The Garden Of Eden

From what I have read and heard, the garden of Eden was paradise. The Lord God planted every tree that was pleasant to look at. These trees had edible food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was also there. This awesome river came out of Eden to water the garden. It appears to have run in four different directions or had four heads.

The Garden of Eden

The garden of Eden had rivers running through it, which has helped geologists and historians pinpoint its location even though it might not be the exact location. We know the hemisphere where the garden of Eden was, and we have pinned down the continents and maybe the countries.

The name of the third river is Hiddekel. It is often called the rapid Tigris. Tigris is located in the mountains of Armenia, not far from the fourth river Euphrates. Tigris went towards the east of Assyria or Iraq. This is where geography appears to be tricky. Scholars put the garden of Eden somewhere around 3000 B.C. Scientists put the Euphrates river somewhere near Iraq.

God also gave Adam and Eve coats of skin to clothe them (Genesis 3:21). There was no mention of animals other than the serpent before this. I know that animals probably existed, but Adam and Eve may not have been consuming meat. After they left the garden, they would have to survive as best as they could.

Adam is tasked with keeping or maintaining the garden. God tells him he can freely eat of every tree in the garden, except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for to eat of that tree would be to die.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

But in the garden was another tree: the tree of life. The tree of life represented God, the source of life. This was the tree God wanted man to partake of to receive Him as the divine life.

Satan, on the contrary, was deceitful. He came to Eve in the garden, disguised as a serpent. The devil knew that if Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge, the human beings God created to express Him would ingest the poison of his evil nature and be corrupted by sin and death forever.

Over period of five years, Purple worked continuously to build a concentric garden that would eventually grow to 15,000 square feet. As nearby abandoned structures were torn down the garden continued to grow, a process he metaphorically likened to a garden that knocked down the buildings around it. He physically hauled bricks and building materials away from the site, and hauled in manure from the horses in Central Park.

Purple himself narrates his story in this thoughtful video by Harvey Wang and Amy Brost from back in 2011. Sadly, he died two weeks ago at the age of 84, and there is currently a fund-raising effort to collect money for his burial and to erect a memorial near 184 Forsyth Street where the garden once stood.

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) share belief in the existence of Eden (also called Jannah by Muslims), the garden of paradise where Adam and Eve lived with God before their expulsion. The location of a historical Eden is a matter of debate among religious scholars.

In the Christian Bible, the story of the creation of the world in the book of Genesis describes how Adam and Eve lived in Eden in peace with all of the animals. They tended the garden and could eat from any tree except the Tree of Knowledge. After they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, God punished Adam and Eve by making them leave the Garden of Eden forever. 041b061a72