New Creation 2

[If you haven't read my note New Creation 1 yet, I'd encourage you to read that one first so this one will make more sense.]

So I've been doing some more looking into these connections between John and the Genesis creation account. I'm finding that the further I take the study, the more interesting stuff I'm finding. I'll list all of the major things I've found...

1. John 1:1 vs. Gen 1:1 "In the beginning..."

I guess I never really thought about the words "in the beginning" as being a rather overt connection to Genesis. I wonder if this opening, so obviously taken from Genesis, is almost like a pointer for the Jewish reader to keep the creation account in mind while reading through the book.

2. John 19:5 vs. Gen 2:7 "Here is the man!" or in the KJV "Behold the man!"

Here, on the sixth day of the week Jesus is paraded out by Pilate and presented to the throng as "the man." Similarly on the 6th day of creation "the man" is brought out by God.

3. John 19:30 vs. Gen 2:1-2a "it is finished."

In the evening of the 6th day God finishes his work.

4. John 19:41 vs. Gen 2:8 "there was a garden"

I think it's interesting that John not only mentions that Jesus was laid in a garden but he also throws in another of those "odd little details" that keep seeming to creep in. He mentions that it is a place where "no one had ever been laid." This seems to be another connection with the garden, which was the other place where death had not yet entered.

5. John 19:42 vs. Gen 2:2b "they laid Jesus there..."

On the 7th day, once the work had been completed, God took a Sabbath, a day of rest.

6. John 20:15 vs. Gen 2:8 "the gardener"

I've already mentioned this one in my last note [New Creation 1].

7. John 20:22 vs. Gen 2:7 "breathed"

I mentioned this one too.

Right now I'm looking into some more connections, most of them a bit looser than those above. For example, John 1:13 talks about being "children born not of human descent but of God" (like Adam and Eve). And John 1:14 talks about the Word becoming flesh and dwelling with man which reminds me a lot of God walking with the man and woman in the garden.

I'm wondering if there's any connection implied by the importance of the tree in the two events also, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree Jesus was nailed to, and possibly the tree of life in Revelation. I'm skeptical of this myself though because John doesn't actually call the cross a tree. And I don't think the cross was much of a symbol to the very early Jewish church, not like it is today.

What are your thoughts? What do you think the implications are for us or how we think about things?