Joel 2:3

When word had reached the dwellers in the land of the second garden that the king and high priest of the Garden of Eden was marching on them, they had fled in haste to the eastern mountains. Adam found all of the desired territory vacated when he arrived. And here in this new location Adam and his helpers set themselves to work to build new homes and establish a new center of culture and religion.

When they learned what had happened to Eve, the infuriated inhabitants of the Garden became unmanageable; they declared war on the near-by Nodite settlement. They swept out through the gates of Eden and down upon these unprepared people, utterly destroying them — not a man, woman, or child was spared. And Cano, the father of Cain yet unborn, also perished.

Said Amos: “He who formed the mountains and created the wind, seek him who formed the seven stars and Orion, who turns the shadow of death into the morning and makes the day dark as night.” And in denouncing his half-religious, timeserving, and sometimes immoral fellows, he sought to portray the inexorable justice of an unchanging Yahweh when he said of the evildoers: “Though they dig into hell, thence shall I take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down.” “And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I direct the sword of justice, and it shall slay them.” Amos further startled his hearers when, pointing a reproving and accusing finger at them, he declared in the name of Yahweh: “Surely I will never forget any of your works.” “And I will sift the house of Israel among all nations as wheat is sifted in a sieve.”

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, only to lose more than three fourths of their children even before finding a new abiding place!

As time passed in the second garden, the consequences of default became increasingly apparent. Adam and Eve greatly missed their former home of beauty and tranquillity as well as their children who had been deported to Edentia. It was indeed pathetic to observe this magnificent couple reduced to the status of the common flesh of the realm; but they bore their diminished estate with grace and fortitude.

After getting settled in the new Eden, it became necessary to adopt crude methods of living; it seemed entirely true that the ground had been cursed. Nature was once again taking its course. Now were the Adamites compelled to wrest a living from unprepared soil and to cope with the realities of life in the face of the natural hostilities and incompatibilities of mortal existence. They found the first garden partially prepared for them, but the second had to be created by the labor of their own hands and in the “sweat of their faces.”

This was one of the most joyous moments in their short but eventful lives. All night long they sat up watching their fire burn, vaguely realizing that they had made a discovery which would make it possible for them to defy climate and thus forever to be independent of their animal relatives of the southern lands. After three days’ rest and enjoyment of the fire, they journeyed on.

It does not appear that Moses would ever have succeeded in the establishment of his somewhat advanced ceremonial worship and in keeping his followers intact for a quarter of a century had it not been for the violent eruption of Horeb during the third week of their worshipful sojourn at its base. “The mountain of Yahweh was consumed in fire, and the smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.” In view of this cataclysm it is not surprising that Moses could impress upon his brethren the teaching that their God was “mighty, terrible, a devouring fire, fearful, and all-powerful.”

The early myths about how fire came down from the gods grew out of the observations of fire caused by lightning. These ideas of supernatural origin led directly to fire worship, and fire worship led to the custom of “passing through fire,” a practice carried on up to the times of Moses. And there still persists the idea of passing through fire after death. The fire myth was a great bond in early times and still persists in the symbolism of the Parsees.

WHEN Adam elected to leave the first garden to the Nodites unopposed, he and his followers could not go west, for the Edenites had no boats suitable for such a marine adventure. They could not go north; the northern Nodites were already on the march toward Eden. They feared to go south; the hills of that region were infested with hostile tribes. The only way open was to the east, and so they journeyed eastward toward the then pleasant regions between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. And many of those who were left behind later journeyed eastward to join the Adamites in their new valley home.