Israel and Humanity - Eden and rebirth
§ 4.
EDEN AND REBIRTH.
Before concluding our study of the Jewish notion of cosmic progress in the succession of worlds, consider a moment the myth of the Garden of Eden or paradise of the book of Genesis. [1] About human progress, we said, speaking of Adam's in such a mixture of history and allegory in which the result is the biblical myth of Adam symbol of future humanity and its historical evolution. We have nothing to change that decision when it comes to the house assigned to the first man. The Garden of Eden is the image of the world to come early or, as the Hebrew belief, earth palingenetic. Just as Adam is the portrait of the human race, so the figure of Eden is the land where he lives.
That this state of bliss should, according to Judaism, before today, even if we admit that it has already existed in the beginning, that's what we can not doubt when you see that we are represented in the Bible as the normal state intended by the Creator can not fail to achieve the goal he has designed. The argument of the story of Adam to prove the resurrection applies equally to palingenesis, which is nothing else than the resurrection of the earth, in other words, God's ideal, demonstrated for one and the other in the biblical account, we predict that at the end of time its complete and infallible achievement.
But this palingenesis, at least in terms of land, it can be deduced with certainty from the texts of the Bible? We know the controversy that has brought this subject between Maimonides and other theologians, [2] the first in a metaphoric sense taking the passages that seem to predict a new heaven and new earth, others interpreting them in their proper and literal sense. What they do not seem to have noticed on either side is that there is a consideration that dominates the upper two systems, both in this issue of palingenesis than that of the resurrection that is similar. Even when it could be shown that the texts on this belief are double that of pure allegory, we must admit that the sacred writers never thought to use these images, if they had been able to draw somewhere in the popular ideas, because we know that the figures themselves to borrow from the physical reality or historical, moral or religious. An image that has nowhere any reality, instead of giving more strength [3] expression, would weaken the subject. We fully understand such as Moses to the Israelites to recommend the purity of heart, could say, "circumcise your heart! [4] "since the practice of circumcision made for them this language as intelligible as energetic, but how can we admit that one is used the figure of the resurrection of the dead, to depict political reconstruction of Israel, and that of land and a new heaven to announce world peace in the days of Messiah, if these two events, the resurrection and the palingenesis, were not regarded as future realities, distant yet, but unmistakable? If both events were totally foreign to the established beliefs, instead of strengthening the faith, regeneration and resurrection messianic national, this double image would have discouraged. Everyone would then have concluded with the impossibility of the realization of his hopes, and the sacred writers have obtained a result diametrically opposed to that they wanted to achieve.
It is worth observing that this controversy about the promises palingenetic has occurred between the rabbis later, the old Doctors, and the Talmud demonstrates, have never doubted the literal value of these texts , and the only question was who divisata whether the palingenesis be distinguished from the messianic era in which, apart from the issue of Israel, everything would be in this case similar to the current time, or whether would merge the two eras, before the advent of the Messiah have the double spectacle of social renewal and regeneration of the earth, as believed in particular the early Christians.
It is curious to see the doctrine of the renewal of worlds emerge from opposite points of the horizon though. Following the stories of the Edda, soon after the fire of the world brought about by the victory of the giants, Vala or prophetess saw the beautifully green land out once again in the water. Geniuses come together again, they speak of ancient ruins, dust powerful past. The land is free from all evil harvests unsown. Balder is reborn, a palace rises more beautiful than the sun, live in perpetual happiness and virtuous generations [5] The Greco-Roman paganism was also his notion of palingenesis, widespread in Scientific School and others, witness the famous passage from Virgil: Magnus ab integro sœculorum nascitur ordo [6]. But the Hebrew palingenesis differed substantially from the pagan idea that was not enough room for human regeneration itself, as it differs from the Christian doctrine where the eschatological aspect, as regards the renovation of less cosmic, almost completely disappeared.
