John Steinbeck, an American writer once remarked: "Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don't know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it." Ezekiel 28:12-14 reminds us: “Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God : “You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared. You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.”
The Garden of Eden was a biblical paradise described in the Book of Genesis, where the first humans, Adam and Eve, lived in a state of innocence before being expelled for disobeying God. It was considered a scenario of the fruitfulness of life, which was discarded by the consequence of sin. It is said by scholars to be a mythical garden that was a place of peace and harmony with all animals, containing the Tree of Life and the forbidden Tree of Knowledge at its center. The Garden of Eden is believed an allegory by most scholars, meaning it's not a literal, historical place, but a story with symbolic and metaphorical meaning. However, others consider the Garden of Eden to be a real, literal place. Although some view it as a metaphorical or symbolic story with no singular historical location, those who believe in its historicity often maintain that it's a spiritual reality, possibly with its location concealed or moved by God, and that its existence is a matter of faith. Conversely, scholars and some religious traditions interpret the text as an allegorical creation myth, possibly inspired by or drawing from ancient Mesopotamian stories, and therefore not a geographically verifiable place. Some believe the story was inspired by the fertile, marshy regions of ancient Mesopotamia, particularly southern Iraq. However, whichever perspective one believes, its narrative is used to explain humanity's transition from innocence to the present state of sin and mortality. According to traditional Christian theology, the Garden of Eden is considered the birthplace of sin because it was the location of Adam and Eve's first disobedience to God. Their act of eating the forbidden fruit is often called the "first sin," which introduced sin and death into the world, a concept known as original sin.
The book of Genesis explains the creation of man in the Garden of Eden, his relationship with God, his work, and the institution of marriage. It highlights that it is not good for man to be alone, leading God to create a helper for him by forming Eve from Adam's rib. The key themes are God's provision for humanity, the uniqueness of humanity, and the foundation for a monogamous marriage relationship where a man and woman become "one flesh". Genesis 2:5-25 reminds us: “When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up - for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground - then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed 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 the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.
And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
The doctrine of original sin, said to be largely developed by St. Augustine, holds that the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden brought a "fallen nature" upon all of humanity. This event, called "the Fall," corrupted human nature, which is passed down through generations. Sin might be said to be the death of purity. In Christian theology, sin is understood as the cause of spiritual and physical death, which corrupts the original state of purity intended for humanity. Purity, in this context, refers to a state of being free from sin and moral corruption, a condition essential for a relationship with a holy God.
Samuel Rutherford, a Scottish minister and theologian once remarked: “We are as near to heaven as we are far from self, and far from the love of a sinful world.” Galatians 5:19-21 reminds us: “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
In the biblical narrative, the Great Flood was a judgment sent by God because of the extreme sin and wickedness of humanity. The story in Genesis describes how humanity's evil and violence had grown so great that the "imagination of the thoughts of the human heart" was only evil all the time, leading God to decide to cleanse the earth with a flood.
God gave Noah and his family a new mandate after the flood to repopulate the earth, which included being fruitful and multiplying, and that he granted them permission to eat animals as food. As a part of this new provision, a new relationship between humans and animals was established: every animal now has a fear of humans, and all living creatures are given to humanity to eat, with the exception of the blood (which contains the life). Subsequently, the death of Christ on the cross allowed forgiveness, which in itself provides new life to the faithful, to be granted to those who sin, but repent. Genesis 9:1-3 reminds us: “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.”
Amen.
