In Genesis 2:16–17, God commands Adam not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: >"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.'" (ESV) This tree seems to serve no immediate nutritional or practical purpose for Adam and Eve, yet it is placed prominently in the garden. Given this, I’m wondering whether God’s primary purpose for establishing the tree was to present a moral choice — a test of obedience — that would foster spiritual maturity, trust, and relational depth with Him. Was the tree intended as a tool to develop spiritual growth through obedience?

Christians across denominations appear to believe the snake who tempted Eve in Eden was actually Satan. If the being who tempted Eve was actually Satan, why were snakes cursed to crawl on their bellies and eat dust for all time? Do Christians believe God knew the snake was actually Satan? Why do Christians believe snakes have moral culpability for what Satan did?

I was reading a (rather sacrilegious) story the other day in which God walks from the location of Eden to the point where the Ark landed, and it got me thinking... Speculation about where Eden might have been is fairly common. However, Scripture says that "the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished" (2 Peter 3:6), and modern Scriptural science believes that the Flood scoured the world so completely that virtually no trace of the old remains, and that any attempt to correlate pre-Flood geography to post-Flood geography is futile. **When is the earliest known reference to the idea that the location of the Garden of Eden corresponds to some existing, post-Flood location?**

As I understand it, when Adam and Eve committed the Original Sin, God cast them out from the Garden of Eden to live in the planet we have now. To cast someone out, means there must be 2 places, here and there. This gives me the impression of the Garden being a separate place from current Earth. If that is the case, why make a planet as big as ours is (in relation to its then-current inhabitants), only to focus on a Garden? Why not make a whole perfect planet? If the entire earth was the Garden, how does one get cast out of it? Is it just a fancy way of saying "So God made the planet kind of sucks in comparison"? That is my opinion, which I have shown some reasoning for. However, I seek to know if the Bible's account can be shown to support this, or if it does not allow for any such idea.

Eating a [fruit](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%203:3&version=NIV)\* is not even a real wicked deed like killing somebody or something. Why did this whole sin thing get started with something so innocuous that by today's standard it wouldn't even be considered a sin? \* I'm pretty sure it was a fig.

I am trying to figure out if the paradise mentioned by Jesus several times in scripture is the same garden that Adam and Eve lived in till they were sent out. The first mention of this paradise is the scene at the crucifixion of Jesus where he tells the thief at the right that the he will be with him in paradise after he repented. **Luke 23:43** >Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” The second mention of the paradise of God is in the book of Revelation which was shown to John By Jesus who appeared to him while he was in jail in the island of Patmos. Jesus promises the saints who overcome the world the right to the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. **Revelation 2:7** >He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. This same tree is mentioned being in the garden of Eden and is protected by a flaming sword that turns in all directions. **Genesis 3:22** >And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever. So if the tree of life is one, can we conclude that the Garden of Eden is the Paradise of God? And if that is true then did Adam and Eve live in a spiritual paradise of God in the flesh before being sent forth from the garden? Adam and Eve being sent from a spiritual dwelling to a physical dwelling here on earth is not impossible because Jesus who is the second Adam left his spiritual dwelling and came to the physical world to be crucified, this movement between the two worlds is not new. Besides the saints with their resurrected bodies inherit the garden.

In writing down her visions of the Creation and Fall of Man and of all Biblical events, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich mentions a Prophet Mountain from where she has seen Paradise, she writes. Is this a mountain in/near Jerusalem? Which mountain is or may be meant? She mentions Mount Olivet later on.

I can't remember seeing paintings where Adam, Eve and the snake are depicted in paradise and the snake still having its legs. Are there paintings like that? I guess the snake must have depicted with legs in medieval paintings as it would be accurate. Links to prominent paintings of that kind would be appreciated.

After Lucifer and the fallen angels were hurled away from Heaven and landed on Earth instead of hell, because Earth was once paradise before the fall of man and Satan and his demons were sent there, if Satan weren't to persuade Eve to eat of the *fruit of good and evil*, would Satan and his demons live in earth forever and would have not been damned. Have any biblical scholars or theologians written the question following: **Would the Serpent (Satan) have dwelled eternally on earth if the fruit was not bitten?**

**Genesis 2:15(NIV)** > The LORD God took the man and put him in the **Garden of Eden** to work it > and take care of it. I'm curious to know, now, **in which which country is the Garden of Eden located?** (which is mentioned in Genesis)

When Adam was created, there was no sin in this world. We are told that the wages of sin are death. My assumption therefore would be that prior to sin, nothing died. So this leads me to a bit of a dilemma, is the biocycle (for example composting) death? Below are some commentaries on Genesis 2:15 (from biblehub.com): > To dress it and to keep it.—The first word literally means to work it; > for though a paradise, yet the garden had to be tilled and planted. > Seeds must be sown and the cultivated plots kept in order; but all > this really added to Adam’s happiness, because the adâmâh, as yet > uncursed, responded willingly to the husbandman’s care. The other > word, “to keep it,” implies, however, some difficulty and danger. > Though no unpropitious weather, nor blight nor mildew, spoiled the > crop, yet apparently it had to be guarded against the incursion of > wild animals and birds, and protected even against the violence of > winds and the burning heat of the sun. > Also, there is true pleasure in the business God calls us to, and > employs us in. Adam could not have been happy if he had been idle: it > is still God's law, He that will not work has no right to eat, 2Th > 3:10. > Having prepared the garden for man's reception, the Lord God took the > man. "Not physically lifting him up and putting him down in the > garden, but simply exerting an influence upon him which induced him, > in the exercise of his free agency, to go. He went in consequence of a > secret impulse or an open command of his Maker" (Bush). And put him > into the garden; literally, caused him to rest in it as an abode of > happiness and peace. To dress it. I.e. to till, cultivate, and work > it. This would almost seem to hint that the aurea aetas of classical > poetry was but a dream - a reminiscence of Eden, perhaps, but > idealized. Even the plants, flowers, and trees of Eden stood in need > of cultivation from the hand of man, and would speedily have > degenerated without his attention. And to keep it. Neither were the > animals all so peaceful and domesticated that Adam did not need to > fence his garden against their depredations. **Doubtless there is here > too an ominous hint of the existence of that greater adversary against > whom he was appointed to watch.** This suggests to me that Lucifer may have already been cast down to the earth prior to the creation of man as I cannot see what relevance degradation would have to a perfect creation? Even tilling the soil does not seem at all consistent with the reason why we do it today. We till the soil today because it serves the purpose of keeping weeds at bay and ensuring adequite aeration of the soil, however, surely in a perfect creation, the many animals and creatures that dig would have served this purpose in the biocycle of the garden? It makes me wonder why the need for Adam to cultivate...was it because of the presence of Satan already in the garden adversely influencing God's creation even before Adam and Eve sinned? If the above is true, then this would seem to me to indicate that the universal impact of Lucifer's rebellion had far greater consequences than just the sin of Adam and Eve...it [evil] had already begun to exert his influence even over creation before man sinned...Adam was in fact tending the garden to guard against it. So this seems to suggest to me that the early Eden biocycle may have been at risk of infection by sin outside that of the sin of man. Does this mean the biocycle was a sinful process...it would seem that if Adam needed to tend to the garden (pruning, cultivating, dressing etc), there was in fact a less than adequite cycle of life at the time of his creation. I am not a theistic evolutionist, however, if they were to jump on this bandwagon? Thoughts?

I've lately been interested in the life of the people in Eden. According to Emanuel Swedenborg, how separated is it from the life we are living today? How did husbands and wives interact? What were their daily routines or lifestyles?

Since there isn't any text that clearly points to the spirit of Satan possessing the serpent so that he would lie to Adam and Eve and cause them to eat from the forbidden fruit, is it a possibility that the serpent could have acted on his own to deceive them? This is because the second account of the Genesis stories of creation give the serpent a unique attribute. *Genesis 3:1* >Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. It is already clear from the verse above that the snake was created stubborn by God for this very moment. Mainstream Christians assume that it was the spirit of fallen cherub Lucifer that possessed the serpent and caused the deception, but since there isn't any text in the Bible that clearly points this out, how do we know that the serpent did not act on his own to deceive them? Unless Lucifer was an appointed Cherub in the garden of Eden prior to his fall and then he would launch his attack on the creation by possessing the serpent, but it's a fact that spirits cannot possess animals. The Balaam story is that God made the donkey speak and not possess it to cause it to speak. Unless the devil had the ability to cause the serpent to speak, but where does he get the power to do that when no one had sinned in God's creation to give him that authority?

In Augustine's four stages of the Christian life, is the Reborn Man in the same state as the Pre-Fall Man? In which state was Christ the man while on earth? [Editor's note: OP refers to the 4 stages mentioned in Augustine's [*Enchiridion*, Ch. 118](https://biblehub.com/library/augustine/the_enchiridion/chapter_118_the_four_stages_of.htm) . [From OP's comment:] The first question is on what Augustine really meant, because both have the same able to sin and able to not sin. The second is an application of the fourfold state. My information and knowledge is based on [this]( http://monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/four-fold.html) .

I am having serious problems interpreting this passage from Genesis involving the Garden of Eden. According to Genesis 2:8-17, where the creation of the Garden is described, it seems to say that the Garden of Eden was created on the sixth day, but Genesis 1:9-13 says that it was only on the third day that God created the plants and grasses on earth - wouldn't that also include Eden with the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Is Genesis 2:8-17 just a "recap" of Genesis 1:9-13?

In a comment to another question, someone commented that the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are "clearly" symbolic and not actual trees. I was surprised by that position. I think it's certainly possible that the trees are symbolic, but it's not obvious to me that God didn't use actual trees in Eden. I am curious about what different denominations say about the literalness of the trees in Eden. I see three possible options: 1. The denomination teaches that the trees were actual trees 2. The denomination teaches that the trees were symbolic of something else 3. The denomination doesn't say definitively one way or the other I would like an overview of which of the above positions is taken by different denominations across Christianity. *I think that this question is following the guidelines on overview questions as described here , but let me know if it needs to be adjusted to be on-topic.*

There is general agreement that Satan had already rebelled when Eden was created and that Eve sinned just a few hours/days after creation. Are there any hypotheses about how satan got into Eden immediately after its creation? It's rather unbelievable that he was admitted there after he had been banned from Heaven. Secondary questions with no answers are: how could he take the shape of a serpent, speak Eve's language, convince her etc.

Genesis 2:7 states the warning given to Adam that if he disobeyed God’s command, he would surely die. Since God spoke with him after he sinned, obviously his body didn’t die. I’m looking for clarity.

In the book of Genesis, the serpent speaks to Eve at Genesis 3:1-5. > 1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the > LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You > must not eat from any tree in the garden?’ ” > > 2 The woman answered the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of > the garden, 3 but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the > garden, God has said, ‘You must not eat of it or touch it, or you will > die.’ ” > > 4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent told her. 5 “For God knows that > in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be > like God, knowing good and evil.” This happens in the the Garden of Eden. What scriptural basis is there for believing animals talking was normal before Adam and Eve left the Garden?

Are there hints in the Bible or are there any hypotheses about the period of time Adam and Eve sojourned in Eden after their creation?