Gardener of the Gods

In addition to original programming like Orange is the New Black and Stranger Things, Netflix also streams various documentaries (although not as many as Amazon Prime). One interesting documentary I’ve recently watched is a 3-part BBC Two series from 2011 called The Bible’s Buried Secrets hosted by Dr. Francesca Stravrakopoulou, Senior Lecturer in the Hebrew Bible at Exeter University. This is not the same program as the two-hour NOVA episode with the same name that aired on PBS in 2008 and is not to be confused with the similarly titled Buried Secrets of the Bible with Albert Lin that aired in March 2019 on the National Geographic channel. (Note to TV producers: try to be more original in naming your bible programs.)

Dr. Francesca Stravrakopoulou, host of BBC's 2011 series The Bible's Buried Secrets.

The first episode in the series (“Did King David’s Empire Exist?”) reviewed the archaeological evidence that cast doubt on the Bible’s claim to the extent – or even existence – of a United Kingdom under David and Solomon. The second episode (“Did God have a Wife?”) looked at evidence from archaeology and the Bible itself that belief in multiple gods in Israel was much more widespread prior to the Babylonian exile than is commonly believed. Neither episode presented anything to me that I had not previously encountered, although they could be eye-opening to those unfamiliar with the current state of biblical studies.

The Real Eden

Not so with the third episode, “The Real Garden of Eden”. Dr. Stravrakopoulous (hereafter, “Dr. S” for brevity’s sake) presents an intriguing hypothesis that the story of the Garden of Eden from Gen 2-3 is an allegory for the fall of Jerusalem. Understanding how she gets there requires following a chain of arguments.

Beginning in the British Museum, Dr. S shows us Assyrian reliefs presenting the king in his garden. The king’s palace was meant to be monumental, to show off the king’s power and wisdom. It was also considered a religious center. The king was the link between the people and the gods.

Gardens were built by the king to demonstrate his control over the environment, creating lushness in a barren environment. Gardens were built and maintained by the king as a place for the gods to reside.Only the king was granted privileged access to the garden to tend it and cultivate it.

Royal gardens were more like what we would think of as small parks and she takes us the garden surrounding the Alhambra in Spain for a modern example.

One of the gardens at the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain.

The king was the gardener for the gods. In the Eden story, Adam plays the role of the king. There are still traces of this concept in Gen 2-3 where it states (Gen 2:15) Adam was put in the garden to “tend it and keep it.” Later (Gen 3:8), YHWH is seen enjoying his garden, walking about in it at “the breezy time of the day.”

Cherubs and Rivers

Another clue to the true identity of Eden comes after Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden. Gen 3:24 states that YHWH posted a cherub at the entrance to the garden to prevent humans from returning. Cherubs were winged creatures who accompanied the gods and marked their dwelling places. Back the British Museum to see the giant cherubs that flanked the entrance to the royal palace at Nimrud. Dr. S reminds us of the cherubs affixed to the top of the Ark of the Covenant and those that dominated the Holy of Holies in the temple.

Assyrian cherubs from the North-West Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE) in Nimrud. These colossal statues are on permanent display at the British Museum in London (photo by author, 1996).

Dr. S’s final clue is in the names of the four rivers flowing out of Eden (Gen 2:10-14). One of these is the Gihon and the only Gihon we know of is a modest stream that provided water for Jerusalem in ancient times. This, she tells us, allows us to identify the true location of Eden as the Jerusalem temple. Just as the garden was known as the abode of the gods, the Jerusalem temple was where YHWH lived. It was the heart of religious life in ancient Judah, tended by the king. But in this case, the temple was a symbolic garden. The Jerusalem temple was built of cedar and decorated with palm trees, flowers, lilies, and pomegranates.

When the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in 587 BCE, it was a psychic blow to the survivors. They had lost their link with God and began to wonder how it could have happened. Some great sin on the part of the king must have led God to withdraw his presence from among his people. This became allegorized as Adam (representing the king) being cast out of God’s garden (representing the temple).

Backwards Argument

It’s an interesting theory and the individual components make sense, but I believe Dr. S drew the wrong conclusions. To be precise, I believe she got it backwards. Instead of the Eden story composed as an explanation for the loss of the temple, it makes more sense to me that the temple was built as an earthly model of the divine garden in which YHWH resides.

For Dr. S’s hypothesis to work, the Eden story would have to have been created after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. True, the majority of biblical scholars believe that the Bible as we have it today was compiled during the Babylonian Exile in the 6^th century BCE. But the Eden story is usually attributed to the Yahwist tradition, one of the oldest sources in the Bible dating from 8^th or 9^th century BCE.

My study of the Garden of Eden story convinces me that it is an etiological tale meant to explain why men have to labor to work the land, why women experience pain in childbirth, and so on. Dr. S never explains directly why these parts would be in an allegory of the last king of Judah. The closest she comes to that is a last-minute mention that the true villains were the serpent and the woman. The serpent was included to discredit serpent worship in the temple and Eve was included because women are usually blamed whenever a man misbehaves.

I couldn’t easily find an academic paper arguing Dr. S’s exact hypothesis but I did discover that a presentation of the Garden of Eden as a temple is not unheard of. While I believe it makes more sense that the temple was built on the model of the Garden of Eden than the Eden story was inspired by the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, there is value in exploring the ancient idea of the garden as a place where humans and the divine could co-exist. If nothing else, it challenges the common conception that Eden was simply meant to be a paradise for human beings.