Description
The biblical tree of life (Hebrew: עץ החיים; Etz haChayim) is mentioned in the book of Genesis in verse 2:9 as the tree that God planted in the Garden of Eden (Paradise) along with the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and whose fruit grants eternal life (immortality). After Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the Bible records that they were both banished from the Garden of Eden to prevent them from eating the fruit of the tree of life: “And the LORD God said, ‘Now the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; therefore, do not let him take fruit from the tree of life himself, for if he eats of it, he will live forever.’” The Germanic tree of life. The Irminsul was an important shrine for the Saxons of the eighth century AD, probably with great symbolic significance. It is mentioned and briefly described in the Annales regni Francorum, the Translatio St. Alexandri by Rudolf of Fulda, and in the Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (Book I, Chapter 8) by Adam of Bremen. Both use the exact same words and describe the Irminsul as a large, upright wooden trunk that, according to the Saxons, supported the entire world. The Kabbalistic Tree of Life is a model used by Hermetic Kabbalists to symbolically represent the entire universe and its origins. This Tree of Life has a different form than the one used by Jewish Kabbalists. The first publication to feature this Tree of Life was Athanasi Kircher's Oedipus Aegypticus from 1652. Robert Fludd adopted this diagram in a modified form in his Complete Works from 1617.
