3. The Garden of Eden - Heaven on Earth

"The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.  And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil". (Genesis 2:8-9)

The Bible says that real heaven is not in heaven but on earth! And gives its direct coordinates. It's situated by the springheads of four rivers, one of them is the Euphrates. So you don't have to be righteous to go to heaven. All you have to do is ask your travel agent for a ticket to Eden of the Middle East. 
 
God planted a fruit garden in Eden. Not only fruit trees but also palms and citrus trees cold be found there. Maybe even a breadfruit tree.

And there is no single word in the Bible that the fruit of knowledge of good and evil was an apple. It is called just "the fruit" .

"But God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die". (Genesis 3:3)

"The woman saw that the tree had fruit that was good to eat, nice to look at, and desirable for making someone wise. So she took some of the fruit and ate it" (Genesis 3:6)

 I wonder who was the first to state that the forbidden fruit was namely an apple - and told this lie to others. As for me, I suppose that it could be a banana because it's more nutricious than an apple and looks more attractive - according to the words of a lady-friend of mine.

Just listen to these magic words: the Banana of Knowledge od Good and Evil!

"And there was not a man to till the ground. <...>  And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it". (Genesis 2:5; 15)

Nothing is so bad for man as indolence. Having created Adam God understood presently that man is rather a perishable product. So He decided to move Adam to the Garden of Eden - but not to enjoy the easy life in heaven! Reread the quotation above. Adam was told to "keep" and "dress" the garden! To cultivate it in the daytime and guard it in the night. Thus man was obliged to toil even before the Fall.

And it was not only physical but also mental strain for him! God thrust upon him one of His own duties - to name the beasts. The animals came to Adam in turn and he called them whatever he liked. Any sound combination could do. If you think that it's easy then try to make up at least one. And Adam had to produce hundreds! As a result of this hard work, some of the names were rather discordant and even abusive, such as pig, jackal, echidna, sloth, sea cow.

Some beasts got really angry!


"And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:16; 17)
 
There were lots of trees in the Garden of Eden. And there was a very small possibility that Adam would like to taste the damned fruit - if there was any at all. It would have never occured to him  - if the Lord Himself didn't point out that tree to him!
 
The first man's mind was like a child's, and he could'n know good from evil. Indeed he couldn't understand what it meant to "surely die". Nobody had ever died in his presence. How could he be afraid of death? 

The words of God were a sheer provocation. Have you ever tried to tell your kid when leaving him home alone: "Johnny, don't you eat the candy from the box there, on the right!" The poor child had not the least notion of the candy in the box. But now that you've drawn his attention to the forbidden sweets, an acute interest arose in him. And you'll get rather lamentable results: the candy will be gone, and the child will have a stomach-ache. 

Clever parents (and don't forget that God was the first Parent in the world!) put candy out of reach of children. The Lord - if He was just as clever - could have planted the unfortunate tree somewhere high upon a rocky mountain. Or just surround it with barberwire and put it under an electric current.

But the All-seeing God seemed to have lost His sagacity this time.

"The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him". (Genesis 2:18)
 

As the quotation above tells us, God made the first woman not for the purposes of the fall of man. He made her as a helper, an assistanse, a female slave to help the first slave of God, so that they could cultivate and guard the Garden of Eden together.

So we can be sure that mistaken are those who think that the first profession of women was to love for money. Quite the contrary: it was to work for free! The oldest woman's profession was called "gardener's chief assistant".


"And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; ... 22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man". (Genesis 2:21-22) 

What does the word "brought" mean in this context? Didn't the Lord conduct the operation right there, next to Adam? Or maybe He knew that Adam wouldn't wake up for a long time - and took Eve somewhere far away?.. What if He gave Adam a large dose of sleeping pills on purpose? A fishy story, isn't it?

 So, the first anaestesiologist was the Lord God. And the first surgeon, too. And the first tailor. Because it was He who sewed leather clothes for Adam and Eve when they managed to fall. The first innocent victim in the world was Adam. He lost one of his ribs without any reason.

 But there's something strange in this story. Man - as every other vertebrate - has an even number of ribs. So we can conclude that originally the Lord made him with an odd number of ribs! In His image, in His likeness!

On losing one of the ribs, Adam also lost his likeness to God, thus going a step down the social ladder, degrading and becoming closer to the ape. That was a very sad moment in the life of mankind.

But as for the Lord - He remained just as He was, with all His ribs! And that's another proof that the Lord God is a unique, incompatible Being. Just because of the odd number of ribs!..

"The man said, This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh". (Genesis 2:23-24)

It's remarcable that this grandiloquent verse came out of the mouth of the newly-made-of-clay Adam who wasn't even told that God deprived him of a rib to create Eve. Of Adam the orphan who hadn't the least notion what is a father or a mother. But he had already started to consider that he should be joined to somebody for the time being...

Yes, Adam was really too clever for his age.


"God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number". (Genesis 1:28)


That phrase about increasing in number didn't obviously mean that Adam and Eve should do it right away. They had a long life to live - almost a thousand years. So they could be in no hurry with such an obscenity. Besides, the Garden of Eden was not exactly the place where a couple could lay themselves down in the shade of the Tree of Knowledge and enjoy themselves knowing each other. We also shouldn't forget about the poor beasts who came to Adam to be baptised.  And of course, the Lord God was near all the time.

 And the Lord is All-Seeing!..

To cut a long story short, nothing could have descended from that couple for a whole era - if only God didn't distract for a monent to let the slippery Serpent slide in!