Garden of Eden

The Garden of Eden is, in The Urantia Book, the cultural and administrative headquarters prepared for Adam and Eve on a long, narrow peninsula projecting westward from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea 73:3.1-2. The book describes it as a real place, "the one bright spot on Urantia" in its time 73:3.6, which the Adamites left after their default and which sank beneath the Mediterranean some four thousand years later 73:7.1.

The book distinguishes this first garden from the second garden between the Tigris and Euphrates, to which Adam withdrew 76:1.1-3. It says that the biblical memory of Eden blends the two 73:3.4.

Name and purpose

According to Paper 73, the dwelling place of the Material Sons on any evolutionary world "is often called the Garden of Eden because it is characterized by the floral beauty and the botanic grandeur of Edentia," the constellation capital 73:4.1. On a normal world, the book says, the garden of the violet race becomes the second center of world culture alongside the city of the Planetary Prince 51:6.2. On Urantia, where the Planetary Prince Caligastia had rebelled, the Garden was prepared by human volunteers 73:2.3.

The Garden was never meant to be the permanent home of the Adamites. The Melchizedeks advised Adam not to begin racial blending until his family numbered half a million, after which his children were to become "emissaries of a new life to all the world" 73:7.3.

Planning and site

For almost a hundred years before Tabamantia's inspection, Van and his associates had been preaching the coming of "a promised Son of God, a racial uplifter" 73:2.1. Van, who knew that Material Sons lived in garden homes, proposed eighty-three years before Adam's arrival that they prepare one 73:2.2. He and Amadon recruited more than three thousand volunteers from their highland headquarters and sixty-one settlements, and divided them into a hundred companies 73:2.3-4. Caligastia and Daligastia tried to obstruct the work, but almost ten thousand loyal midway creatures offset them 73:2.5.

A site committee was away almost three years and returned with three candidates: an island in the Persian Gulf, the river site later used for the second garden, and the Mediterranean peninsula 73:3.1. The third was chosen almost unanimously, and two years were spent moving the world's cultural headquarters, including the tree of life, to the new site 73:3.2.

Geography

The book describes a peninsula joined to the mainland by a neck only twenty-seven miles wide at its narrowest 73:3.4. Encircling mountains and the surrounding inland sea gave it an even climate; it rained heavily on the highlands but seldom in Eden, and each night a "mist would go up" from the irrigation channels 73:3.3. A great river rose in the peninsula's highlands and flowed east through the neck and across Mesopotamia; its four tributaries were "the 'four heads' of the river which 'went out of Eden'" 73:3.4. The surrounding mountains held precious stones and metals, but "the dominant idea was to be the glorification of horticulture" 73:3.5.

Layout and life

The first work was a brick wall across the neck of the peninsula 73:4.2. A smaller outer wall enclosed a zoological garden of wild animals in twelve divisions, which served as an extra defense, with walled paths leading to the Garden's twelve gates 73:4.3. Only birds and domestic animals lived inside, and no animal was ever slaughtered within the Garden 73:4.1. All labor was voluntary; "no hirelings were ever used" 73:4.4.

Center: a stone temple of the Universal Father, in whose courtyard the tree of life grew 73:5.1 73:6.6.
North: the administrative headquarters 73:5.1.
South: homes for the workers and their families 73:5.1.
West: ground for the schools of the expected Son 73:5.1.
East: the dwellings for Adam and his offspring, "east of Eden" 73:5.1.

The plans provided homes and land for one million people 73:5.1. When Adam arrived the Garden was only a quarter finished, yet it had thousands of miles of irrigation ditches, over twelve thousand miles of paved roads and paths, and a little over five thousand brick buildings 73:5.2. Its sanitation is described as far ahead of anything previously tried on Urantia, with a covered brick-conduit disposal system built later 73:5.3-4. Only about five per cent of the land was under high cultivation; the rest was left to be finished according to Adam's ideas 73:5.6.

The western schools aimed at socialization, and anyone wishing to live in the Garden had to be "adopted" by pledging loyalty to Adam's social rule and the Father's spiritual sovereignty 74:7.2 74:7.11. The laws of the Garden were based on the older codes of Dalamatia, under seven heads 74:7.12-19.

The tree of life

The book insists that "the 'tree of life' was not a myth," while allowing that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil "may be a figure of speech" 73:6.3. The tree was a shrub of Edentia sent to the planet in Caligastia's time, which had sustained Van and Amadon in their highland retreat for more than 150,000 years 73:6.3 73:6.5. Its fruit was of use only to beings with a special complement of life, such as Adam and Eve, who ate it periodically to maintain their dual physical life 73:6.4 73:6.6.

Default and fate

Adam and Eve lived in the Garden for 117 years before the default 74:8.14. When Eve's meeting with the Nodite Cano became known, Garden dwellers destroyed a nearby Nodite settlement, and a larger Nodite army began to march on Eden 75:5.3 75:5.9. Adam chose not to fight and left with about twelve hundred followers, heading east because every other route was closed 75:6.2 76:0.1. He was not allowed to take the core of the tree of life 73:6.7.

The Nodites who occupied the Garden were told they would become "as gods" by eating the tree's fruit; they ate it for years without effect, and in one of their wars the temple and the tree were burned 73:6.7. The peninsula was overrun by Nodites for almost four thousand years until, with volcanic activity and the sinking of the Sicilian land bridge, the eastern Mediterranean floor sank and the peninsula went under over several hundred years 73:7.1. The book regards this as "a natural occurrence," not a result of Adam's mistakes, though it seems to have been timed to the readiness of the violet race to spread 73:7.2.

And this was the end of the most beautiful natural creation that Urantia has ever harbored.73:7.1

Eden and the Bible

The book presents the Genesis Eden as a memory of these events, compressed and partly confused:

Location and rivers. Genesis places four rivers in Eden, including the Euphrates and the Hiddekel (Tigris) Gn 2:10-14. The book says the "four heads" were tributaries on the Mediterranean peninsula and that they "later became confused with the branches of the rivers surrounding the second garden" 73:3.4.
The mist. Genesis says "there went up a mist from the earth" before rain Gn 2:6; the book attaches this to Eden's nightly irrigation 73:3.3.
East of Eden. Genesis plants the garden "eastward in Eden" Gn 2:8; the book uses "east of Eden" for the quarter where Adam's family lived 73:5.1 74:7.1.
The two trees. Genesis presents both trees as real Gn 2:9. The book treats the tree of life as literal and the tree of knowledge as possibly symbolic 73:6.3.
The voice in the Garden. The voice that confronts Adam and Eve in Genesis Gn 3:8-13 is, in the book, the seraph Solonia 75:4.2 75:4.8.
Expulsion. Genesis has God drive the pair out and set cherubim to guard the way to the tree Gn 3:23-24. In the book Adam leaves of his own choice to avoid war, the tree is left unguarded, and the Nodites eat its fruit to no effect 75:6.2 73:6.7.
Golden age. The book says the "golden age" is a myth, "but Eden was a fact" 74:8.14.

Index of references

The Garden of Eden is the second world center of civilization to project onto a normal planet, after the headquarters city of the Planetary Prince. A great planetary university of culture destined to endure forever 51:6.1-3

When an Adam and Eve begin their sojourn on an evolutionary world, their place of abode is often called the Garden of Eden because it is characterized by the floral beauty and the botanic grandeur of Edentia, the constellation capital. 39:5.3 51:3.2 73:4.1

Preparation

After three years the site commission selected three candidates: an island in the Persian Gulf, the river site on the Euphrates that later became the Second Garden, and a long, narrow peninsula, almost an island, projecting westward from the shores of the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The third was chosen. 73:2.3 73:3.1 76:1.3
The Garden was prepared by 3000 volunteers recruited by Van and Amadon 73:2.3
it was built 37,000 years ago 51:6.3
to establish the garden the existing residents were evicted 73:3.2 73:4
The architectural plans for Eden provided homes and abundant land for one million human beings. 73:5.1

Physical description (73:5)

The coast line of this land mass was considerably elevated, and the neck connecting with the mainland was only twenty-seven miles wide at the narrowest point. 73:3.4
At the time of Adam’s arrival, though the Garden was only one-fourth finished, it had thousands of miles of irrigation ditches and more than twelve thousand miles of paved paths and roads. 73:5.2
A zoological garden was created by building a smaller wall just outside the main wall; the intervening space, occupied by all manner of wild beasts, served as an additional defense against hostile attacks. 73:4.3
a brick wall across the neck of the peninsula was built 73:4.2-3
This Mediterranean peninsula had a salubrious climate and an equable temperature; this stabilized weather was due to the encircling mountains and to the fact that this area was virtually an island in an inland sea. 73:3.3-6
The mountains surrounding the Garden abounded in precious stones and metals, though these received very little attention. 73:3.5
there was a mount, inaugural mount, from which Adam spoke 74:2.5 74:3.5 74:4.4
The site chosen for the Garden was probably the most beautiful spot of its kind in all the world, and the climate was then ideal. 73:3.6 73:5.8 73:7.1 74:3.4
The sanitary arrangements of the Garden were far in advance of anything that had been attempted theretofore on Urantia. The drinking water of Eden was kept wholesome 73:5.3-4

Life in the Garden

Adam discouraged animal sacrifice in the Garden 76:2.3
no animals ever slaughtered in Garden of Eden 73:4.1 76:2.3
In the early days, the violet race remains relatively segregated but they receive suitable candidates from the races of the world. 51:6.1
life in the Garden of Eden was far from utopian 68:1.7

Edenites

There were 1200 loyal Edenites at time of Adan and Eve default 75:6.2
The Garden dwellers had been in contact with the Nodites since the early days of Eden. From these mixed descendants of the defaulting members of Caligastia’s staff they had received much valuable help and co-operation 75:2.5 75:3.5 77:4.1
The children of Adam, except for four years’ attendance at the western schools, lived and worked in the “east of Eden.” They were trained intellectually until they were sixteen in accordance with the methods of the Jerusem schools. From sixteen to twenty they were taught in the Urantia schools at the other end of the Garden, serving there also as teachers in the lower grades. 74:7
When word had reached the dwellers in the land of the second garden that the king and high priest of the Garden of Eden was marching on them, they had fled in haste to the eastern mountains and left the territory vacated for Edenites 76:1
When Adam elected to leave the first garden to the Nodites unopposed, he and his followers could not go west, for the Edenites had no boats suitable for such a marine adventure. 76:0.1
The Edenic ideal of family was the whole family as gardeners 84:7.8
the tongue of Garden of Eden was Andonic dialect as spoken by Amadon 74:2.2
Edenites massacred nearby Nodites upon learning of Eve’s folly with Cano 75:5.3
they practiced scrupulous burial of all waste 73:5.4
When Eden was disrupted, there were over one hundred primitive manufacturing plants in operation, and extensive trade relations with the near-by tribes had been established. 74:5.3

Destiny

after default of Adam and Eve, Adam abandoned the Garden to Nodites and caravanned to the second garden 75:6 76:0.1
After the first garden was vacated by Adam, it was occupied variously by the Nodites, Cutites, and the Suntites. It later became the dwelling place of the northern Nodites 73:7.1
4,000 years after the departure of Adam and eve, due to the violent activity of the surrounding volcanoes and the submergence of the Sicilian land bridge to Africa, the eastern floor of the Mediterranean Sea sank, carrying down beneath the waters the whole of the Garden of Eden 73:7.1-2 78:7.7

Teachings

The teachings of Adam and Eve constituted the second epochal revelation 92:4.6
7 commandments of Eden were definite taboos, expressed in the same negative form as were the most ancient prohibitions 89:1.4
the aborted teachings of Adam were carried on by the Sethite priests, and some of these truths have never been entirely lost to the world. 92:4.6
The laws of the Garden were based on the older codes of Dalamatia and were promulgated under seven heads: 74:7.12-20
# The laws of health and sanitation.
# The social regulations of the Garden.
# The code of trade and commerce.
# The laws of fair play and competition.
# The laws of home life.
# The civil codes of the golden rule.
# The seven commands of supreme moral rule.

Bible parallels

Passages that the paragraphs cited above parallel, quote or reinterpret, from Duane Faw’s Paramony cross-references. Hover a reference to read it.

Voices of the garden 39:5.3 — Gn 3:8.
Eden 51:3.2 — Gn 2:8-10.
East of Eden 73:5.1 — Gn 2:8; Gn 3:24.
Heads of rivers from Eden 73:3.4 — Gn 2:10.
Mist would go up 73:3.3 — Gn 2:6.
Leaving Eden 75:6.2 — Gn 3:23-24.
Eastward journey 76:0.1 — Gn 3:23-24.
Ten commandments as taboos 89:1.4 — Ex 20:3-17; Dt 5:7-21.

Where it appears

Garden of Eden is linked in 94 paragraphs of the text; the first 40 are listed.

Type	Places and worlds
Facts indexed	44
Linked in text	94 paragraphs
Bible parallels	8 passages
Linked from	76 articles