Dr. Dylan Johnson

So these are really common architectural features.

And I think that's what's kind of being invoked in the Eden narrative there that it has one of these things at its gate.

But to get back to the reason why this cherub is placed there to bar entry, it's very explicit, less humanity, the man and the woman, the woman's now called Eve,

reach out their hand, take from the tree of the knowledge of life, and live forever, and therefore become identical to the gods, like one of us, is what the text actually says there.

Yeah.

And then that raises the question of who is the us?

Who is this plural, right?

I mean, there should only be one god up there.

And this is...

given scholars for centuries kind of pause and question.

Christians had a very quick answer.

That's Trinity.

We don't need to go any further than that.

But for Jewish interpreters, it was a real question.

Like, who is this plurality?

What is being invoked here?

Yeah, yeah.

Is it a dual dimension based on the kind of gender dimorphism that there's a man and a woman?

We don't know.

We don't know the answer.