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Question Pertaining To the Tree of Life (The following question was submitted by a Christian and I thought it worthy of printing in this bulletin.) Question: I want to know if you have ever found any material relating to what happened to the Garden of Eden after the flood. I know it mentions it in Rev Chapter 2, but I 'm not sure enough in my thoughts to answer this question. First, I tried looking up the word Eden and then Garden and did not find it used in Revelation. However, Revelation 22 does mention the "tree of life" in verse 2. This is probably to what you are referring. In looking at Revelation, I kept in mind that it uses a lot of imagery and figurative language. By definition a figure does not represent itself. In other words, the tree of life is not a literal tree, but showing that man will have eternal life with God. It does bring back to our memory the Garden of Eden and the tree of life there. Adam and Eve would have lived forever if they had access to the tree which is why God removed them from the Garden. What happened to the Garden of Eden after the flood? Since the Garden of Eden was a literal place described and located for us in Genesis 2 & 3, it would have been destroyed by the flood. Of course, it would have been there during the rest of the days of Adam and Eve. This brings up an interesting thought. I wonder how often Adam and Eve wished they could return to the Garden? This may be the wrong way to look at it. Since part of the curse pronounced by God was that thorns and thistles would multiply, I wonder if after a while the Garden of Eden looked like any other place. The Garden of Eden was special because of God and His presence there. He came to the Garden in the cool of the day, Genesis 3.8. He provided the tree of life and He stopped man from eating of that tree, Genesis 3.24. The Bible is pretty silent on anything more. Hope this helps. -- Dennis Tucker
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