In the News ... "‘Adam and Eve brought sin into the world"

Painting by Benjamin West

• Garden of Eden is believed to have been in southeastern Iraq

By Bob Campbell, Reporter
• Odessa American

ODESSA, TEXAS - Told in Genesis 2:4 to 3:24, the story of Adam and Eve tells how sin came into the world and it sets up the appearance thousands of years later of Jesus Christ, who offered redemption, ministers say.

The Revs. Hector Aguilar and Windsor Archie say the first people created by God were told to cultivate the paradise they were given, the Garden of Eden; but they chose to disobey by listening to Satan and eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

“Adam and Eve were created in God’s image,” said the Rev. Aguilar, executive director of the Permian Basin Mission Center. “God created woman for man and he gave Adam the privilege and authority to rule over everything he had given them. Adam was the spiritual leader to be under God’s rule and reign and the Garden of Eden was a literal place.”

Aguilar said the garden was near at confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers near al-Qurnah in southeastern Iraq. “The first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is that they bit into the fruit and everything went south from there,” he said.

“There were thousands of fruit-bearing trees. God just said not to eat that one fruit. So they had a choice. They chose not to obey and one of the most profound ancient things I have seen is that nothing happened when Eve bit into the fruit because God had given Adam the authority. He had an opportunity to say, ‘Stop, don’t do it, this is not what God told us to do!’ But he was very passive.”

While sin was established through Adam, Aguilar said, Jesus provided redemption through obedience and repentance.

Although God posted a sword-bearing cherubim at the garden’s east side to keep Adam and Eve out, he said, “They had to deal with the consequences of their actions as we do today, but they were eventually forgiven and they went on and the human race went on.

“There was hope beyond what had happened.”

The Rev. Archie, pastor of Rose of Sharon Missionary Baptist Church, said Adam and Eve “were the mother and father of all human existence" ...

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