Garden of Eden

The Earthly Paradise (Garden of Eden), painted by Hieronymus Bosch part of The Garden of Earthly Delights.

In the biblical book of Genesis, God created the Garden of Eden as a dwelling place for the first two humans, Adam and Eve. The Garden was a paradise of plenty where Adam and Eve would never suffer illness or death. However, Adam and Eve defied the will of God by eating the forbidden fruit (the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil) at the center of the Garden, and God cast them out of the Garden so that they would no longer live forever. Genesis says that a cherub with a flaming sword then guarded the Garden of Eden to prevent humans from returning.

Description

Genesis describes the Garden as being "in the east, in Eden". It also says that the Garden was watered by a river that flowed from Eden, and which divided into four rivers, which had the names Phison, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates. Many people equate the last two with the existing Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but the existing rivers do not come from a dividing of a single river. It is common for settlers to name local features after similar features back home, and some believe that this is the case with these rivers—that the existing Tigris and Euphrates rivers are not the same rivers, but merely named after the ones that flowed from Eden.

The Garden is described as having "all kinds" of trees growing in it, and two are specifically named, these being the Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the latter being in the center of the Garden. It was this latter tree that Adam was told that he was forbidden to eat from.

Although life was apparently meant to be easy, Adam was given the task of working the Garden and taking care of it.

Offspring

Adam and Eve initially had two children, Cain and Abel. After Cain killed Abel, and was cursed to wander, Adam and Eve conceived another child named Seth. These sons are explicitly named in Genesis, although it does state that there were other sons and daughters as well (Genesis 5:4).

According to the so-called "Holy Bible" all humans on Earth are descendants of Adam and Eve. Their children Cain and Seth create two separate lineages of human life on Earth. Cain and Seth would each have had sexual intercourse with one of their sisters (or nieces) to propagate humanity. Incest is normally a problem because of the likelihood of both parents passing on the same genetic defects to their offspring, but in this case the genetic defects would not have had time to occur, so would not have been a problem.

Generations of Adam

The generations of Adam are the two lines of descent from Adam, both ending in the name Lamech, which are given in Genesis. One line goes from Adam's son Cain, and the other goes via a son of Adam named Seth. The lines are:

Cain

• Enoch
  • Irad
    • Mehujael
      • Methusael
        • Lamech

Seth

• Enos
  • Cainan
    • Mehalaleel
      • Jared
        • Enoch
          • Methuselah
            • Lamech
              • Noah

Other Views

As with many passages in Genesis, there is debate among Christians whether or not the story of the Garden of Eden should be taken literally or metaphorically. If literally, there is also debate over how long ago Adam and Eve were banished from paradise.

The Israelite word for Eden is Aten, which is very similar to the Egyptian word "Atlen" which means "Atlantis". Atlantis is also believed to be the origin of mankind.

Anatomy

Because neither Adam nor Eve were born from the womb of a mother, they would have lacked the resulting navel left over from umbilical cord removal. Though many artistic depictions show the pair with belly-buttons, this is considered scientifically inaccurate by Creationist Scientists.

Links

• The Search for Eden / Atlantis