In Genesis 2:8 we are told that God planted a garden in Eden, and we call this garden, the Garden of Eden. Men have been searching for the Garden of Eden for centuries, and some have even announced that they’ve found it. However, I hardly think so! If there was a worldwide flood (Genesis 7 & 8) the typography of the Earth would be decidedly different afterward than how it looked prior to such an event. Later in the chapter we are told that a river went out of the garden and separated into four other rivers, two known, but two others completely unknown. Men often name things in new places after the names of places they knew earlier and remind them of where they had come from. There is no good reason not to believe the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were so named by Noah to remind him and his descendants of the word of God about their origins, when God created mankind.[1]
Many Biblical scholars have noticed the similarity of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2 & 3 to the Temple/Tabernacle of the Mosaic Covenant. The Garden was planted eastward, and the Temple/Tabernacle faced east, toward the rising of the sun. The Most Holy Place was where we’d find the Presence of God, and this answers to the Garden that God planted, in which he placed mankind. The Holy Place was where the priests of the Lord ate the shewbread and prayed before the golden altar, and the room was lit by the golden lampstand. This was Eden and answered to the light of the word of God, the light of prayer/communication with God and the light of table fellowship between the men of God.
In Genesis 2 there was nothing between the Most Holy Place and the Holy Place, but after the rebellion in Genesis 3, God prevented mankind from entering his Presence, and this answers to the curtain that hung between the two holy places in the Temple. Still further away in Eden there was an altar, where Cain and Able sacrificed, and this answers to the outer court of the Temple/Tabernacle, where men confessed their sins before the Lord.
The Hebrew word for garden is gan (H1588) and stands of an enclosed or a fenced in garden. It translated into the Septuagint by the Greek word paradeisos (G3857) and is usually translated to the English word paradise! This same Greek word was used by Jesus, while he hung from the cross. He spoke with the thief/robber who asked Jesus to remember him when he (Jesus) came into his Kingdom. Jesus told the man, “Today, I say to you: ‘You will be with me in paradise’” (G3857; cp. Luke 23:43), which, in the context of our study, meant Jesus was saying the thief/robber would be with Jesus in the Garden of Eden, meaning in the Presence of God. In the Book of Revelation Jesus is again speaking, this time to the church at Ephesus, which is one of the seven churches that, spiritually speaking were present in the Temple in the Heavens (Revelation 1:11, 20). Jesus told Ephesus, “He that overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7).
Finally, Paul mentions that he knew a man in Christ (2Corinthians 12:2), who had a vision (verse-1), and he was caught up to paradise (G3857), which I, personally, believe to be the same John who, in a vision that he was given, was caught up in the presence of God on the Day of the Lord (Revelation 1:9-10). Paul tells us that, while this man was in paradise, he heard and saw things that he couldn’t describe in human language (2Corinthians 12:4). Thus, it seems, at least to me, that the Garden of Eden, while a physical place on Earth in the time of Adam and Eve, actually answers spiritually to being in God’s Presence. The words spoken in “John’s vision,” although understood by him while he was in that state, cannot be expressed in human language. Rather, the Garden of Eden is now a spiritual place, a place where we find ourselves, when we come into the Presence of God. But, more about this in the next study.
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[1] I have changed this study from its original state to reflect something closer to the truth. In the original version, I erroneously made the Garden of Eden entirely spiritual. It was, in fact, a physical place with spiritual significance. (August 28, 2025)
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