International Interfaithing
Garden of Eden
We met last night. Well, those of us in England met at 7 pm while for those in Ontario, Canada it was 2 pm, those of us in Zambia and Jerusalem were on the same time 9 pm although on different continents. In Houston, it was 1 pm and in Montana noon.
I am excited that such a range of people can meet together on a screen. Time zones and countries are not our only differences we come from different faith communities, amongst us, there is a Muslim, a Jew and several Christians from various traditions.
One year or another we met as participants in the Elijah Interfaith Institute Summer School.
The Garden of Eden (Genesis 2) was our theme. For almost two hours we interacted giving our views on the story and asking questions such as
Was Eden located on earth?
If the Cherubim and flaming sword was only in the East (3: 24) could you access it from another direction?
Is Eden the same as paradise?
Who wrote Genesis?
Does it matter who wrote it?
What meaning do you take from the story?
Having a Hebrew and Arabic speaker aided us as we moved between texts.
But you know what I enjoyed most? How we related as people! We laughed, we discussed, we exchanged ideas, and we learned.
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