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Preserving paradise

Margot Käßmann

What overlap is there between a theologian and landscape architects, you may ask? I am convinced that in view of the ethical challenges in our time, we must look beyond our respective horizons in order to make connections and channel our strength. The issue of living environments for the future is the order of the day, particularly in view of the environmental challenges. In this sense, it might be interesting to engage with a different and possibly unfamiliar perspective. First of all, let me take you on a brief biblical dis course. The Bible has become a strange world for some. For me personally, it is a book of faith. Bey ond that, it is part of our education in our cultural sphere to know something about it. Literature, architecture and music in our part of the world can often only be understood if we have some sort of idea of the Bible. A highlight for me was an educational guided church tour of Marktkirche in Hanover. A boy looked at Christ on the cross in the altarpiece, blood seeping from his wounds. He said, from the bottom of his heart: ‘Oh wow, what happened to him?’ We tried to give him a short version of the story. And I have actually been asked what the plus signs on church roofs stand for… Thinking about nature and landscape from a biblical perspective, the fi rst thing that springs to mind is the creation story. There are two of them in the Bible. The fi rst tells of God creating heaven and earth, but the earth was tohu wa-bohu – meaning formless and empty. So God fi rst divi des dark and light, water and land, lets trees and herbs grow, then the animal kingdom. Blossoming Longing for paradise

landscapes emerge; God himself fi nds all is well. Finally, human beings are created as man and wo man. They are to be fertile, subdue the earth and have dominion over the animal world. Chaos be comes order, albeit an order that we now regard as problematic. On the one hand, because a high birth rate was desirable in ancient Israel and we are faced with the challenge of almost eight billion people on earth. On the other hand, because we are aware that humankind has not only subjugated the earth but is mercilessly exploiting it, not only ruling over the animal world but also treating it brutally as if it were no fellow creature. And then there is the other story of creation. In this God fi rst creates a paradisiacal garden. Then humankind is created, and the story goes on to say: ’Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and tend it.’ (Genesis 2:15) Cultivating and tending rather than subjugating. He is joined by the woman, di rectly carved from the rib of the fi rst man, so that he would not be alone. And because she wants to become wise, she disobeyed God’s command not to eat from the tree of knowledge. She hands Adam the fruit, who seems to have forgotten all prudence and takes a bite. As a result, both are expelled from the Garden of Eden. From a well-or dered state into the chaos of the world. No more paradise – a state we are still aware of every day. The story says: ‘So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.’ (Genesis 3:23) We cannot work through the entire creation narrative, but I want to mention one interesting point from the fi rst chapter of the Book of Moses. In the so-called fi rst story of creation, it says: ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of

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