Apple in the Garden of Eden? In Genesis 2:8, immediately following the tree of knowledge, we read, And the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. The New King James Version translates it like this: God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed. The Douay-Rheims Latin Vulgate translates it like this: Liberum conversus terrae, et in arcana de paradiso ante faciem Dei tradidit hominem ad obedientes illi Deo poscere. St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate adds a little more: Liberum conversus terrae, et in arcana de paradiso ante faciem Dei tradidit hominem ad obedientes illi Deo poscere. He placed him in Paradise, in the garden of delight, to make him take of its fruit by permission. St. Augustine also adds something to the story in the City of God: In paradise and on an island in paradise he was to be fed by angelic messengers and was to dwell with them in joy as in a second paradise. But the life of a second Paradise was not to be as an idle life and as an independent life; it was to be ordered, or rather, to be given over, as a service to God. So, what the hell is going on here? We have the text for Genesis 2:8, which says that God planted a garden in Eden, and the rest of the Bible indicates that this is true. But at the same time, the Bible says that the garden was in Eden, which is clearly in the middle of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. There is no indication in Scripture that Eden was on another planet, and no indication that it was on another planet before Adam and Eve were placed there. Why is there such a divergence between the Old Testament and the New Testament in Genesis? It might be best to read the books of the Bible as different sources, with overlapping content, and not always matching each other. So, what is going on here? Who is this Eden? Is it the Garden of Eden? Is it another planet? Adam and Eve's "Garden" To answer the question of who's garden it is, we need to understand the language used in Genesis. The Hebrew word עַד can mean "until" or "a certain point in time." For example, Genesis 1:31 uses this word to denote the year when the Lord made the fountains of the deep and set them flowing in the surface of the earth. Genesis 1:1 begins, "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth." This is a literal translation of the Hebrew, which means, "In the beginning, God created all that exists until the present moment. It also means "Until a certain point in time, God created all that exists." In Genesis 2:8, the language of עַד indicates that this garden was a place where God placed Adam and Eve before he made them. Here, the garden is the garden of Eden until they are placed there. In other words, it was the garden from when the Lord created them to the moment when Adam and Eve are placed there. It was a garden, to be sure, but it was a garden on Earth before the events in Genesis 2:8. Adam and Eve's Garden Was in Eden As Genesis 2:8 itself implies, the garden was indeed in Eden. The word אֶדֶנּוּ‎ is translated as "and the man whom he had formed." It is formed of two Hebrew words, אדני and נו‎, which are "earth," and "God." "The man whom God formed" is a phrase that refers to the physical Adam. Because this expression is placed immediately before the garden is placed in Eden, it implies that the garden of Eden is on Earth. To be more specific, "the man whom God formed" refers to Adam, because a man was formed from the earth, not from plants, and the word "form" (נו‎) is also used in a similar sense to denote humanity, not plants. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, נו‎ means "a living creature, inanimate matter in general, [in Hebrew, "earth"], a brute animal." So, Adam's conception from the earth, through the Word of God, is the creation of a man. So then, why does the Bible state that the garden was in Eden, before Adam and Eve were placed there? I'd like to say it's just poetic and beautiful phrasing, or even because the garden was so perfect that there was no place on Earth that could hold it. But I can't think of a reason other than to create a story that makes it look like the garden was in Eden before the first man was created. The Garden of Eden: An Ideal Paradise? From a naturalist's point of view, the story of the garden in Genesis 2 is a complete and utter load of crap. I don't know of any other place on Earth that could possibly be called a paradise, in the sense that the book of Genesis uses it. For one thing, it doesn't even look like a paradise. In Genesis 1, the earth was barren and empty before God created the universe. It was an uninhabitable place. God looked upon it and saw it as utterly good, and then created the garden. In Genesis 2, however, the garden is placed "in Eden" (which is a specific place), and it is full of trees. The Lord even promises to make it a pleasant garden for Adam and Eve to enjoy. Adam and Eve are placed in the garden, but it's not the "good" earth before God created it, so God had to make it pleasant for them. How did he do it? God made it full of fruit trees. There is absolutely nothing in the natural order of things that indicates a tree of life, other than to make the tree of life an angel. It was simply not in the natural order of things that trees would make leaves out of their branches, and buds out of their branches, and fruit from the branches. It was completely novel to think that trees could fruit in this way, much less that they would make fruits so different from their leaves that no one in their right mind could mistake them for anything else. The fruit of trees is the only real evidence that the garden was supposed to be a paradise. It was the only thing that made it seem like there was something special about the trees and the land. Other than this, it really doesn't seem like a paradise at all. The rest of the natural world, which was completely barren and empty prior to Genesis 1, didn't know that the Earth was a paradise. The Earth before the Fall After Adam and Eve were placed in the garden, the Bible says that "The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground. These trees were all good for food: their leaves were for medicine. And there was fruit trees for pleasant fruit. The tree of life also was in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." It's worth noting that the plants themselves weren't evil. The fruit and the leaves were indeed good for food, and were therefore good things to eat. Everything, however, was perfect. All things were good, including the trees and the earth. The garden itself was in the perfect, unchanging order of God's creation. The earth before the fall wasn't a garden, but it was the very center of the creation of the cosmos. God was in His garden, and made all things to fulfill His plan for the cosmos. He made this garden by His Word, through Genesis, and gave Adam and Eve dominion over everything. He placed them there to rule over the earth, and keep it in the perfect order which He had made. This was to be their home until they were placed in their eternal home. God did, however, place "a sword of judgment" in Eden (Genesis 3:24), meaning He made the tree of knowledge of good and evil so that Adam and Eve would experience pain when they ate from it. They had dominion over the entire earth, and dominion over the animals that lived in the garden. If they were to go against what God has given them, and take something that was not theirs, they would have to pay for it. God was teaching them that if you aren't going to respect the gift that I give you, then maybe you shouldn't have it. Creation and the Garden of Eden When Adam and Eve were placed in the garden, God immediately gave them some clear instructions, including forbidding them to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This is one of the clearest proofs that the garden was a real place. It was definitely not a storytale or an ideal, or even a parable. God was clearly referring to a real place, in real history. Furthermore, at the end of the garden, as the serpent is tempting Eve, God gives Adam and Eve very detailed instructions about not eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But the first thing that God tells Adam is to "take care that it does not hurt you," and then he tells Eve