The Garden of Eden has been a place of intrigue and mystery. It is mysterious because we have never been there and it is intriguing because of what is there—the tree of life (and possibly the tree of knowledge). Many adventurers have made it their quest to locate the Garden of Eden, all without success. Is this a task that can be accomplished? I think the answer is yes and no. No I don’t think that it will be accomplished because of many reasons I will discuss below; but yes I think it is a possibility as I believe the Garden of Eden is still on the earth.

Now I know there are some Christians who would say at this point that I am crazy. This is because they believe that the Garden of Eden is no longer on the earth, but that it is in heaven. They believe that this is the case because of the account of heaven in Revelation 22. In this chapter, there is a very detailed description of heaven and in this description the tree of life appears. However, there is not one tree of life, but several—perhaps two dozen. Revelation 22:1-2—“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.” There are at least two trees, one on each side of the river. If a different tree yields one of the twelve crops of fruit each month, that would mean there are twelve trees. If it is each pair of trees that yields a different crop each month, then there would be twenty-four trees of life. They point to the tree(s) of life being in heaven as is recorded in Revelation. The problem here, however, is that this is the description of the “new heaven and the new earth. Along with this, the original Garden only had one tree of life and the account in Revelation contains more than one tree. Therefore, I do not believe that Revelation describes the Garden of Eden as now existing in heaven and not on the earth.

One reason I believe that the Garden of Eden is still on the earth is that we read in Genesis 3 that God stationed guardian cherubim or angels. When reading Revelation 9, there is mention made of releasing the four angels who were stationed “at the great river Euphrates.” I think this is a reference to the guardian cherubim stationed at the Garden of Eden. Along with this passage, I would refer to Joel 2 where a similar understanding is given. In Joel, it speaks of blowing a trumpet to announce the coming wrath of God’s army that is mounted on horses and that “Before them fire devours, behind them a flame blazes. Before them the land is like the garden of Eden, behind them, a desert waste—nothing escapes them.” Joel and Revelation are very similar and I believe both of them point to the release of the angels stationed at the Garden of Eden. The angels were to execute God’s judgment—death—upon any who tried to gain access to the Garden and the tree of life. It appears that they will also have a hand in executing God’s final judgment in the “day of the Lord.” There is also no mention anywhere in Scripture of the Garden ever being destroyed or “moved” to heaven.

Now, why don’t I think we will actually ever find the Garden of Eden? I think that the flood described in Genesis 6 drastically changed the face of the earth from the way it appeared before the flood. I live in Florida and have been through many hurricanes—at least six. After two of these hurricanes, the coastal area around where I live was completely altered. After hurricane Opal, for example, the beaches that had huge sand dunes before the storm was almost completely flat for miles. That was just from the first couple hundred feet of land being under a few feet of water. The Bible makes it clear that every inch of the earth’s surface was completely covered with more than just a few feet of water.

Where am I going with all of this? I think that the flood has now “hidden” the Garden of Eden from us. No, I don’t mean like the city of gold in National Treasure. I don’t think God has hidden the Garden of Eden inside of a mountain, although that would be cool. :) I think it is in the ocean somewhere. I am not proposing that the Garden of Eden is like the city of Atlantis. I don’t think people are swimming down to the bottom of the ocean and living in a submerged city. But there has been a city discovered off the coast of Japan that is completely submerged, but was obviously above the surface of the ocean and habitated at one point in time (see picture at right). National Geographic even wrote an article about this city which you can read here. There are many other underwater cities around the globe. I think the Garden of Eden suffered the same fate as many of these cities; I think it is beneath the surface of the oceans. That is why I believe it is possible to find the Garden of Eden, although I do not think anyone will accomplish it.