Genesis 3:6-8

Every time the Garden pair had partaken of the fruit of the tree of life, they had been warned by the archangel custodian to refrain from yielding to the suggestions of Caligastia to combine good and evil. They had been thus admonished: “In the day that you commingle good and evil, you shall surely become as the mortals of the realm; you shall surely die.”

That night, the night following the sixth day, while Adam and Eve slumbered, strange things were transpiring in the vicinity of the Father’s temple in the central sector of Eden. There, under the rays of the mellow moon, hundreds of enthusiastic and excited men and women listened for hours to the impassioned pleas of their leaders. They meant well, but they simply could not understand the simplicity of the fraternal and democratic manner of their new rulers. And long before daybreak the new and temporary administrators of world affairs reached a virtually unanimous conclusion that Adam and his mate were altogether too modest and unassuming. They decided that Divinity had descended to earth in bodily form, that Adam and Eve were in reality gods or else so near such an estate as to be worthy of reverent worship.

Up to the time of leaving the first garden, Adam and his family had always subsisted on fruits, cereals, and nuts. On the way to Mesopotamia they had, for the first time, partaken of herbs and vegetables. The eating of meat was early introduced into the second garden, but Adam and Eve never partook of flesh as a part of their regular diet. Neither did Adamson nor Eveson nor the other children of the first generation of the first garden become flesh eaters.

Adam endeavored to teach the races sex equality. The way Eve worked by the side of her husband made a profound impression upon all dwellers in the Garden. Adam definitely taught them that the woman, equally with the man, contributes those life factors which unite to form a new being. Theretofore, mankind had presumed that all procreation resided in the “loins of the father.” They had looked upon the mother as being merely a provision for nurturing the unborn and nursing the newborn.

True, Eve had found Cano pleasant to the eyes, and she realized all that her seducer promised by way of “new and increased knowledge of human affairs and quickened understanding of human nature as supplemental to the comprehension of the Adamic nature.”

It was farthest from Eve’s intention ever to do anything which would militate against Adam’s plans or jeopardize their planetary trust. Knowing the tendency of woman to look upon immediate results rather than to plan farsightedly for more remote effects, the Melchizedeks, before departing, had especially enjoined Eve as to the peculiar dangers besetting their isolated position on the planet and had in particular warned her never to stray from the side of her mate, that is, to attempt no personal or secret methods of furthering their mutual undertakings. Eve had most scrupulously carried out these instructions for more than one hundred years, and it did not occur to her that any danger would attach to the increasingly private and confidential visits she was enjoying with a certain Nodite leader named Serapatatia. The whole affair developed so gradually and naturally that she was taken unawares.

It was in the despair of the realization of failure that Adam, the day after Eve’s misstep, sought out Laotta, the brilliant Nodite woman who was head of the western schools of the Garden, and with premeditation committed the folly of Eve. But do not misunderstand; Adam was not beguiled; he knew exactly what he was about; he deliberately chose to share the fate of Eve. He loved his mate with a supermortal affection, and the thought of the possibility of a lonely vigil on Urantia without her was more than he could endure.

When Van and his associates made ready the Garden for Adam and Eve, they transplanted the Edentia tree to the Garden of Eden, where, once again, it grew in a central, circular courtyard of another temple to the Father. And Adam and Eve periodically partook of its fruit for the maintenance of their dual form of physical life.

Eve’s disillusionment was truly pathetic. Adam discerned the whole predicament and, while heartbroken and dejected, entertained only pity and sympathy for his erring mate.

It was while the Edenic caravan was halted that Adam and Eve were informed of the nature of their transgressions and advised concerning their fate. Gabriel appeared to pronounce judgment. And this was the verdict: The Planetary Adam and Eve of Urantia are adjudged in default; they have violated the covenant of their trusteeship as the rulers of this inhabited world.