In the first account we are told that God made man, male and female,
and said to them "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and
subdue it."
In the second account only the man is made, and he is put in a garden
"to dress it and to keep it." He is not told to subdue the earth, but to
dress and keep a garden.
In the first account man is given every herb bearing seed upon the face
of the earth and the fruit of every tree for food, and in the second,
he is given only the fruit of all the trees in the garden with the
exception "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" which was a
deadly poison.
There was issuing from this garden a river that was parted into four
heads. The first of these, Pison, compassed the whole land of Havilah,
the second, Gihon, that compassed the whole land of Ethiopia.
The third, Heddekel, that flowed toward the east of Assyria, and the
fourth, the Euphrates. Where are these four rivers now? The brave prow
of discovery has visited every sea; the traveler has pressed with weary
feet the soil of every clime; and yet there has been found no place from
which four rivers sprang. The Euphrates still journeys to the gulf, but
where are Pison, Gihon and the mighty Heddekel? Surely by going to the
source of the Euphrates we ought to find either these three rivers or
their ancient beds. Will some minister when he answers the "Mistakes of
Moses" tell us where these rivers are or were? The maps of the world are
incomplete without these mighty streams. We have discovered the sources
of the Nile; the North Pole will soon be touched by an American; but
these three rivers still rise in unknown hills, still flow through
unknown lands, and empty still in unknown seas.
The account of these four rivers is what the Rev. David Swing would call
"a geographical poem." The orthodox clergy cover the whole affair with
the blanket of allegory, while the "scientific" Christian folks talk
about cataclysms, upheavals, earthquakes, and vast displacements of the
earth's crust.
The question, then arises, whether within the last six thousand years
there have been such upheavals and displacements? Talk as you will about
the vast "creative periods" that preceded the appearance of man; it
is, according to the Bible, only about six thousand years since man was
created. Moses gives us the generations of men from Adam until his day,
and this account cannot be explained away by calling centuries, days.
According to the second account of creation, these four rivers were
made after the creation of man, and consequently they must have been
obliterated by convulsions of Nature within six thousand years.
Can we not account for these contradictions, absurdities, and falsehoods
by simply saying that although the writer may have done his level best,
he failed because he was limited in knowledge, led away by tradition,
and depended too implicitly upon the correctness of his imagination?
Is not such a course far more reasonable than to insist that all these
things are true and must stand though every science shall fall to mental
dust?
Can any reason be given for not allowing man to eat of the fruit of the
tree of knowledge? What kind of tree was that? If it is all an allegory,
what truth is sought to be conveyed? Why should God object to that fruit
being eaten by man? Why did he put it in the midst of the garden? There
was certainly plenty of room outside. If he wished to keep man and this
tree apart, why did he put them together? And why, after he had eaten,
was he thrust out? The only answer that we have a right to give, is
the one given in the Bible. "And the Lord God said, Behold the man has
become as one of us to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth
his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever:
Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till
the ground from whence he was taken."
Will some minister, some graduate of Andover, tell us what this means?
Are we bound to believe it without knowing what the meaning is? If it is
a revelation, what does it reveal? Did God object to education then, and
does that account for the hostile attitude still assumed by theologians
toward all scientific truth? Was there in the garden a tree of life, the
eating of which would have rendered Adam and Eve immortal? Is it true,
that after the Lord God drove them from the garden that he placed upon
its Eastern side "Cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way
to keep the way of the tree of life?" Are the Cherubim and the flaming
sword guarding that tree still, or was it destroyed, or did its rotting
trunk, as the Rev. Robert Collyer suggests, "nourish a bank of violets"?
What objection could God have had to the immortality of man? You
see that after all, this sacred record, instead of assuring us of
immortality, shows us only how we lost it. In this there is assuredly
but little consolation.
According to this story we have lost one Eden, but nowhere in the Mosaic
books are we told how we may gain another. I know that the Christians
tell us there is another, in which all true believers will finally be
gathered, and enjoy the unspeakable happiness of seeing the unbelievers
in hell; but they do not tell us where it is.
Some commentators say that the Garden of Eden was in the third
heaven--some in the fourth, others have located it in the moon, some
in the air beyond the attraction of the earth, some on the earth, some
under the earth, some inside the earth, some at the North Pole, others
at the South, some in Tartary, some in China, some on the borders of the
Ganges, some in the island of Ceylon, some in Armenia, some in Africa,
some under the Equator, others in Mesopotamia, in Syria, Persia, Arabia,
Babylon, Assyria, Palestine and Europe. Others have contended that
it was invisible, that it was an allegory, and must be spiritually
understood.
But whether you understand these things or not, you must believe them.
You may be laughed at in this world for insisting that God put Adam into
a deep sleep and made a woman out of one of his ribs, but you will be
crowned and glorified in the next. You will also have the pleasure of
hearing the gentlemen howl there, who laughed at you here. While you
will not be permitted to take any revenge, you will be allowed to
smilingly express your entire acquiescence in the will of God. But where
is the new Eden? No one knows. The one was lost, and the other has not
been found.
Is it true that man was once perfectly pure and innocent, and that
he became degenerate by disobedience? No. The real truth is, and the
history of man shows, that he has advanced. Events, like the pendulum of
a clock have swung forward and back ward, but after all, man, like
the hands, has gone steadily on. Man is growing grander. He is not
degenerating. Nations and individuals fail and die, and make room
for higher forms. The intellectual horizon of the world widens as the
centuries pass. Ideals grow grander and purer; the difference between
justice and mercy becomes less and less; liberty enlarges, and love
intensifies as the years sweep on. The ages of force and fear, of
cruelty and wrong, are behind us and the real Eden is beyond. It is said
that a desire for knowledge lost us the Eden of the past; but whether
that is true or not, it will certainly give us the Eden of the future.