THE GARDEN OF EDEN
The cultural decadence and spiritual poverty resulting from the Caligastia downfall and consequent social confusion had little effect on the physical or biologic status of the Urantia peoples. Organic evolution proceeded apace, quite regardless of the cultural and moral setback which so swiftly followed the disaffection of Caligastia and Daligastia. And there came a time in the planetary history, almost forty thousand years ago, when the Life Carriers on duty took note that, from a purely biologic standpoint, the developmental progress of the Urantia races was nearing its apex. The Melchizedek receivers, concurring in this opinion, readily agreed to join the Life Carriers in a petition to the Most Highs of Edentia asking that Urantia be inspected with a view to authorizing the dispatch of biologic uplifters, a Material Son and Daughter.
This request was addressed to the Most Highs of Edentia because they had exercised direct jurisdiction over many of Urantia's affairs ever since Caligastia's downfall and the temporary vacation of authority on Jerusem.
Tabamantia, sovereign supervisor of the series of decimal or experimental worlds, came to inspect the planet and, after his survey of racial progress, duly recommended that Urantia be granted Material Sons. In a little less than one hundred years from the time of this inspection, Adam and Eve, a Material Son and Daughter of the local system, arrived and began the difficult task of attempting to untangle the confused affairs of a planet retarded by rebellion and resting under the ban of spiritual isolation.
1. THE NODITES AND THE AMADONITES
On a normal planet the arrival of the Material Son would ordinarily herald the approach of a great age of invention, material progress, and intellectual enlightenment. The post-Adamic era is the great scientific age of most worlds, but not so on Urantia. Though the planet was peopled by races physically fit, the tribes languished in the depths of savagery and moral stagnation.
Ten thousand years after the rebellion practically all the gains of the Prince's administration had been effaced; the races of the world were little better off than if this misguided Son had never come to Urantia. Only among the Nodites and the Amadonites was there persistence of the traditions of Dalamatia and the culture of the Planetary Prince.
The Nodites were the descendants of the rebel members of the Prince's staff, their name deriving from their first leader, Nod, onetime chairman of the Dalamatia commission on industry and trade. The Amadonites were the descendants of those Andonites who chose to remain loyal with Van and Amadon.
"Amadonite" is more of a cultural and religious designation than a racial term; racially considered the Amadonites were essentially Andonites. "Nodite" is both a cultural and racial term, for the Nodites themselves constituted the eighth race of Urantia.
There existed a traditional enmity between the Nodites and the Amadonites. This feud was constantly coming to the surface whenever the offspring of these two groups would try to engage in some common enterprise. Even later, in the affairs of Eden, it was exceedingly difficult for them to work together in peace.
Shortly after the destruction of Dalamatia the followers of Nod became divided into three major groups. The central group remained in the immediate vicinity of their original home near the headwaters of the Persian Gulf. The eastern group migrated to the highland regions of Elam just east of the Euphrates valley. The western group was situated on the northeastern Syrian shores of the Mediterranean and in adjacent territory.
These Nodites had freely mated with the Sangik( human) races and had left behind an able progeny. And some of the descendants of the rebellious Dalamatians subsequently joined Van and his loyal followers in the lands north of Mesopotamia. Here, in the vicinity of Lake Van and the southern Caspian Sea region, the Nodites mingled and mixed with the Amadonites, and they were numbered among the "mighty men of old."
Prior to the arrival of Adam and Eve these groups-Nodites and Amadonites-were the most advanced and cultured races on earth.
2. PLANNING FOR THE GARDEN
For almost one hundred years prior to Tabamantia's inspection, Van and his associates, from their highland headquarters of world ethics and culture, had been preaching the advent of a promised Son of God, a racial uplifter, a teacher of truth, and the worthy successor of the traitorous Caligastia. Though the majority of the world's inhabitants of those days exhibited little or no interest in such a prediction, those who were in immediate contact with Van and Amadon took such teaching seriously and began to plan for the actual reception of the promised Son.
Van told his nearest associates the story of the Material Sons on Jerusem; what he had known of them before ever he came to Urantia. He well knew that these Adamic Sons always lived in simple but charming garden homes and proposed, eighty-three years before the arrival of Adam and Eve, that they devote themselves to the proclamation of their advent and to the preparation of a garden home for their reception.
From their highland headquarters and from sixty-one far-scattered settlements, Van and Amadon recruited a corps of over three thousand willing and enthusiastic workers who, in solemn assembly, dedicated themselves to this mission of preparing for the promised-at least expected-Son.
Van divided his volunteers into one hundred companies with a captain over each and an associate who served on his personal staff as a liaison officer, keeping Amadon as his own associate. These commissions all began in earnest their preliminary work, and the committee on location for the Garden sallied forth in search of the ideal spot.
Although Caligastia and Daligastia had been deprived of much of their power for evil, they did everything possible to frustrate and hamper the work of preparing the Garden. But their evil machinations were largely offset by the faithful activities of the almost ten thousand loyal midway creatures who so tirelessly labored to advance the enterprise.
3. THE GARDEN SITE
The committee on location was absent for almost three years. It reported favorably concerning three possible locations: The first was an island in the Persian Gulf; the second, the river location subsequently occupied as the second garden; the third, a long narrow peninsula-almost an island-projecting westward from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
The committee almost unanimously favored the third selection. This site was chosen, and two years were occupied in transferring the world's cultural headquarters, including the tree of life, to this Mediterranean peninsula. All but a single group of the peninsula dwellers peaceably vacated when Van and his company arrived.
This Mediterranean peninsula had a salubrious climate and an equable temperature; this stabilized weather was due to the encircling mountains and to the fact that this area was virtually an island in an inland sea. While it rained copiously on the surrounding highlands, it seldom rained in Eden proper. But each night, from the extensive network of artificial irrigation channels, a "mist would go up" to refresh the vegetation of the Garden.
The coast line of this land mass was considerably elevated, and the neck connecting with the mainland was only twenty-seven miles wide at the narrowest point. The great river that watered the Garden came down from the higher lands of the peninsula and flowed east through the peninsular neck to the mainland and thence across the lowlands of Mesopotamia to the sea beyond. It was fed by four tributaries which took origin in the coastal hills of the Edenic peninsula, and these are the "four heads" of the river which "went out of Eden," and which later became confused with the branches of the rivers surrounding the second garden.
The mountains surrounding the Garden abounded in precious stones and metals, though these received very little attention. The dominant idea was to be the glorification of horticulture and the exaltation of agriculture.
The site chosen for the Garden was probably the most beautiful spot of its kind in all the world, and the climate was then ideal. Nowhere else was there a location which could have lent itself so perfectly to becoming such a paradise of botanic expression. In this rendezvous the cream of the civilization of Urantia was forgathering. Without and beyond, the world lay in darkness, ignorance, and savagery. Eden was the one bright spot on Urantia; it was naturally a dream of loveliness, and it soon became a poem of exquisite and perfected landscape glory.
[from The Urantia Book]
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