AN OBSCURE US-based religious group believes Cyprus was the first of two Gardens of Eden and is collecting donations to help fund an expedition under the title “Mission to Eden”.
The group, adherents to a 2,000-page tome titled the Urantia Book (UB), believe its contents to be material channelled by celestial beings through a “sleeping subject”, often said to be a member of the famous and eccentric Kellogg family in the early part of the 20th century. Urantia is another word for Planet Earth.
“Adam and Eve materialised on Eden peninsula. Eden was a long narrow peninsula – almost an island – projecting westward from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea… This area was virtually an island in an inland sea,” the book says.
“Their island was later destroyed by earthquakes, the sinking of the eastern Mediterranean basin, and a flood.”
The UB, which was first published in 1955 after years of gathering material from the ‘sleeping subject’, parallels some of the clues left by Plato in his description of Atlantis more than 2,000 years previously.
Indeed, many have made the link between Atlantis and Eden, even though the Biblical Eden is widely believed to be located near the Euphrates River, in what is now Iraq.
The UB says, however, that this was only the Second Eden, where Adam and Eve, who were also celestial beings, ended up after being thrown out of the First Eden after the Fall.
American researcher Robert Sarmast is already looking for Atlantis off Cyprus, based on Plato’s accounts, but has made vague reference to the Eden link in his book Discovery of Atlantis: The Startling Case for the Island of Cyprus. He bases this reference on the seminal classic Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, by Ignatius Donnelly, first published in 1882. However, Donnelly’s theory suggests that Atlantis was located in the Atlantic Ocean.
UB scholars however remain convinced that Cyprus marks the spot. “Plato’s story of Atlantis and the UB’s account of the Garden of Eden refer to the same historic reality,” they say.
An online UB journal said research proved Atlantis was just another name for the Urantia Book’s first Garden of Eden. “The UB’s description of Eden strongly matches the underwater formation near Cyprus,” said the journal. It said Plato’s account of Atlantis, in his book Critias, was similar to the UB’s more general account of Eden, but each provided certain details that the other did not, and could only be proved by further research in the area between Cyprus and Syria. It added that such a discovery would be of “vital importance” to the Urantia community.
More fascinating even than the possibility that Cyprus might be the location of Eden, is the UB’s account of Adam and Eve in the garden, and details of the Fall.
“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,” the UB says referring to a time 38,000 years into the past.
Adam and Eve’s purpose was to help evolve the human race through “biologic betterment” by mating with selected tribes.
However, after more than one hundred years of effort, Adam was able to see very little progress outside the Garden and the realisation of race improvement appeared a long way off. “The situation seemed so desperate as to demand something for relief not embraced in the original plans,” says the UB.
According to the book, Eve was then tempted to mate outside prescribed instructions in an attempt to hurry along the evolutionary process, but this did not go down well with the powers that be, and both she and Adam were told to leave Eden as their mission had failed.
The product of the illicit union was said to be Cain, the brother of Abel, whom the UB says was a pure son of Adam and Eve.
“It was a sad, sad caravan that prepared to journey on. Could anything have been more tragic! To have come to a world in such high hopes, to have been so auspiciously received, and then to go forth in disgrace from Eden,” says the UB. “It required almost a full year for the caravan of Adam to reach the Euphrates River… across to the land between which was to become the second garden.”
