The Impossible Spaces: A Commentary on Gen. 2:8–15

• Main Author: Santiago García-Jalón
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-08-01
• Series: Religions
• Subjects: Garden of Eden; attempts at location; impossible spaces; narrative strategies
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/8/656

A close analysis of the text of Gen. 2:8–15, pertaining to the Garden of Eden, shows the structural differences between said text and others from ancient mythologies that mention or describe a paradise. Likewise, that analysis suggests that the data provided by the Bible to locate paradise are merely a narrative device meant to dissipate all doubts as to the existence of a garden where God put human beings. Similar to other spaces that appear in the Bible, the Garden of Eden is, in fact, an impossible place. Throughout the centuries, however, recurring proposals have been made to locate paradise. As time went by, those proposals were progressively modified by the intellectual ideas dominant in any given era, thus leading the representations of the location of Paradise to be further and further away from the information provided by the biblical text.