Have you ever read certain verses of the Bible and wondered why God thought it was important to include them in His Word? There are several passages that I’ve thought over the years could have been left out to leave room for other things that, to me, seemed more important. It’s not something we’d say very often since it’s probably rather heretical, but, if you’re like me, you’ve probably had those thoughts.
One of those passages that I had never understood the importance of was Genesis 2:10-14, describing the rivers coming out of the Garden of Eden:
“A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.”
But yesterday I was so glad that those verses were there and I saw a reason for them!
You see, yesterday I was talking with Adama*, and he was telling me the story of the fall as he understood it. One of the ways in which his story didn’t match up with the story I knew was that he said that when God created Adam and Eve, He put them in a beautiful place IN HEAVEN. It wasn’t after they had sinned that they were kicked out of heaven and had to come to the earth. And it made me think – was it possible that the Garden of Eden was in heaven and not on earth? And then I came across these verses that talked about the rivers that left the Garden of Eden and went to different countries on Earth. So maybe one of the reasons God included those verses in the Bible was so that we would know that the Garden of Eden was really on Earth and not in heaven?
*Name changed for security reasons