Garden of Eden

Generally speaking, people choose to believe that Adam and Eve have brought us the original sin. This is a paradoxical issue, for which it had troubled me for a long time. Our God was very smart to put this situation on board and it is still the best way to test our faith, I think.

Needless to say, it is easier to believe the original sin than the reality behind. Most people, probably many of them are LDS, believe that our first parent on earth was beguiled by the serpent, failed the test and broke the commandment from the Lord. And, Eve, was the first one that failed from the temptation of the serpent. Therefore, she should be blamed about the original sin. At least, I was taught about that while I was during my elementary school years.

This makes much sense about how Adam and Eve were tempted and given in. The only record that mentions about the Garden of Eden is the Old Testament. This scripture was written and edited by many groups of people without divine authority. Without a doubt, it could not be very accurate. Hence, we should not only blame those people who follow this world belief during the dark ages. These were the people that trying to bring us the truth, as least the partial ones, without any motive on getting gain or being famous. The historical background is also a critical reason for influencing the scholars to edit the Scriptures by that time.  As a result, the Old Testament only mentions how they are tempted and broke the commandment in just several verses. It does not tell much about it. When you get to know more about the truth, you would appreciate more on our modern-day prophet, Prophet Joseph Smith. Or else, we would be still cheating by the false history.

In the Beginning
After Adam and Eve were created, they were put to live in the Garden of Eden, with some certain laws and commandments. In the Book of Genesis, the authors, or those groups of scholars, did not write down much information about that. We just know from the Book of Genesis that God has created the whole earth, and then the last masterpiece was this couple. 

The Partnership System Was Formed

Adam was first being put to this Earth and was put to the Garden of Eden.  He received a project from God about naming all the living creatures in the Garden. According to the Book of Moses, he probably needed to learn to know all the animals and plants. (Moses 3: 19-20) At least, they took quite some times to learn about the Garden while there were no MacBook or IPad to help them.While he was giving the names, he was seemingly found no help from others, while there was actually no others in this Earth. God made Adam asleep and took out his rib for making a partner to him. 

The very first couple was then living in the Garden. We do not know how they spent their time in the Garden.  From verse 19 and 20, we saw that God appointed Adam as the one that manage the animals (living creatures). From this we may assume the patriarchal authority of the house has been granted to our first father in this temporal world. We may also put this as a similitude of a priesthood system. Even now, the father of the family would be ordained as the priesthood leader or adviser of the family.

Here we can find two great principles. The first one is: we cannot work out things by ourselves only. God even uses this principle in the way of bearing testimony. In second Corinthians, we read that “In the mouth of two or three witness shall every word be established.” (2 Corinthians 13: 1) The formation of the leadership of our Church perfectly presents this principle: one president with two counselors in every leadership of the presidency and auxiliary groups. The following scenario is self-explanatory. A bishop received a call that a member from his Ward was injured and went to the hospital due to an accident. During that time, the bishop supposed to catch up a flight in an hour and go to a family reunion. However, as a shepherd of the local church, it was his stewardship to care and strengthen the member. In this critical moment, he decided to call his counselor to go to hospital on behalf of him. This bishop has wisely and thoroughly applied this principle to create a win-win situation.

The second principle is about the metaphor of the rib from Adam. Lots of Christian preach and believe that Eve was literally made from Adam’s rib. It is actually not true, however. This is one of the beautiful expressions ever in the Old Testament. It did not mean literally, but symbolically. It just told the readers that Adam and Eve were very close to each others, as likely as they could be combined to one physical body.  This is a foreshadowing to Adam’s statement: bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, with the commandment from God, “therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh”.(Genesis 2:24/Moses 3:2)  Since the rib bone was from Adam, being back together is very reasonable and necessary. To use this figurative expression, it states out the real relationship of a married couple should have.

The Forbidden Fruit
Afterwards, God told them not taking the fruit from the tree of knowledge which was located in the middle of the Garden, or else they would die. Obviously, this was a commandment for our first Couple. 

We all know that they finally broke the commandment and ate the forbidden fruit. From that on, our first Couple has been blaming as bringing us the original sin ever since. Fortunately, our God did not let the truth being buried for too many centuries.

What Exactly Happened in the Garden? - Forbidden Fruit Lesson No. 1

We can assume that they spent their time in the Garden to learn about the Garden and God. They could reach Heavenly Father, Son of God and other angels. They might have heard about the Creation, Atonement and Plan of Salvation. Nevertheless, they should not have a very clear picture of the above three items. It is an innocent period. Without fear or joy, worry or content, they were only staying in a beautiful greenhouse, the Garden of Eden., but have limitation to progress.

When staying in the Garden, God gave them two paradoxical requirements, or commandments:

1)    Do not eat the fruit from Tree of Knowledge, or else they would die. (Genesis 2:17 / Moses 3:17)

2)    They are the first pair that came to this earth. They were told to “be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth…” (Genesis 1:28 / Moses 2:28) But, not until they were cast out from the Garden, they could not bear any children. (Moses 5:11) This is about the physical condition before and after the Fall of our first couple. Before they partook the forbidden fruit, the body was staying in the terrestrial condition, for which Eve could not give born of child.

During the time in the Garden, they could not bear any child. To follow No. 2 commandment, they needed to do something to change the physical status. The only way was to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Nevertheless, God has told them not taking it, No. 1 commandment. Therefore, it is impossible for them to follow both requirements at the same time. Either you stay away from the fruit from the tree of knowledge, or you take it.

At that moment, they should not have such knowledge on how paradoxical the two commandments were. They needed someone to hint them. God and His angels should be the appropriated ones. Why they did not do it? Think about if your boss asks you to do something, it is not your decision but just follow the order. That could take out of a chance for you to learn and experience on how to choose. God did not want to manipulate the first couple, but wanted them to keep their agency.  Lesson number one is to learn how to choose.

Forbidden Fruit Lesson No. 2
The other main character in the Garden is Satan. The serpent only knew the No. 1 commandment from God. Being rebellious and therefore wanted to oppose and destroy every thing from God, Satan did not miss out this opportunity to tempt the first couple.

What Satan could see was, if he could deceive them to eat the fruit, that would be a way to break the commandment. When he would put all his effort to stop, or even slow down, any plan from God, he would not miss out the chance. However, since he only knew the great plan from one side, he was actually part of God’s plan. Hatred made Satan running out the wisdom, and even the understanding heart.

Here, it seemed that God has given a paradoxical set of commandments. From other point of view, however, this is just a big commandment with another bigger one. There is no win-win situation, you need to pick up either one. God was using His wisdom, love and patience to start up this plan. He grants everyone a free agency, meaning we all can choose what to do. He used this principle in the situation in the Garden of Eden as well. He let the first couple to choose. In fact, He could hide out the tree, or even not plant it there. As part of His plan, He put the tree in the middle of the Garden, which was, Adam and Eve could see it easily. He wanted the first couple to make the decision themselves. Yes, they could not eat the fruit, because it would make them from immortality to mortality. And, that’s it! In order to follow the bigger commandment, they must sacrifice the immortality.

When the serpent lied to Eve that she would not die by taking the fruit, Eve did not attend to it. What she thought was, “……the tree was good for food, and that is became pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make her wise…”(Moses 4:12, italic added) Interestingly, in the dream from Lehi, he expressed the similar emotion of joy after taken the fruit. (1 Nephi 8:12) Now, Eve saw that the fruit could make her wise, which could, let her understand and experience the contrast of everything, emotionally and knowledgeably. Could we say this is a human nature to learn and experience new thing? I guess we could. Remember the first couple could not taste good or bad feeling by that time. When the serpent approached Eve, she saw the opportunity to learn and experience. She might somehow know that she needed to change the physical state in order to be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth. Eve, in such situation, made the decision. She stepped out of her comfort zone and chose to transgress the big commandment, in order to follow the bigger one.

Adam knew that he could not be parted from Eve, for they should cleave together. Therefore, he chose to follow her and took the fruit.

What if the serpent did not beguile Eve to take the fruit? Sooner or later, Adam and Eve would understand the importance of the bigger commandment and do what they need to do. And, God knew that Satan could not hold and constrain himself for not doing it. While Satan wanted to destroy the plan of Salvation, he has actually helped to make it move.

From the experience in the Garden of Eden, we learn that God somehow would give us two or more commandments (orders or requests) that seem like against each other. Nonetheless, we only need to prioritize the importance of them.

Without Adam and Eve, we might be still in the status without physical bodies. They have sacrificed much that to get the Plan of Salvation coming along. We should not blame them for the original sin, for there is no such thing. We have to appreciate them and learn from their courageous, determination and obedience.s

God has shown His wisdom in the Garden of Eden. We now have only learned some elementary information about Kingdom's mystery. Hopefully, when we are ready, He will show us His wisdom and mystery bit by bit more.