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TeddyUK 62M
3 posts
5/3/2015 2:55 am
To Bodly Go...


I was watching an old episode of Star Trek recently, with Kirk & Spock (I do have a soft spot for Star Trek, despite all of it's corny silliness). The episode was "The Way To Eden", about a group of space 'hippies' who had abandoned technology as a focus through which to achieve happiness, and who were searching for the planet Eden. They faced the prejudices of those that 'knew better', those that were more disciplined, and embraced a technological future as the foundation of their progress toward expanding the word of the 'federation'.

It got me thinking.

Particularly about the concept of Eden and the form it takes within an individual. The idea that there is a perfect place, a place from which we all began, and which only believers can find.

In the episode Eden turns out to be a poisonous world, but then the programme was actually about the disapproval of hippies in 1969 and their lack of restraint bringing about their eventual destruction.

But what do we understand as Eden? Is it a physical place? Something we carry in our hearts as an uncorrupted fragment of truth? If such a place existed physically, what would be found there if we were to step into it?

If it exists as a fragment of uncorrupted truth, would it not be a paradise that would be fulfilled by the return of each fragment?

Whereas if it exists as a physical place in our universe, not unlike the planet Eden in Star Trek, and it could be visited by any that chose to do so regardless of what they believed, what would they find? Would it be the ideal sought by the believers or desolation? Are not the nature of all discoveries tempered by the condition of the discoverers?

Do we find what we seek regardless of our motives?

I was just wondering.

Katididaustralia 66F
93 posts
5/19/2015 1:21 am

EDEN
1. A region in which the Creator planted a garden-like park as the original home of the first human pair. The statement that the garden was “in Eden, toward the east,” apparently indicates that the garden occupied only a portion of the region called Eden. (Ge 2:8) However, the garden is thereafter called “the garden of Eden” (Ge 2:15) and, in later texts, is spoken of as “Eden, the garden of God” (Eze 28:13), and as “the garden of Jehovah.”(Isa 51:3).
The Septuagint rendered the Hebrew word for “garden” (gan) by the Greek word pa·ra′dei·sos. To this fact we owe our association of the English word “paradise” with the garden of Eden.

The cultivation and care of the garden was man’s work assignment. Eden’s trees and plants included all those providing scenic beauty as well as those providing food in wide variety. (Ge 2:9, 15) This fact alone would indicate that the garden covered an area of considerable size.

There was also a great variety of animal life in the garden.(Ge 2:19+20) Eden’s soil was watered by the waters of the river “issuing out of Eden.” (Ge 2:10) In view of man’s nakedness it may be assumed that the climate was very mild and agreeable.(Ge 2:25).

The life of the newly created man and woman was simple, not complicated and encumbered with all the complex problems, predicaments, and perplexity that disobedience to God has since brought to the human race.

Adam and Eve’s exercise of their will, as free moral agents, in rebellion against God’s rightful sovereignty led to their loss of Paradise and the blessedness of its confines. Of even graver consequence, they lost the opportunity to partake of another of Eden’s trees, this one representing the right to life everlasting. Thus the account says that Jehovah “drove the man out and posted at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life.”(Ge 3:22-24)

After Adam’s banishment from the paradisaic garden, with no one to “cultivate it and to take care of it,” it may be assumed that it merely grew up in natural profusion with only the animals to inhabit its confines until it was obliterated by the surging waters of the Flood, its location lost to man except for the divine record of its existence.(Ge 2:15)

What is the Paradise that Jesus promised to the evildoer who died alongside him?
Luke’s account shows that an evildoer, being executed alongside Jesus Christ, spoke words in Jesus’ defense and requested that Jesus remember him when he ‘got into his kingdom.’ Jesus’ reply was: “Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise.” (Lu 23:39-43) The punctuation shown in the rendering of these words must, of course, depend on the translator’s understanding of the sense of Jesus’ words, since no punctuation was used in the original Greek text. Punctuation in the modern style did not become common until about the ninth century C.E. Whereas many translations place a comma before the word “today” and thereby give the impression that the evildoer entered Paradise that same day, there is nothing in the rest of the Scriptures to support this. Jesus himself was dead and in the tomb until the third day and was then resurrected as “the firstfruits” of the resurrection. (Ac 10:40; 1Co 15:20; Col 1:18) He ascended to heaven 40 days later.(Joh 20:17; Ac 1:1-3, 9)

As to the identification of the Paradise of which Jesus spoke, it is clearly not synonymous with the heavenly Kingdom of Christ. Earlier that day entry into that heavenly Kingdom had been held out as a prospect for Jesus’ faithful disciples but on the basis of their having ‘stuck with him in his trials,’ something the evildoer had never done, his dying on a stake alongside Jesus being purely for his own criminal acts. (Lu 22:28-30; 23:40, 41) The evildoer obviously had not been “born again,” of water and spirit, which Jesus showed was a prerequisite to entry into the Kingdom of the heavens. (Joh 3:3-6) Nor was the evildoer one of the ‘conquerors’ that the glorified Christ Jesus stated would be with him on his heavenly throne and that have a share in “the first resurrection.”(Re 3:11, 12, 21; 12:10, 11; 14:1-4; 20:4-6)
Prophecies shows that paradise conditions related to the people themselves, not just to the land, who, by faithfulness to God, could now “sprout” and flourish as “trees of righteousness,” enjoying beautiful spiritual prosperity like a “well-watered garden,” showered by bounteous blessings from God because of having his favor. (Isa 58:11; 61:3, 11; Jer 31:12; 32:41; compare Ps 1:3; 72:3, 6-8, 16; 85:10-13; Isa 44:3, 4.)

Revelation 2: 7 mentions a “tree of life” in “the paradise of God” and that eating from it would be the privilege of the one “that conquers.” Since other promises given in this section of Revelation to such conquering ones clearly relate to their gaining a heavenly inheritance (Re 2:26-28; 3:12, 21) it seems evident that “the paradise of God” in this case is a heavenly one.

It is further evident, however, that the restoration prophecies recorded by the Hebrew prophets include elements that will also find a physical fulfillment in the restored earthly Paradise. There are features, for example, in Isaiah 35:1-7, such as the healing of the blind and the lame, that did not have a literal fulfillment following the restoration from ancient Babylon, nor are they fulfilled in such a manner in the Christian spiritual paradise. It would be inconsistent for God to inspire such prophecies as those of Isaiah 11:6-9, Ezekiel 34:25, and Hosea 2:18, with the intention that they have only a figurative or spiritual meaning, without having a literal fulfillment of these things in the physical experiences of God’s servants.

The original Paradise for mankind was on earth. God has clearly designated the earth as the permanent home for humans. The Bible says that God made our planet to last forever. (Psalm 104:5) It also states: “To Jehovah the heavens belong, but the earth he has given to the sons of men.”(Psalm 115:16)
It is not surprising, then, that the Bible holds out the promise of Paradise on earth. In it, God will bless mankind with everlasting life. Harmony and peace will prevail. Pain and suffering will be gone. And people will be able to enjoy to the full the natural wonders of planet earth.(Isaiah 65:21-23).

This is a wonderful subject to study and meditate on Teddy.
This is but a summary of the whole article and I hope you enjoy looking up the Scriptures and thinking on things.
You are obviously a 'thinker'. Grin.
Thanks for the opportunity to look up this subject and read it once more. It is so very inspiring.
Yours,
Katidid.