symbolic representations in the temple, to avoid giving dogmatic interpretations, but rather to suggest seeking the Spirit to the person with the question.  Let that Spirit tailor the interpretation to the needs of the individual patron.

One of the challenges in understanding the tree of life is to compare how Lehi and Nephi’s tree relates to the trees in the Garden of Eden.  Griggs in the study just summarized gives what seems to be a contradictory response to this question.  First, he avers that the trees of life in the two circumstances are not the same (“another tree”), since fruit of the Garden tree was forbidden to be eaten and the Lehi-Nephi tree had partaking of the fruit of the tree the most important objective of the person’s spiritual quest in this life.  Yet in the same paragraph he postulates a second tree in the Lehi-Nephi scenario of which men continue to eat “the deadening fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil” which appears to imply that the two sets of trees are the same. 

Griggs also gives a negative cast to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that it represents worldly and evil choices. This is like in the Lehi-Nephi dream the filthy water or the great and spacious building and may be consistent with Lehi’s interpretation of the forbidden fruit as bitter (2 Ne. 2:15).  Yet generally in LDS theology, the fall of Adam and Eve is not seen as a negative but a necessity.  Without the fall “the great plan of happiness would have been frustrated.  There would have been no children, no blood, no mortality and death, no probationary experience on earth, no atoning sacrifice, no forgiveness, no resurrection and thus no hope for joy here or eternal life hereafter.” (Dennis L. Largey, “Book of Mormon Reference Companion, Deseret Book, 2003, p. 264)

Here is another way to interpret the symbolism of the two trees in the Garden of Eden that I find interesting, that helps interpret gender roles and differences in a way that might explain some LDS doctrines about men, women, and families.  It seems to suggest that both the of the trees were heavenly in origin and had heavenly purposes.  Is that true?  Well, to me it has a good feel.  But it is symbolic interpretation that teaches some principles--

“The LDS do not believe that the Fall was a great tragedy. Rather, we believe that the Fall was foreordained, that it was for our progression, and thus the Fall was a blessing. Number two, the LDS do not believe that Eve sinned in partaking of the fruit of the First Tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And number three, because the LDS do not believe Eve sinned, we also do not believe that Eve was punished by God for her role in partaking of the fruit, but rather rewarded.

“The Great Plan of Happiness devised for the children of God mandated that they leave their heavenly home, receive a mortal body as a blessing, enter into full agency by being separated from God, and then return once more to their heavenly home to be judged for how they used their agency.  That is, the Plan was to be a “round,” if you will: it would take us from our heavenly home and, if we walked that path well, the plan would bring us back to our heavenly home, now much more like our Heavenly Parents, with much more knowledge, a fuller agency, a desire to choose the right, with so much more than we ever could have acquired if we had stayed in heaven with a pale or dilute version of agency.

“Only the children could choose to leave, and to bring to pass a separation from their divine parents.  And so in the Garden were placed a son and a daughter of God, and two trees.  Two persons, two trees.

“Both Trees represented doorways along the journey of the Great Plan.  The First Tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, symbolized the doorway leading from heaven, and the ordinances of entering mortality with a mortal body, gaining full agency, and having the light of Christ awakened within.  The Second Tree, the tree of eternal life, symbolized the ordinances of salvation and exaltation, and the doorway back to our heavenly home...

“...The First Tree was the gift to be given by women in the Great Plan.  It is through women that souls journey to mortality and gain their agency, and in general it is through the nurturing of women, their nurturing love of their children, that the light of Christ is awakened within each soul.  And we should include in that list of souls Jesus the Christ. Even Christ our Lord was escorted to mortality and veiled in flesh through the gift of a woman, fed at his mother’s breast, and awakened to all that is good and sweet in the world. Women escort every soul through the veil to mortal life and full agency.  It is interesting to think that even Adam, who was created before Eve, entered into full mortality and full agency by accepting the gift of the First Tree from the hand of a woman.  In a sense, Adam himself was born of Eve...

What gift will Adam give to further the Great Plan?  The LDS believe that Adam and his sons will give the gift of the fruit of the Second Tree to the children of God, those who are worthy to receive it, just as Eve and her daughters give the fruit of the First Tree to all who are worthy to partake of it.  The fruit of the Second Tree is the ordinances of salvation and exaltation administered by the sons of God.  Just as the doorway through the veil into this life is administered and guarded over by the women, the daughters of God, so the doorway through the veil that brings us home is administered and guarded over by the sons of God.  And those that have accepted the gift of the Second Tree from the hands of the sons of God will pass through that veil and back to that celestial place where they can be with their Parents once more.

Just as Adam was asked to hearken to Eve and received the fruit of the First Tree, Eve is asked by God to hearken to Adam in accepting the fruit of the Second Tree.  We would be remiss if we did not see that there were two hearkenings, two gifts given, two gifts received, two stewardships.

That means that priesthood, in the LDS understanding, is not some extra given to men and denied women.  Priesthood is a man’s apprenticeship to become a heavenly father, and it is clear from LDS doctrine that women have their own apprenticeship to become like their heavenly mother.  The ordinances—and they are ordinances—of body and of agency—pregnancy, childbirth, lactation—the spiritual ordinances of the First Tree are not less powerful or spiritual than the ordinances of the Second Tree.  Women have their own godly power.

Some have erroneously felt that the Church and its male leaders preside over the members’ families, and that somehow that means that men are to rule over women.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The Restored Gospel helps us see that the Church is intended to be the gift that the sons of God give to the family, just as the daughters of God give a great gift to the family.  The Church, then, is but an auxiliary to the family, which stands above it in the eternal plan.  Elder Jeffrey R. Holland,... has said, “There might be wards and stakes in heaven—I don’t know anything about them—or there may well be some other organization that we don’t know much about.  What we do know will exist in heaven is families.  And most of what has been revealed about our afterlife, our eternal life, our celestial life, focuses on family organization…” The family is the divine organization, and we know from LDS doctrine that, in the family, women and men rule as equals.  President James E. Faust, of the First Presidency of the LDS Church, said: “Every father is to his family a patriarch and every mother a matriarch as coequals in their distinctive parental roles.”  (Valerie Hudson Cassler  “I am a Mormon Because I am a Feminist” http://mormonscholarstestify.org/1718/valerie-hudson-cassler)