Northernness

Assigned Readings (3)

The Ecology of Eden Ch. 9

Eden is the paradise described in Genesis where the first humans, Adam and Eve, lived in perfect harmony with God. Modern culture refers to this natural place as the “Garden of Eden.” However, from the sixth to the seventeenth century, people thought of Eden as a mountain! I have been a Christian for eight years and have never heard this theory before today. The elevation is not mentioned, only that Eden has a multitude of trees and is the source of four rivers. Rivers do not come from forests or flat gardens, they emerge from mountains due to gravity. The author writes how ancient people had a “feeling that life flowed from the north” (p. 91). “Northernness,” which emerges from Norse mythology, is what C.S. Lewis defines as an interest in the northern lands of Britain and Scandinavia, as well as a sense of longing for something unreachable, an imaginary world. What if we are being called back to Eden, our northern most point and origin? How would we know we had arrived once we reached it?