Where Was the Garden of Eden?
The Garden of Eden has disappeared. No one knows where it is, and where it went, yet many people still look for it. As recently as 2025, Dr. Konstantin Borisov published a theory using ancient maps alongside texts from Flavius Josephus, which led him to propose that the Gihon River was actually the Nile, and that the Garden of Eden lay directly beneath the Great Pyramid of Giza. Dr. Andrew Madof researched ancient river structures and mapped the genesis of the Tigris and Euphrates by tracing sediments and underwater salt deposits off the coast of Lebanon, which led him to find ancient river systems that back up the Bible’s description of a single river dividing into four tributaries.
I think it’s natural for human beings to be interested in finding the Garden of Eden, as we’ll see how it was described to provide everything for Adam and Eve, including food and beautiful trees to look at.
The Two Trees (Genesis 2:8–9)
The Lord planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (NKJV)
Albrecht Dürer — Adam and Eve (1504)
Albrecht Dürer does a great job depicting this in his Adam and Eve engraving. In black and white, you can see Adam on the left facing toward Eve, who is looking down at a serpent holding a fruit in its mouth, which she seems to subtly take from it. In this etched moment, you can see Adam watch as Eve is about to perform an act he was instructed not to do. The fruit itself is small and unremarkable, actually; what surrounds Adam and Eve is far more beautiful and striking, a landscape full of mountains, foliage, and animals. With all of that beauty surrounding them, Eve is captured by the serpent, as the story tells, and you can infer that the tree it rests on is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Dürer captures the moment right before the fruit is eaten, where Adam, who was given instructions by God, chooses to say nothing and allows Eve to take it. Animals of every kind, even ones that should be preying on each other, lie in peace throughout the Garden. I’ll admit that when I look at this peace, I want to tell them to stop, but it’s as if I’m watching them on the verge of witnessing the original sin, and like the Father, I must allow free will to take its course.
Gustav Klimt — The Tree of Life (1905)
Unlike Dürer’s choice to depict the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Gustav Klimt (my favorite artist) chose to depict the tree of life instead. In this oil painting from Klimt’s golden era, the tree sits at the center with swirling branches that reach the edges of the canvas. Eyes appear throughout the branches, belonging to abstract creatures that fit the description of Eden, a place full of beasts, patterned with scales or feather-like shapes that hint at animal forms. As your eyes move down toward the trunk, the shapes grow darker and brighter, like glowing embers stretched across the ground. It’s a beautiful, feminine scene framed by three figures. The couple on the left embrace each other in front of the tree of life, in love and draped in robes of gold and multicolored ovals, as if this is the happiest moment this couple could face. Yet on the right, a woman draped in a sharp, triangle-patterned robe of blue and green stripes seems to watch the couple with disdain, as if she represents the serpent, ready to take this moment and destroy it for all time.
The Four Rivers of Eden (Genesis 2:10–14)
Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good.
Bdellium and the onyx stone are there.
The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush.
The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. (NKJV)
Peter Paul Rubens — The Four Continents (1605)
When thinking about the four rivers God created, I wondered how artists might have depicted rivers in ways that weren’t so direct. When I came across Peter Paul Rubens’s The Four Continents, I learned how he used four female figures to personify the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and four male figures to represent their respective major rivers: the Danube, Nile, Ganges, and Río de la Plata. Art historian Elizabeth McGrath has even suggested that the Danube may instead represent the Tigris, and the Río de la Plata the Euphrates.
Without any prior knowledge of the piece, I wouldn’t have guessed that the figures represent ancient water sources, let alone rivers from the Bible. But looking closer, I can see that the figures lie by a marshland, with cattail-like plants behind them and, further back, a deep teal ocean. The creatures in the foreground are protecting their young: a tiger guarding her cubs, and an alligator guarding three cherub-like children. The alligator fights in the water while the tiger stays on land, letting her cubs feed as she snarls back. It’s almost as if all the rivers have met and we’re witnessing their shared source, where natural order still takes place even as the waters mingle. The river is the alligator’s home, while the tiger simply needs its water to survive.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini — Fountain of the Four Rivers (1651)
The Fountain of the Four Rivers stands in Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy. It was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Pope Innocent X in 1651. I learned that the base represents four river gods, with an Egyptian obelisk rising from the top. The four rivers depicted are the Danube, Ganges, Nile, and Río de la Plata, the same rivers depicted in the previous piece, with surrounding figures at the base each representing one of them.
Each figure carries its own allegory:
- Nile: The figure’s head is draped, since no one at the time knew the river’s source.
- Ganges: The figure carries a long oar, representing the river’s navigability.
- Danube: Touches the Pope’s personal coat of arms, since this river is closest to Rome.
- Río de la Plata: Sits on a pile of coins, representing the riches of America.
Bernini’s marble design drew on many influences, including the Monument of the Four Moors. The fountain merges architecture and sculpture, serving its citizens at the time by giving neighbors a place to draw and use water. It’s easy to study the fountain and forget that God created these four rivers, and while their names have shifted through centuries of war and conquest, the rivers still exist, and people still use them today as a guide in the search for Eden.
God’s Command (Genesis 2:15–17)
Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die.” (NKJV)
Naming the Animals (Genesis 2:18–20)
And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. (NKJV)
Adam was surrounded by every creature God had made, yet none of them were a fit companion for him.