Who is guarding the garden of eden

When we look in the last book of the Bible, Revelation, we read about what heaven is going to be like. We read about an amazing street of gold.

So the Bible tells us that the Tree of Life is in heaven. We should remember that many things in Revelation are figurative. It could be that the Bible is saying the literal Tree of Life does not exist anymore, but a figurative or spiritual Tree of Life is in heaven.

As Adam is dying, he sends his wife Eve and his third son Seth to return to the Garden of Eden and beg for oil from the Tree of Life so he can be healed. On the way, Seth is bitten by the serpent from the Garden, and he and his mom are refused the oil by the archangel Michael, who says no human will have it again until the resurrection of the righteous in the End Times. As the Jewish Encyclopedia explains , for the scholars behind the Jewish theological writings known as the Talmud and the esoteric school of Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah, there is not one, but two Gardens of Eden.

One of these is the earthly Garden where Adam and Eve lived and ate fruit and played with penguins or whatever, and the other is a celestial paradise where the immortal souls of the righteous live.

These two concepts are distinguished by referring to a "lower" and "higher" Garden of Eden, or calling the earthly location Gan "garden" and the heavenly one Eden. In the 19th century collection of Jewish folk belief called The Legends of the Jews , author Louis Ginzberg relates the higher Eden is connected to Paradise and is where God hangs out and explains Torah to people.

It's made up of worlds divided into seven different compartments for various classes of pious people. In chapter 2, Ginzberg explains the Tree of Life is so huge it would take you years to walk the length of the diameter of its trunk.

While in the Garden, angels brought Adam and Eve meat and wine and all the animals could talk people language. When a person dies, their soul passes through lower Eden to reach higher Eden, but if they were unrighteous, the guardian cherub annihilates their soul with the flaming sword. If you're not Jewish, it would be pretty easy to assume Jewish people hold a similar view of the afterlife that Christians do or at least, the popular understanding of what Christians believe : the righteous go to Heaven, and the unrighteous go to Hell.

But while some strains of Jewish belief incorporate separate fates for the holy and the wicked, Jewish eschatology that is, theology of the End Times and the afterlife is focused more on the resurrection of the dead in a bodily form following an era of justice and peace led by a literal or metaphorical messiah, leading to the creation of a new Heaven and Earth and history closing the loop on itself by having humankind return to — you guessed it — the Garden of Eden.

As the Jewish Encyclopedia explains , various apocalyptic writings describe Eden as a place for the "righteous who suffer innocently, who do works of benevolence and walk without blame before God" and which will "appear suddenly at the Judgment Day in all its glory.

The wicked will suffer sevenfold punishment, while the righteous will enjoy sevenfold happiness, living in mansions and walking with God, who leads them in dance presumably the Cha-Cha Slide. A question that has been asked and debated for centuries is the location of the Garden of Eden. And, to be fair, if you knew there was a place with talking animals, a flaming sword, and a tree that could let you live forever, you'd want to at least grab an Instagram selfie there.

Naturally, the biblical account is the starting place for most people who assume the Garden was more than a metaphor. Genesis chapter 2 says Eden had a river flowing out of it that spread into four branches which formed the Pishon, Gihon, Chidekel, and Phirat rivers. The latter two are identified as the Tigris and Euphrates, which you may remember from eighth grade social studies, but the other two have been a little harder to pin down.

The Jewish Encyclopedia explains the traditional identifications of the other two rivers. Genesis says the Pishon flows around a land called Havilah, which is identified with India, thus making that river either the Indus River or — as the Jewish historian Josephus identifies it — the Ganges. Gihon is said to flow around the land of Cush, which is usually identified with Ethiopia, making the Gihon the famous Nile River. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

It is striking that Exodus and also speak about cherubim. They should make an ark with a mercy seat on top. At the two ends of this mercy seat, there should be two cherubim of gold. It shall be made with cherubim skillfully worked into it. The cherubim are a recurring theme here. There were two images of cherubim on the mercy seat. The ark with the mercy seat was very important for approaching God.

Moreover, cherubim were worked into the veil that prevented people to enter the room where the ark was. The Lord Jesus has opened the way to the Father for whoever believes in Him. He did this by dying on the cross. International Standard Version After he had expelled the man, the LORD God placed winged angels at the eastern end of the garden of Eden, along with a fiery, turning sword, to prevent access to the tree of life.

JPS Tanakh So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way to the tree of life. Literal Standard Version indeed, He casts out the man, and causes the cherubim to dwell at the east of the Garden of Eden with the sword of flame whirling around to guard the way of the Tree of Life.

NET Bible When he drove the man out, he placed on the eastern side of the orchard in Eden angelic sentries who used the flame of a whirling sword to guard the way to the tree of life. New Heart English Bible So he drove out the man; and he stationed the cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every direction, to guard the way to the tree of life.

World English Bible So he drove out the man; and he placed Cherubs at the east of the garden of Eden, and the flame of a sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. Young's Literal Translation yea, he casteth out the man, and causeth to dwell at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubs and the flame of the sword which is turning itself round to guard the way of the tree of life.

Additional Translations And in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis And Adam had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain.