The Rivers of Eden

Water is necessary for life.  So for a vibrant garden to flourish, plenty of water was needed.  A single river (unnamed) went out of Eden to provide water for the plant and animal life there. 

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. 11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. (Gen. 2:10-14)

This river split into four rivers, which went out to a larger land area.  There are names given to these rivers: Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates.  Modern Bible teachers and scholars have tried to identify these with rivers seen today to try and locate the area of Garden of Eden.  Pison has had several suggested identities, but in general, it is believed to be a now dry riverbed stretching across the Arabian Peninsula.  Gihon is considered to be another name for the Nile.  Hiddekel is associated with the Tigris River and the Euphrates River is well-known.  There is only one problem with this–these rivers do not come together at any point.  While it is possible that at one point they did, there is a better explanation for this: the Flood of Noah. Continue reading

God Made Everything Very Good

Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made , and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Everything that God made is described as “very good”.  This indicates the perfect nature of God’s creation.  Sin had not entered the universe at this point.  Adam and Eve are best thought of as “innocent”—they had the ability to sin, but had not done so yet.

There are some logical conclusions to this sinless state.  First, physical death was not a possibility.  Sin brought sickness, pain, suffering, and death as is seen in Genesis 3 and numerous other passages in the Bible. Continue reading

Food in Eden

Eating in the Garden of Eden was meatless as is explained in the verses below.

Genesis 1:29-30  And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.  30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

In Eden, food came from plants.  This was true for the land animals too.  Some may scoff that some animals cannot survive without meat.  That may be true in our fallen world, but not in Eden.  Even in a fallen state, some animals which normally eat meat sometimes choose not to.  (See No Taste for Meat and Unexpectedly Vegetarian Animals – What Does It Mean?)  The prohibition against eating meat ended after the Flood of Noah.  (Genesis 9:3)  So there is no biblical reason to practice vegetarianism in our current dispensation.