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Also known as: Garden of God, Garden of Yahweh, the God of Israel
Written and fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: •Article History
News •
The Garden of Eden was in Iraq's marshes – now it’s being destroyed by climate change• July 30, 2025, 3:50 AM ET (ABC News (Australia))
‘Garden of Eden’: Albania eyes growing exotic fruit for Europe• July 27, 2025, 5:33 AM ET (Taipei Times)
Garden of Eden, in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) book of Genesis, biblical earthly paradise inhabited by the first created man and woman, Adam and Eve, prior to their expulsion for disobeying the commands of God. It is also called in Genesis “the garden of the Lord” (the God of Israel) and in Ezekiel “the garden of God.” The term Eden probably is derived from the Akkadian word edinu, borrowed from the Sumerian eden, meaning “plain.”
According to the Genesis story of the Creation and the Fall of humanity, rivers flowed out of Eden to the four corners of the world. Similar stories in Sumerian records indicate that an earthly paradise theme belonged to the mythology of the ancient Middle East.
The story of the Garden of Eden is a theological use of mythological themes to explain human progression from a state of innocence and bliss to the present human condition of knowledge of sin, misery, and death. According to the Genesis account (2:4–3:24), God created Adam from the dust of the ground and then planted the Garden of Eden with the “tree of life” and the forbidden “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” at its centre. God tasked Adam with tending the garden and naming the animals therein and gave him the single command to not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.Lacking a helper for his work, Adam was put into a deep sleep while God took from him a rib and created a companion, Eve. The two were persons of innocence and lived unashamedly without clothes as husband and wife. However, an evil serpent in the garden deceived Eve, who ate of the prohibited fruit and gave some to Adam. With newly opened eyes, they recognized their nakedness anddonnedfig leaves as garments. Immediately God saw their transgression and proclaimed their punishments—for the woman, pain in childbirth and subordination to man and, for the man, relegation to an accursed ground with which he must toil and sweat for his subsistence. God clothed them with animal skins and then cast them out of the paradise garden, posting an angel armed with a sword of fire there to prevent their return.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Melissa Petruzzello.
