Page 148 - Through New Eyes

T W E L V E

EDEN: THE WORLD

OF TRANSFORMATION

What was the world like when God finished making it? What
was the design of the “raw-material cosmos” over which man was
to take dominion? In this chapter it will be our concern to get be-
fore us the original Biblical world model. In succeeding chapters
we shall study the transformations through which God and man
put the world.
Before we begin, let us take an overview of the nature of
Biblical world modeling. The Bible provides us with a number
of world models, some very simple, and some very elaborate
and complex. Fairly simple world models are provided by the
three decks of Noah’s Ark, the three zones of Mounts Sinai and
Zion, and possibly the three zones of Ezekiel’s stepped altar.
Much more complex world models are provided by the Taber-
nacle and Temple.
The Bible uses forty-eight verses to describe the world in
Genesis 1:1 – 2:17. By way of contrast, the world symbolically de-
scribed in Ezekiel 40 — 48 occupies 260 verses, while the world of
Solomon’s Temple takes 346, and the world of the Mosaic
Tabernacle runs to a conservative 1,140 verses. 1 We can also note
that the description of New Jerusalem, also a world picture,
takes twenty-four verses.
Why so many verses for the Tabernacle and the Temples?
Because these images speak simultaneously of many things, and
in much rich detail. The Tabernacle and Temple, being God’s
palaces, were symbols of heaven; and since heaven is the model
for the earth, they were also models for the earth. Beyond this,
when we put them together with their precincts and surrounding
areas, the whole constituted a heaven and earth model. As
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