Creation and Its Records / A Brief Statement of Christian Belief with Reference to Modern Facts and Ancient Scripture

by B. H. Baden-Powell

As regards the narrative of Eden itself, there has been, from the very earliest times, some disposition to regard it as mystical or "allegorical," i.e., to regard it as representing spiritual facts of temptation and disobedience, under the guise or story of an actual audible address by a serpent, and the eating of an actual fruit. The earliest translators seem to have glossed the "Gan-'Eden," everywhere in the Old Testament (except in Gen. ii. 8), by the phrase "the paradise of pleasure," or some other similar term. And the Vulgate always uses some phrase, such as "place of delight," "voluptas," "deliciae," &c. It must be admitted that there is some temptation to this course, because of the inveterate tendency of the human mind to reduce things to its own level—to suppose everything to have happened in ways which are within its present powers to comprehend. We figure to ourselves the fear and dislike we should ourselves experience, of a large snake; we imagine the amazement with which an intelligible voice would be heard to proceed from such a creature; so far from being tempted, we should at once be moved to hostility or to flight; and thus we are inclined to throw doubt on the narrative as it stands.

But this is to do what we justly complain of modern materialists and positivists for doing—reducing everything to terms of present experience and knowledge.

It has to be borne in mind, that under the conditions of the case, the serpent was neither ugly, dangerous, nor loathsome, but beautiful and attractive; that the residents of the Garden were familiar with the "voice of God"—i.e., they had habitual intelligible communication with heaven: probably, also, free intercourse with angelic messengers (inconceivable as it may now seem to us) was matter of daily experience to them. The woman would then recognize in the voice an Angel communication; and unaware at first that it was an evil angel, it would excite no surprise in her at all. Sensations of terror, surprise, dislike, and so forth, were ex hypothesi unknown. Why then should not the narrative be exact, unless, indeed, we have some à priori ground for supposing that human nature never could have been in a state where the voice of God and angels sounded in its ears, and where innocence and the absence of all evil emotion was the daily condition of life? The unbeliever may sneer at such a state, but reason why it should not have been, he can give none. So, again, with the idea of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and the "tree of life." We are no doubt tempted to think that these terms may be symbolic; but a more careful reflection, and a deliberate rejection of the influence of present experiences, may lead us to accept the narrative more literally. Even now, we are not unfamiliar with the ideas of medicinal virtues in plants and fruits. I see nothing impossible in the idea that God may have been pleased to impart such virtue to the fruit of a tree standing in the midst of the Garden, that physical health, immunity from all decay, and constant restoration, should have been the result of eating the fruit; and the eating of this fruit, we know, was freely permitted. The late Archbishop Whately suggested, and I think with great probability, that the longevity of the earliest generations of the Adamic race may have been due to the beneficial effects of the eating of this fruit, which only gradually died out. Just as we know at the present time, that peculiarities introduced into human families, often survive from father to son, till they gradually die out after many generations.

Again, as regards the "forbidden tree," it will not seem impossible, that as a simple test of obedience in a very primitive state, the rule of abstinence from a particular fruit may have been literally enjoined, and that the consequence of the moral act of disobedience (rather than the physical effect of the fruit eaten) should have been the knowledge of evil, the first sensation of shame, terror, angry dissension, and, worst of all, the alienation from God the source of all good, which followed.

All such considerations of the reality of the history must gain greatly in strength, if we can demonstrate that the Garden of Eden, the scene of the temptation, the place where the trees that were the vehicles of such consequences to the occupants of the garden, stood, had a real existence and geographical site. Now I need hardly remark that the Mosaic narrative unquestionably professes a geographical exactness and a literal existence of the garden, as no fabled locality—no Utopia or garden of the Hesperides. I need only refer to the data afforded to us by Gen. ii. 8-14.

The Lord, it is said, planted a garden in Eden: it was "eastward;" but that does not directly indicate its site. From Gen. iv. 16, we also learn that the land of Nod where Cain dwelt (after the murder of Abel) was on the east of Eden.

A river went out and watered the garden. After passing the limits of Eden, the river is said to have divided itself, or parted, into four heads, i.e., arms or branches. The first branch was called Pison. This branch "compasseth," i.e., forms the boundary along the whole length of, "the Havilah." This country is spoken of as being a tract wherein was produced good gold, "b'dolach" (translated "bdellium") and "shoham" (translated "onyx.") The second branch was Gihon, which is described as similarly compassing the district of K[=u]sh. Here our A.V., by substituting "Ethiopia" for the original "C[=u]sh," has made a gloss rather than a translation; and this gloss has given rise to several errors of commentators in identifying the site of Eden. The Revised Version has corrected the error.

The third branch was Hiddekel, the Diklatu of the Arabs, the Tigra of the old Persians, and the Tigris of later writers. This is said to run eastward towards Assyria.[^[100]] The fourth river was the Frat or Euphrates. Observe, in passing, that the author gives no detail about the great river Euphrates, as being well known; while he adds particulars about the Tigris, and describes the Gihon and the Pison in some detail.

Now it will at once strike the reader that two of these rivers are well known to the present day. The others are not.

It is in the identification of these two, and of the districts which they "compassed," which form the difficulties of the problem. Up till recent times, it is remarkable what a variety of speculations have been attempted as to the situation of Eden. Dr. Aldis Wright, the learned author of the article "Eden" in Smith's "Biblical Dictionary," remarks: "It would be difficult, in the whole history of opinion, to find any subject which has so invited, and at the same time completely baffled, conjecture, as the Garden of Eden." And in another place he thinks that "the site of Eden will ever rank with the quadrature of the circle, and the interpretation of unfulfilled prophecy among those unsolved, and perhaps insoluble, problems which possess so strange a fascination." It is, however, to be remarked, (1)that all that was written before Professor Delitzsch's researches were made known; and (2)that really a great mass of the conjecture and speculation has been purely in the air—undertaken without any reference to the plain terms of the text to be interpreted. It is the extravagance of commentators, and their insisting on going beyond the narrative itself, that has raised such difficulties, and made the problem look more hopeless than it really is.