10/04/19

Q.218: “Why didn’t God keep the Garden of Eden?” and “If Adam & Eve got banished from the Garden of Eden why have no people ever found it?”

Well now you have got me thinking. Nobody but God knows but it is interesting to think upon it. The river Tigris and Euphrates are still there in the Middle East known as ‘The Cradle of Civilisation’. Those two rivers are named in the Bible as a part of the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 2:14) They are easily found on a map or on the WWW. They both rise in the mountains of Turkey and flow to the Persian Gulf.

What happened to the Garden of Eden? We can only guess as it was a very long time ago. In the Persian language ‘Garden’ was a place set apart. Maybe men overgrazed it to a desert that it is in much of the Middle East, including Egypt. They did not have chainsaws then but had many animals, including goats who eat almost anything. It takes a long time for men to understand overgrazing but overgrazing can turn ‘good country’ into desert, ask any farmer. We do know it could be hot and there was a “...cool of the evening;” (Gen 3:8) so some days were hot.

There are many myths and ideas about the Garden of Eden (I had a few myself) and famous painters painted what they thought or imagined what it was like. Perhaps God has used it as model for heaven or maybe it was simply a beautiful area set aside for God to see if Adam and Eve could be trusted to obey. Well, we know they did not obey and that humans can be persuaded to do wrong things to their sorrow. See also the WWW to help you to think about it.

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The Answerer

The Answerer - Peter Harris, answered children's questions from his many years of teaching "Scripture" classes.
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