Did the Garden of Eden Ever Exist?

Did the Garden of Eden actually exist or is it merely the stuff of myth and fable? At one time no one doubted its existence,   but skeptics from the time of Plato and Aristotle abound -- even emerging from the world's religions.

 Aristotle and Plato, no doubt witnessing all the suffering in the world claimed that the idea such a paradise as the Garden of Eden could have existed was ridiculous.  "The earth is too wretched a place they would argue".

Early attempts to counter this argument seem hilarious when you look back at them, but were taken quiet seriously by some at the time. These included the idea that God had actually created this paradise on an extra high mountain peak -- just above this degraded earth. Others claimed that it had been at the North Pole or the South Pole.

Skeptics of course were right. Such claims were the stuff of fantasy or science fiction, but that does not mean that the Garden of Eden never existed.

 Bible says it actually existed. The Bible at Genesis 2: 6-14 says it near a river,   which turned into four "heads" or rivers:  the Pishon - "encircling the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold....bdellium gum and the onyx stone"; the Gihon -- "the one encircling the entire land of Cush."; the Hiddekel; -- "the one going to the east of Assyria." and the Euphrates.

So have archaeologists or geologists, following these descriptions been able to find any trace of the Garden? No!  And most have dismissed the idea of a Garden of Eden as nonsense -- a belief  belief shared  even many religious leaders who view much of of the Bible as myth.

But, are they right? Jesus would say no. And he would have witnessed everything that happened at the time of creation from the heavens. He believed in the existence of Adam and Eve and their paradise home.He spoke of them as being real people. Not allegorical figures.  Was Jesus deceived or was he a liar? Neither of these notions is feasible.

So what could have happened to the Garden of Eden?  Quiet simply it could have been obliterated by nature over time. Remember we are speaking of something that existed over 6000 years ago and the Garden was in an earthquake belt that today accounts for 17 percent of the world's earthquakes.  over the centuries these could have changed this area drastically -- even by the time of Moses who wrote about Adam and Eve  2500 years later.

And there was something else that could have made drastic changes in the georgraphy of the Garden of Eden and surrounding areas over the centuries  -- the Flood of Noah's day. The power of water, as seen during the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami, is devastating, capable of making huge changes in the surface of the earth -erasing the Garden from the surface of the earth.


This is something that God would have permitted. Remember, he had blocked all access to it with angels as described in the Bible. Don't believe it never existed just because we can't find it.


God likely never wanted it to be found after the rebellion of Adam and Eve.