Significance of the location of the Garden of Eden
Theological implications: Given the Prima facie evidence of both the existence and location of the Garden of Eden on Karaca Dag in southern Turkey, the question is immediately raised about the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which were located in the midst of the Garden. Genesis 2:9, Given the Garden exists, is the Tree of Life, which bestowed eternal life on those who ate its fruit still in the Garden? Does it still bestow eternal life on those who eat of its fruit? Genesis 3:22. The answer is affirmative to both questions.
The key to understanding the Tree of Life is to understand eternal life. Scripture makes eternal life abundantly clear because Jesus himself defined eternal life: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” John 17:3. To know God in the Biblical sense of knowing is to have an intimate relationship with Him. In Jeremiah 9:24 God challenges his people to know him: “But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth; for in these things I delight, says the LORD.” Here clearly the knowledge of the only true God implies an intimate relation with God. Adam and Eve walked with God and they knew God, but being limited by history did not know Jesus Christ’s purpose in coming. Their relationship was dependent on two things: one was God’s love for them; the other was their love for God, which was to be demonstrated by their obedience to his command to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The knowledge of good and evil refers to the firsthand experience of missing the mark of loving God with all one's heart, soul and strength. Adam and Eve knew the loving kindness of God but their desire to be like God knowing good and evil, missed the mark and brought about death, which was the Judgment of God, the remedy for which although in existence before the world was made, would not be revealed for millennia.
The Garden of Eden is factual, the Tree of life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, are also still there in the Garden, because one can know God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent while in the Garden and can miss the mark of loving God with all one’s heart soul and strength by placing one's desires above his while in the Garden or for that matter anywhere. A pilgrimage to the Garden of Eden in order to eat of the Tree of Good and Evil is not necessary to miss the mark with that experience. Human beings already know, and have chosen to do, what is right, and what is wrong, at some time in their lives. The same goes for the Tree of life. A pilgrimage to the Garden of Eden is not necessary to eat of the Tree of Life in order to ”know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”, which is eternal life.
God explains himself in terms humans understand. Food is something humans understand. Jesus called himself “the Bread of Life” and also said “whoever feeds on this bread will live forever”. Here he clearly spoke of his sacrificial death, which atones for the failure to love God and allows men to reenter the loving relationship with him, which he intended for all mankind from the beginning. Revelation 13:8 Adam and Eve had to wait millennia, until the fullness of time, when he was revealed to them, 1Peter 1:20 before they could know Jesus and thus restore their lost relationship with God. 1Peter 3:19-20 Mathew 27:52-53 Jesus served his disciples the Passover meal and said: “Take and eat; this is my body” and also “Drink from it, all of you this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” Matthew 26:28. The disciples understood he was offering God’s forgiveness for the disobedience in their lives and not simply bread and wine. They had the choice of accepting or rejecting the offering, thereby confirming, or denying their belief not only that Jesus forgives sin, but also their need to be forgiven for having chosen disobedience at some time in their lives. Another expedition to find that particular wine, from The Holy Grail, to have the forgiveness is not necessary. It is enough for the repentant to ask God to forgive their disobedience, recognize that he alone is God and accept the forgiveness he has provided through Jesus Christ. This reestablishes the relationship with God, which is the biblical knowledge of God, just as Adam and Eve knew God before they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They no doubt, when it was revealed to them, reestablished their loving relationship with God through the forgiveness provided by Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection. To the thief on the cross, Jesus said: “today you will be with me in Paradise”. Paradise is a word of Persian origin meaning garden. He used the definite article τῷ Παραδείσῳ The Garden. It can only mean one thing, the thief who had confessed his sin now knew the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He had sent. In Revelations 2:7 Jesus said: “To him who is prevailing, I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.”
Summary: The Garden of Eden is a real place where in an idyllic setting of provision for their physical needs, a real man Adam, and a real woman Eve fulfilled the purpose for their existence by loving their creator with all their heart soul and might and by loving each other. Having turned aside from that relationship by loving themselves more than God, they were driven from the Garden. In the fullness of time, God sent his son to provide the way back to that perfect relationship.
The Garden of Eden is presented here as both biblical allegory and archaeological history. The current widespread belief that the Garden of Eden was destroyed in the Diluvium is no longer tenable. The rediscovery of the physical location of the Garden of Eden should inspire men to enter the perfect relationships God had planned for mankind from the beginning, to delight him by exercising justice, righteousness and loving kindness and to enjoy the relationship with Jesus himself who gives to eat of the fruit of the Tree of life.