Memories of Eden

NO DOUBT you are acquainted with the Holy Bible’s account of man’s creation and fall into sin. Adam and Eve in a paradise garden in Eden, the tree of life, the serpent and the tree of the knowledge of good and bad are familiar features. (Gen. chaps. 2, 3) This is because they are associated with events that have had devastating effects on the human family and that have left an indelible impression on its memory. Mankind cannot forget completely that something tragic happened in Eden.

The record in the Holy Bible has been the principal factor in keeping alive the memories of Eden. However, did you know that religious ideas of many non-Christian peoples reflect what the Bible says took place in Eden?

The religious ideas of these peoples, of course, are not exactly like the record in the Bible. Nevertheless, they do contain similarities to certain features of the Biblical account, and this makes them most interesting and intriguing to consider.

First of all, they show how empty-headed men can become in their reasonings when they are ignorant of God’s truth or when they turn away from it. Also, the many polytheistic ideas throw into bold relief the beauty and majesty of the simple, pure, truthful account in Genesis. This enhances our appreciation of the Bible as the inspired Word of God. Further, the very existence of so many diverse religious views, each containing some distorted features of the true account, offers confirmative evidence that there was a paradise garden that was lost to mankind.​—Rom. 1:21-23.

Why They Differ from the Genesis Account

Before considering some of the religious ideas of various peoples, we should know why they are different from the Biblical account. Yes, how did these differences come about? Accurate Bible history shows that at one time all mankind spoke one language and knew of the events that occurred in Eden. Adam likely talked about them to his offspring and thus these events must have become common knowledge.

The eight survivors of the flood of Noah’s day also passed on the information about Eden to their children. However, after some time the majority of men began rebelling against God under a tyrant named Nimrod. It is reasonable to believe that by his proddings these rebellious ones began distorting the truth about man’s origin in expression of their defiance of God. Finally, Jehovah God broke up their common-language unity by causing them suddenly to speak different languages. By this act, he forced them to scatter to various parts of the earth.​—Gen. 10:8-12; 11:1-9.

Though these rebellious peoples now spoke different languages, they did not forget their previous religious beliefs. So, wherever they migrated they carried these beliefs with them and expressed them in their new tongues. Of course, their new environments and the cultures they developed in various places helped to modify such beliefs. Thus in the course of time each group came to have its own particular version of the features connected with man’s beginning in paradise and his loss of it by sinful disobedience.

Also not to be discounted is the insidious influence of Jehovah God’s enemy, Satan the Devil. Since he could not remove the evidence of Eden, he would see to it that the facts about it were thoroughly distorted.​—John 8:44.

We can liken this entire development to that form of music known as theme and variations. The simple, pure theme is stated and then a series of variations follow in which the theme is embellished and even distorted by changes in tempo, harmony and accompaniment. Despite all these variations, one can still faintly hear the original theme or parts of it. So with the pure, historical facts about the events in Eden. Time, ethnic culture, geography and demonic influence have evidently all played their parts in forming distorted variations on what originally happened.

Ancient Memories of Eden

Ancient peoples had memories of Eden. Archaeologists, in digging up the remains of their civilizations, have found much evidence of this. Clay tablets, cylinder seals, papyrus sheets, monuments, and so forth, have been discovered containing the religious views of the Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, and other peoples.

Though they lived in various localities and had divergent religious beliefs, these ancients apparently had some recollections of Eden. Their written records indicate this. The author of Halley’s Bible Handbook writes: “These old records, carved on stone and clay, at the very dawn of history, in the original home of man . . . are evidence that the main features of the Biblical story of Adam became deeply fixed in the thought of primitive man.”

Pertinent to this are the remarks of archaeologist Sir Charles Marston in his book The Bible Comes Alive:

“As one goes over the ancient cuneiform writings, some before Abraham, and the engraved seals and stone carvings from Babylonia, Assyria, and other early civilizations, a remarkable trend of evidence is revealed to us. Even from the comparatively small proportion of these relics of a remote past that come to our notice, we derive the impression that the stories of the Creation, the Temptation and Fall of Man . . . as described in Genesis, were then matters of current knowledge. And that perhaps under a polytheistic setting, they were taught in the schools of Ur of the Chaldees.”

Reflections in Babylonia and Assyria

What exactly were these matters that were perhaps taught under a polytheistic setting? Note, for example, the belief expressed in certain Babylonian inscriptions. Halley reports that these ancient religious writings claim that “near Eridu was a garden, in which was a mysterious Sacred Tree, a Tree of Life, planted by the gods, whose roots were deep, while its branches reached to heaven, protected by guardian spirits, and no man enters.” It is seen from this that some memorable features of Eden’s events apparently still lingered in Babylonian minds.

The foregoing belief seems to indicate that the tree of life was something that the ancients could not quite forget about Eden. John Elder in his book Prophets, Idols and Diggers observes: “In old Babylonian literature there are frequent references to a Tree of Life, such as is mentioned in Genesis 2:9. Representations of the tree are frequent in alabaster reliefs and seals. Its fruits were supposed to confer eternal life on those who ate of them. One cylinder seal impression among those found seems to be a depiction of the temptation and Tree of Life.”

The cylinder seal to which Mr. Elder refers is evidently the one housed in the British Museum, in London, England. It is sometimes referred to as the “Temptation Seal.” The impression or picture it leaves when it is rolled on soft clay reflects Edenic happenings. A tree is shown in the center with a man seated on the right and a woman seated on the left. Behind the woman a serpent is seen standing erect as if it is speaking to her. Though the full meaning behind the symbolisms of this Babylonian seal is not known, the resemblances in it justify mention.

Assyrian memories of Eden were not unlike those of Babylon. This is because Assyria’s religious ideas were almost the same as those held by the Babylonians. In fact, generally speaking, the Assyrian gods and goddesses are identical with the Babylonian deities except for one named Asshur.

Prominent among the Assyrian memories of Eden is their sacred tree or “tree of life.” The motif of a sacred tree being guarded by two winged creatures appears often in the sculpture found in their palaces. In some cases the winged creatures are half animal and half human. These distorted mythical representations are perhaps recollections of the posting of cherubs “to guard the way to the tree of life.”​—Gen. 3:24.

In 1932 a stone seal was found twelve miles north of Nineveh. This seal, now located in the University Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, appears to reflect another ancient memory of Eden. It shows a man and a woman naked and walking bent down as if brokenhearted and downcast. Also a serpent is shown following them. Dr. E. A. Speiser, who found the seal, said it was “strongly suggestive of the Adam and Eve story.”

Edenic Memories in Sumer and Egypt

Another people who had memories of Eden were the Sumerians. Their clay-tablet literature shows that they believed in a paradise that was located in the land of Dilmun, probably in southwest Persia. Utu, the sun-god, it is said, was ordered to water Dilmun with fresh water brought up from the earth, which water turned it into a luxuriant garden. This suggests the fact, expressed at Genesis 2:6, that the ground was watered by a mist that came up from the earth. When Enki, the water-god, ate of the precious plants in this garden, the Sumerian literature says, the curse of death came upon him. This seems to hearken back to Adam and Eve’s eating the forbidden fruit.​—Gen. 3:6.

The ancient Egyptians, too, had Edenic recollections, as evident in their religious thinking. One of them was their belief that, after their Pharaoh died, there was a tree of life of which he must eat to be sustained in the realm of his heavenly father, Re. This was a most unusual idea for the Egyptians to hold. Why? Because their country is one the landscape of which is relatively treeless, trees not being a prominent feature of it. Yet in spite of this the memory of that tree of life in Eden of which man never partook seemingly persisted.​—Gen. 2:9.

Another echo of Edenic history in Egyptian religious beliefs involves the serpent. To be sure, their view of it was corrupted by demon influence. The Egyptians regarded the serpent as a symbol of wisdom, and they worshiped it. Artistic representations of it were part of the headdress of the Pharaohs and adorned monuments, temples, tombs and statues of gods. How such worship ties in with Eden becomes clear to us when we recall that Satan the Devil presented his lies to Eve through a serpent. In so doing, he made himself appear as a source of higher wisdom from whom she could gain greater knowledge.​—Gen. 3:1-5.

Other Peoples with Recollections of Eden

There are many other races whose beliefs and mythologies are mingled with memorable features of Eden. The book The Migration of Symbols by G. d’Alviella has a chapter of more than fifty pages devoted to the symbolisms and mythology associated with sacred trees. Its text and numerous illustrations give indications of reflections of the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and bad in the beliefs of the Phoenicians, Syrians, Persians, Greeks, Sicilians, Mayans, Mexicans (Aztecs), Javanese, Japanese, Chinese and the natives of India.

For example, we note in this chapter “that the Persians possessed the tradition of a Tree of Life, the haoma, whose sap conferred immortality.” Also “that the belief in a Tree of Life existed amongst the Chinese. Traditions mention seven wonderful trees . . . One of them, which was of jade, conferred immortality by its fruit.”

Furthermore, this same chapter tells us that Scandinavian mythology contains a distorted memory of this feature of Eden. It mentions a sacred tree called Yggdrasill, under one of the roots of which was said to spring a well in which all knowledge and wisdom dwell. Another legend speaks of a goddess who kept in a box the Apples of Immortality, of which the gods would partake in order to renew their youth.

Turning to A.S. Murray’s Manual of Mythology, we read on page 173 that “the Gardens of the Hesperides with the golden apples were believed to exist in some island in the ocean . . . They were far-famed in antiquity; for it was there that springs of nectar flowed by the couch of Zeus, and there that the earth displayed the rarest blessings of the gods: it was another Eden.” The tree that produced the golden apples was entrusted to the care of the Hesperides, the daughters of Atlas. However, they could not resist the temptation to pluck and eat its fruit. So the serpent Ladon was placed to keep watch over it. And who held to this idea? The ancient Greeks.

Many of the natives of Papua in the Pacific believe in an invisible tree in and around which all those who have led good lives before they died live eternally, happy and free from care. Harold Bailey in his book The Lost Language of Symbolism reports what a visitor there observed about this belief. He noted that “it is not hard to understand that [the Papuan] still possesses dim memories of faiths learnt from lost peoples of higher development when the world was younger and perhaps nearer its Creator than it is to-day.”

As for what appear to be memories of Eden in the Americas, Harold Bailey writes:

“There is a Mexican manuscript in the British Museum wherein two figures are represented plucking the fruits of the so-called ‘Tree of Our Life.’ The Mayas and other peoples of CENTRAL AMERICA always represented their sacred trees with two branches shooting horizontally from the top of the trunk, thus presenting the appearance of a cross . . . and the first Spanish missionaries in MEXICO found to their great astonishment that the cross was already in use there ‘as symbolising a Tree of Life.’”

As for the serpent, many North American Indian tribes hold it in veneration as did the ancient Egyptians. In fact, serpent worship has infected peoples in every corner of the globe. Each group worships a particular snake indigenous to their land.

And there are many distorted views held by various peoples about a paradise garden that they hope to attain someday after they die.

Man’s Memories or God’s Purpose​—Which?

Just this brief consideration of man’s memories of Eden shows us that the majority of mankind have been “tossed about as by waves and carried hither and thither by every wind of teaching by means of the trickery of men, by means of cunning in contriving error.” (Eph. 4:14) Also they have paid “attention to misleading inspired utterances and teachings of demons.’’ (1 Tim. 4:1) The variations and distortions have all but hidden the features marking the true events that took place in Eden. If we had to depend on these vagaries of men’s imaginations to learn the truth about our first parents, we would never be able to do so.

How thankful we should be to have Jehovah God’s precious Word of truth, the Holy Bible! It is there that we can find the factual history of Eden. And how we should rejoice to learn that Jehovah God has not forgotten Eden and the promise he made therein. (Gen. 3:15) This is the promise to destroy Satan the Devil and restore paradise to man, not merely in one section of the earth, but in every quarter. It is to this restored paradise that Jesus promised to resurrect the evildoer who was executed with him.​—Luke 23:43; 2 Pet. 3:13; Ps. 72:16.

The opportunity to enter this paradise that God will restore is open to you now. By studying the Bible you can learn how you can do so. Jehovah’s witnesses would like to help you do this. Why not take advantage of their offer?​—Rev. 22:17.

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Ancient Assyrian sculptured slab showing cherubic figures standing before a sacred tree. Did the Assyrians know about the tree of life in Eden?

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An ancient Babylonian cylinder seal that seems to echo what happened in Eden nearly 6,000 years ago. Can you see the resemblances?

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Heads of serpents adorning the temple of Quetzalcoatl give evidence of Aztec serpent worship in Mexico