them anymore in his “garden,” his experimental laboratory. To avoid the risk of their return, he places a guard (cherubim) at the entrance of Eden, which proves, once again, that this was not some paradise, a kind of blissful state from which man would have fallen, but a very precise, physical location, where one could enter and leave.

I said, “You are Elohim; you are all sons of Elyon. But you will die like Adam; you will fall like every other ruler.” (Psalm 82:6-7)

Fortunately, we know Yahweh was not the one and only “God” but just a minor local ruler. His insignificance and weakness caused him to issue cruel orders, as we shall see. The need to maintain his power was more important than any other concern.

It must also be emphasized that Israel was not “chosen by,” but rather “assigned to” Yahweh. Other peoples/nations were assigned to other “gods” and thus constituted material for different “choices,” within which it is presumptuous to define a hierarchical scale.

The Elohim lived long enough to be considered immortal, even though they were not.

A possible literal translation of Genesis 2:8 would then be: “Elohim Yahweh planted a garden in Eden from [the] ancient one,” where “ancient” could possibly refer to an “earlier, primeval Eden,” thus indicating the existence of some kind of Eden archetype from which other Edens might be derived. These other Edens were probably planted in different

Not in one instance does the word [olam] means “eternity” in the Bible, and yet it is translated with “eternity” all the time.

Some archaeological findings match the size of Goliath’s weapons. In Morocco, tools were found that could only be used by people with a height of at least 13 feet; in China, 500 two-handed axes weighing 18 pounds each were excavated.

The most well-known example is the Giza plain, where the spatial arrangement of the three great pyramids is said to reflect the orientation of the three stars of Orion’s belt.