ver. 13), which some have thought to indicate
that the site was still known, and existing in the time of the prophet.
This at least may be remarked, that in verse 9, where the prophet speaks
of the "trees that _were_ in the Garden of God," the word _were_ is not
in the original, and the sense of the context would rather denote the
present tense--"the trees that _are_ in the Garden of God."
But it is in the New Testament that the most repeated and striking
allusions to Adam, the temptation of the woman by the Serpent, and the
entrance of sin and death into the life-history of mankind, occur.[1]
[Footnote 1: See on this subject page 137 _ante_.] [Transcriber's
note: Chapter X.]
As regards the narrative of Eden itself, there has been, from the very
earliest times, some disposition to regard it as mystical or
"allegorical," i.e., to regard it as representing spiritual facts of
temptation and disobedience, under the guise or story of an actual
audible address by a serpent, and the eating of an actual fruit. The
earliest translators seem to have glossed the "Gan-'Eden," everywhere in
the Old Testament (_except_ in Gen. ii. 8), by the phrase "the paradise
of pleasure," or some other similar term. And the Vulgate _always_ uses
some phrase, such as "place of delight," "voluptas," "deliciae," &c.
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