What is the Garden of Eden?
Is *Eden* a physical location, state of mind, Heaven, …all the above?
PHYSICAL LOCATION
In the physical sense we do have a ‘fix’ on its name and location as the Hebrew gives us by name:*Gan-Ba-Eden*.
The redacted Hebrew name, “Gan (garden) ba (in) Eden”, or simply, ‘Eden’, is in Northwest Iran central to Tabriz. Eden is a place right of Lake Van and Mt. Sahand and it’s furthest right boundary is the Mountain range of Kusheh Dagh. Circa 40 miles east of the furthest point of Kusheh Dagh mt. Range is a region called, “Noqdi” or our Biblical, “NOD”. All to say that, Nod, or Noqdi, is the Bible’s Eastern geographical reference to geographical Eden. “Ardabil” is about 15 miles south of Noqdi. As further contemporary geographical reference, Eden is also called the *Adji Chay valley* and is known by an older name: Meidan valley.
STATE OF MIND
Let me paraphrase G.K. Chesterton: “We follow signs until we arrive at the point that was signaled to. Here, we find ourselves at the place of ‘non-sense’ because there are no more signs to indicate where we need to travel to. Hence, we no longer need signs, signals, indicators or senses once we have arrived”.
I not only believe but know that the Garden of Eden was a physical location. In the genius of the Biblical narrative sense, “Eden” was the point of reference for cultural and societal “beginnings” in the Hebrew Bible. I *believe* that this fusion of events was for all of humankind to understand.
I *believe* that the genius of the region of Meidan or “Eden” offered us the first encounters with a Sumerian culture that didn’t necessarily speak what we call, “Sumerian”.
Comparisons of beginnings
The understanding of ‘beginnings” found in Genesis are simply a different type of ‘beginning’ than the search for “beginnings” found in the research for the first hominids. The distinction might go as follows: The Biblical Genesis expresses a sentient mind exuding intention and Sovereignty personified as juxtaposed to the archeological observations and reconstructions of hundreds of thousands of years of “evolving” by meandering.
I often think of watching a movie that lasts for 300,000 years that gets to no real point other than the killing of some kind of field deer and watching the procreation process without romance. All of which makes a Woody Allen film more depressing, for he reminds me that we have evolved very little with meaning, yet, a lot with style.
WHY, WHAT, HOW
‘How’ do we obtain ‘what’ versus ‘why’ do we obtain and for ‘what’ purpose?
The “how” and the “what” versus the “why”. It is the heinous omission that I am leading to by secularists who truly have an objective religion and intention.
Let me make this clear. As Joseph Campbell said, “There is no meaning in life itself. It’s pure biology”. Bios or Life does what it does, it is what it is—-but, it does not explain WHY it is here or WHY we should care about anything other than the scientific and/or Hedonistic sense to ‘life’. After all, if there was no ‘why’ to life, we would only have “life” to worship which would default, in time, to hedonism, or, “life worship”.
It is in the study of HEDONISM that we find Eve and Adam’s return to the crude practice of self preservation and objectivity—the “WHATness” of their worldview. The “WHYness” was in the Garden prior to this fall—-and, in this contrast of, ‘why’ vs ‘what’, we should go forward with a stepping stone from C.S. Lewis’ remark on the ‘elan vitale’, or, ‘life force’. Without proper worship of the force of life, which is our Maker, we would all turn to, by nature, the force within natural causes. We should be halted at every icon of ‘life force’ in an endless pursuit of objects without meaning, only iconic observance via the connotative minds which shift with every wind of ‘new ideas’. It is of further interest to me that the “HOW” in obtaining the “WHATness” of evolutionary ‘man’ was by killing and overtaking. The “HOW” aspect in obtaining the *understanding* of the “WHY” aspect of Grace is shown through either a (a) fictional ‘god’ or (b) a Real Sovereign God. It is interesting, even if God weren’t real, and HIS words weren’t substantiated by a REAL character, the WORDS would still hold in our stage actors semiotic commitments for either living to kill or love. The ultimate man would be found in the ultimate idea of GOD, even if HE were fictive——which would NEVER mean that this ‘finding’ excluding the REAL God who transcended past our metaphors for grace, love, joy, etc.
The “REALNESS” wraps us in HIS “MEANING” now….not later, over there, in the future… HIS “SENSE” abides with us in the here and now, the past and the future.
*all geographical locations are backed the leading archaeological scholar, David Rohl in his book, “Legend”, and video documentary, “In Search of Eden”.
