So I'm assuming you all know the story: God creates a beautiful garden for Adam and Eve, who are created completely innocent. The snake shows up and tempts Eve to taste the fruit, who then tempts Adam, and so God expels them from the garden to live a life of suffering and death. It's the foundation of the notion of original sin and the biblical origin of the idea that we're all born bad people.
Dr Stavrakopoulou (I'll call her Dr Stavra for short) thinks that the origin of this story is not what we'd think. She believes that Eden was a real place on Earth, a man-made garden created by man.
In ancient Near-Eastern culture, kings were seen to have a special link to the Gods. They were the connection between the physical world and the heavens. One of the roles of the king would be to construct a lavish garden for a God to dwell in, and some of these extravagant gardens are pictured on reliefs such as the one featured on the right from Nineveh. It matches descriptions of the Garden of Eden, with flowing water. It also has a very visible tower on it belonging to a king. Gardens such as this were believed to be a place where there is a true connection with God, unlike anywhere else.
Dr Stavra therefore believes that Eden could have been made by human hands. Not only that, but she also believes that Adam himself was a king. He was the gardener of God, given the task of keeping the garden and looking after it, all the while maintaining a close relationship with God, similar to the Near-Eastern kings. The fact that Adam was a king is not mentioned in Genesis, however Stavra claims that an earlier biblical account is a previous version of the story, and it describes the fall of the king from his garden.
The sin in this case was not eating a fruit. In Ezekiel 28:6-19, a king is described as having gained too much ego and considering himself to be as good as God. This is comparable to the Genesis version, where eating the fruit results in having knowledge like God does. God sends a message to this king, the King of Tyre:
"You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you. [...] Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you." - Ezekeil 28:11-15.
This much earlier mention of Eden says that the king believed himself to be "as wise as God" and had participated too much in dodgy trade business and violence. The punishment God gave him was to send all his enemies against him in an act of defiance to his reign and to bring him down, banishing him and all his successors from the throne. It speaks of a fire which burned down his palace in front of him and his people.
It is believable enough that a king's ego could turn nasty and cause people to want to bring him and his kingdom to an end. However, Dr Stavra's claims become a bit more bizarre. She claims that the Garden of Eden may not have been a garden at all, but a temple.
1 Kings 6 tells the story of King Solomon building a grand temple to God in which he can dwell, and she believes it was this temple which was the Garden of Eden in which the King and God could have an intimate relationship. But how can a temple be a garden? The passage describes the temple as having walls not of stone but of fine cedar, with the floor made of pine and no stone to be seen. Into the stone was carved gourds, palm trees and blooming flowers. Cherubims of olive wood guarded the temple, as they did in the Genesis account of Eden. There were pillars, at the top of which was images of two hundred pomegranates and lilies, and a vast image of "the sea" stood upon statues of bulls. There were many basins and "sprinkling bowls" and gold images of flowers and leaves adorned the entire interior of the temple. It was a truly magnificent place.
The king says that this is a house for God, and God responds to him graciously and says that if the king were to ever fall out of line, he would smite the temple and cause all his enemies to turn against him and his city. Later on, God is displeased with Solomon and tells his enemies that he is going to take the kingdom from the hands of his successors and give it to those who will overthrow him. Apparently, Soloman's 700 wives and 300 concubines had turned him away from God and made him worship false idols, so his position as king was taken from him by God.
So this is Dr Stavra's explanation for Genesis. But what about Eve and the snake? Well she states that the symbol of the snake, before the book of Genesis, was a valuable religious symbol and wa
s worshiped in Christianity, for example the staff that Moses carried had the form of a snake. Snakes were also used in medicine and the snake is still visible on the emblem of pharmacies to this day.
Somewhere between these stories, snake-worship became associated with evil. Dr Stavra seems to believe that after the king showed his true colours, his ideas of snake worship also became evil and demonised.
As for Eve, it is common in the New Testament for women to be shown as evil temptresses who lead men astray and this could be reflected in Genesis, because at the time this was the vision of women and the blame was placed on Eve to relieve Adam a bit of his sin.
Well, that's that. I'm not sure how far to take Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou's claims, they do seem a bit far-fetched, especially when she claims to know exactly where Eden was. However I thought it was an interesting thought and wanted to share it with you all.
For more information watch her BBC documentary on the subject "Bible's Buried Secrets: The Real Garden of Eden".
That's it from me for now, hope you enjoyed this and it wasn't too long!
