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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 76
THE SECOND GARDEN
76:0.1
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.
76:0.2
Cain and Sansa were both born before the Adamic caravan
had reached its destination between the rivers in
Mesopotamia. Laotta, the mother of Sansa, perished at
the birth of her daughter; Eve suffered much but
survived, owing to superior strength. Eve took Sansa,
the child of Laotta, to her bosom, and she was reared
along with Cain. Sansa grew up to be a woman of great
ability. She became the wife of Sargan, the chief of the
northern blue races, and contributed to the advancement
of the blue men of those times.
1. THE EDENITES ENTER MESOPOTAMIA
76:1.1
It required almost a full year for the caravan of Adam
to reach the Euphrates River. Finding it in flood tide,
they remained camped on the plains west of the stream
almost six weeks before they made their way across to
the land between the rivers which was to become the
second garden.
76:1.2
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.
76:1.3
This site was known to Adam as one of the three original
selections of the committee assigned to choose possible
locations for the Garden proposed by Van and Amadon. The
two rivers themselves were a good natural defense in
those days, and a short way north of the second garden
the Euphrates and Tigris came close together so that a
defense wall extending fifty-six miles could be built
for the protection of the territory to the south and
between the rivers.
76:1.4
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."
2. CAIN AND ABEL
76:2.1
Less than two years after Cain's birth, Abel was born,
the first child of Adam and Eve to be born in the second
garden. When Abel grew up to the age of twelve years, he
elected to be a herder; Cain had chosen to follow
agriculture.
76:2.2
Now, in those days it was customary to make offerings to
the priesthood of the things at hand. Herders would
bring of their flocks, farmers of the fruits of the
fields; and in accordance with this custom, Cain and
Abel likewise made periodic offerings to the priests.
The two boys had many times argued about the relative
merits of their vocations, and Abel was not slow to note
that preference was shown for his animal sacrifices. In
vain did Cain appeal to the traditions of the first
Eden, to the former preference for the fruits of the
fields. But this Abel would not allow, and he taunted
his older brother in his discomfiture.
76:2.3
In the days of the first Eden Adam had indeed sought to
discourage the offering of animal sacrifice so that Cain
had a justifiable precedent for his contentions. It was,
however, difficult to organize the religious life of the
second Eden. Adam was burdened with a thousand and one
details associated with the work of building, defense,
and agriculture. Being much depressed spiritually, he
intrusted the organization of worship and education to
those of Nodite extraction who had served in these
capacities in the first garden; and in even so short a
time the officiating Nodite priests were reverting to
the standards and rulings of pre-Adamic times.
76:2.4
The two boys never got along well, and this matter of
sacrifices further contributed to the growing hatred
between them. Abel knew he was the son of both Adam and
Eve and never failed to impress upon Cain that Adam was
not his father. Cain was not pure violet as his father
was of the Nodite race later admixed with the blue and
the red man and with the aboriginal Andonic stock. And
all of this, with Cain's natural bellicose inheritance,
caused him to nourish an ever-increasing hatred for his
younger brother.
76:2.5
The boys were respectively eighteen and twenty years of
age when the tension between them was finally resolved,
one day, when Abel's taunts so infuriated his bellicose
brother that Cain turned upon him in wrath and slew him.
76:2.6
The observation of Abel's conduct establishes the value
of environment and education as factors in character
development. Abel had an ideal inheritance, and heredity
lies at the bottom of all character; but the influence
of an inferior environment virtually neutralized this
magnificent inheritance. Abel, especially during his
younger years, was greatly influenced by his unfavorable
surroundings. He would have become an entirely different
person had he lived to be twenty-five or thirty; his
superb inheritance would then have shown itself. While a
good environment cannot contribute much toward really
overcoming the character handicaps of a base heredity, a
bad environment can very effectively spoil an excellent
inheritance, at least during the younger years of life.
Good social environment and proper education are
indispensable soil and atmosphere for getting the most
out of a good inheritance.
76:2.7
The death of Abel became known to his parents when his
dogs brought the flocks home without their master. To
Adam and Eve, Cain was fast becoming the grim reminder
of their folly, and they encouraged him in his decision
to leave the garden.
76:2.8
Cain's life in Mesopotamia had not been exactly happy
since he was in such a peculiar way symbolic of the
default. It was not that his associates were unkind to
him, but he had not been unaware of their subconscious
resentment of his presence. But Cain knew that, since he
bore no tribal mark, he would be killed by the first
neighboring tribesmen who might chance to meet him.
Fear, and some remorse, led him to repent. Cain had
never been indwelt by an Adjuster, had always been
defiant of the family discipline and disdainful of his
father's religion. But he now went to Eve, his mother,
and asked for spiritual help and guidance, and when he
honestly sought divine assistance, an Adjuster indwelt
him. And this Adjuster, dwelling within and looking out,
gave Cain a distinct advantage of superiority which
classed him with the greatly feared tribe of Adam.
76:2.9
And so Cain departed for the land of Nod, east of the
second Eden. He became a great leader among one group of
his father's people and did, to a certain degree,
fulfill the predictions of Serapatatia, for he did
promote peace between this division of the Nodites and
the Adamites throughout his lifetime. Cain married
Remona, his distant cousin, and their first son, Enoch,
became the head of the Elamite Nodites. And for hundreds
of years the Elamites and the Adamites continued to be
at peace.
3. LIFE IN MESOPOTAMIA
76:3.1
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.
76:3.2
Adam wisely spent most of the time training his children
and their associates in civil administration,
educational methods, and religious devotions. Had it not
been for this foresight, pandemonium would have broken
loose upon his death. As it was, the death of Adam made
little difference in the conduct of the affairs of his
people. But long before Adam and Eve passed away, they
recognized that their children and followers had
gradually learned to forget the days of their glory in
Eden. And it was better for the majority of their
followers that they did forget the grandeur of Eden;
they were not so likely to experience undue
dissatisfaction with their less fortunate environment.
76:3.3
The civil rulers of the Adamites were derived
hereditarily from the sons of the first garden. Adam's
first son, Adamson (Adam ben Adam), founded a secondary
center of the violet race to the north of the second
Eden. Adam's second son, Eveson, became a masterly
leader and administrator; he was the great helper of his
father. Eveson lived not quite so long as Adam, and his
eldest son, Jansad, became the successor of Adam as the
head of the Adamite tribes.
76:3.4
The religious rulers, or priesthood, originated with
Seth, the eldest surviving son of Adam and Eve born in
the second garden. He was born one hundred and
twenty-nine years after Adam's arrival on Urantia. Seth
became absorbed in the work of improving the spiritual
status of his father's people, becoming the head of the
new priesthood of the second garden. His son, Enos,
founded the new order of worship, and his grandson,
Kenan, instituted the foreign missionary service to the
surrounding tribes, near and far.
76:3.5
The Sethite priesthood was a threefold undertaking,
embracing religion, health, and education. The priests
of this order were trained to officiate at religious
ceremonies, to serve as physicians and sanitary
inspectors, and to act as teachers in the schools of the
garden.
76:3.6
Adam's caravan had carried the seeds and bulbs of
hundreds of plants and cereals of the first garden with
them to the land between the rivers; they also had
brought along extensive herds and some of all the
domesticated animals. Because of this they possessed
great advantages over the surrounding tribes. They
enjoyed many of the benefits of the previous culture of
the original Garden.
76:3.7
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.
76:3.8
The Adamites greatly excelled the surrounding peoples in
cultural achievement and intellectual development. They
produced the third alphabet and otherwise laid the
foundations for much that was the forerunner of modern
art, science, and literature. Here in the lands between
the Tigris and Euphrates they maintained the arts of
writing, metalworking, pottery making, and weaving and
produced a type of architecture that was not excelled in
thousands of years.
76:3.9
The home life of the violet peoples was, for their day
and age, ideal. Children were subjected to courses of
training in agriculture, craftsmanship, and animal
husbandry or else were educated to perform the threefold
duty of a Sethite: to be priest, physician, and teacher.
76:3.10
And when thinking of the Sethite priesthood, do not
confuse those high-minded and noble teachers of health
and religion, those true educators, with the debased and
commercial priesthoods of the later tribes and
surrounding nations. Their religious concepts of Deity
and the universe were advanced and more or less
accurate, their health provisions were, for their time,
excellent, and their methods of education have never
since been surpassed.
4. THE VIOLET RACE
76:4.1
Adam and Eve were the founders of the violet race of
men, the ninth human race to appear on Urantia. Adam and
his offspring had blue eyes, and the violet peoples were
characterized by fair complexions and light hair color
-- yellow, red, and brown.
76:4.2
Eve did not suffer pain in childbirth; neither did the
early evolutionary races. Only the mixed races produced
by the union of evolutionary man with the Nodites and
later with the Adamites suffered the severe pangs of
childbirth.
76:4.3
Adam and Eve, like their brethren on Jerusem, were
energized by dual nutrition, subsisting on both food and
light, supplemented by certain superphysical energies
unrevealed on Urantia. Their Urantia offspring did not
inherit the parental endowment of energy intake and
light circulation. They had a single circulation, the
human type of blood sustenance. They were designedly
mortal though long-lived, albeit longevity gravitated
toward the human norm with each succeeding generation.
76:4.4
Adam and Eve and their first generation of children did
not use the flesh of animals for food. They subsisted
wholly upon "the fruits of the trees." After the first
generation all of the descendants of Adam began to
partake of dairy products, but many of them continued to
follow a nonflesh diet. Many of the southern tribes with
whom they later united were also nonflesh eaters. Later
on, most of these vegetarian tribes migrated to the east
and survived as now admixed in the peoples of India.
76:4.5
Both the physical and spiritual visions of Adam and Eve
were far superior to those of the present-day peoples.
Their special senses were much more acute, and they were
able to see the midwayers and the angelic hosts, the
Melchizedeks, and the fallen Prince Caligastia, who
several times came to confer with his noble successor.
They retained the ability to see these celestial beings
for over one hundred years after the default. These
special senses were not so acutely present in their
children and tended to diminish with each succeeding
generation.
76:4.6
The Adamic children were usually Adjuster indwelt since
they all possessed undoubted survival capacity. These
superior offspring were not so subject to fear as the
children of evolution. So much of fear persists in the
present-day races of Urantia because your ancestors
received so little of Adam's life plasm, owing to the
early miscarriage of the plans for racial physical
uplift.
76:4.7
The body cells of the Material Sons and their progeny
are far more resistant to disease than are those of the
evolutionary beings indigenous to the planet. The body
cells of the native races are akin to the living
disease-producing microscopic and ultramicroscopic
organisms of the realm. These facts explain why the
Urantia peoples must do so much by way of scientific
effort to withstand so many physical disorders. You
would be far more disease resistant if your races
carried more of the Adamic life.
76:4.8
After becoming established in the second garden on the
Euphrates, Adam elected to leave behind as much of his
life plasm as possible to benefit the world after his
death. Accordingly, Eve was made the head of a
commission of twelve on race improvement, and before
Adam died this commission had selected 1,682 of the
highest type of women on Urantia, and these women were
impregnated with the Adamic life plasm. Their children
all grew up to maturity except 112, so that the world,
in this way, was benefited by the addition of 1,570
superior men and women. Though these candidate mothers
were selected from all the surrounding tribes and
represented most of the races on earth, the majority
were chosen from the highest strains of the Nodites, and
they constituted the early beginnings of the mighty
Andite race. These children were born and reared in the
tribal surroundings of their respective mothers.
5. DEATH OF ADAM AND EVE
76:5.1
Not long after the establishment of the second Eden,
Adam and Eve were duly informed that their repentance
was acceptable, and that, while they were doomed to
suffer the fate of the mortals of their world, they
should certainly become eligible for admission to the
ranks of the sleeping survivors of Urantia. They fully
believed this gospel of resurrection and rehabilitation
which the Melchizedeks so touchingly proclaimed to them.
Their transgression had been an error of judgment and
not the sin of conscious and deliberate rebellion.
76:5.2
Adam and Eve did not, as citizens of Jerusem, have
Thought Adjusters, nor were they Adjuster indwelt when
they functioned on Urantia in the first garden. But
shortly after their reduction to mortal status they
became conscious of a new presence within them and
awakened to the realization that human status coupled
with sincere repentance had made it possible for
Adjusters to indwell them. It was this knowledge of
being Adjuster indwelt that greatly heartened Adam and
Eve throughout the remainder of their lives; they knew
that they had failed as Material Sons of Satania, but
they also knew that the Paradise career was still open
to them as ascending sons of the universe.
76:5.3
Adam knew about the dispensational resurrection which
occurred simultaneously with his arrival on the planet
and he believed that he and his companion would probably
be repersonalized in connection with the advent of the
next order of sonship. He did not know that Michael, the
sovereign of this universe, was so soon to appear on
Urantia; he expected that the next Son to arrive would
be of the Avonal order. Even so, it was always a comfort
to Adam and Eve, as well as something difficult for them
to understand, to ponder the only personal message they
ever received from Michael. This message, among other
expressions of friendship and comfort, said: "I have
given consideration to the circumstances of your
default, I have remembered the desire of your hearts
ever to be loyal to my Father's will, and you will be
called from the embrace of mortal slumber when I come to
Urantia if the subordinate Sons of my realm do not send
for you before that time."
76:5.4
And this was a great mystery to Adam and Eve. They could
comprehend the veiled promise of a possible special
resurrection in this message, and such a possibility
greatly cheered them, but they could not grasp the
meaning of the intimation that they might rest until the
time of a resurrection associated with Michael's
personal appearance on Urantia. And so the Edenic pair
always proclaimed that a Son of God would sometime come,
and they communicated to their loved ones the belief, at
least the longing hope, that the world of their blunders
and sorrows might possibly be the realm whereon the
ruler of this universe would elect to function as the
Paradise bestowal Son. It seemed too good to be true,
but Adam did entertain the thought that strife-torn
Urantia might, after all, turn out to be the most
fortunate world in the system of Satania, the envied
planet of all Nebadon.
76:5.5
Adam lived for 530 years; he died of what might be
termed old age. His physical mechanism simply wore out;
the process of disintegration gradually gained on the
process of repair, and the inevitable end came. Eve had
died nineteen years previously of a weakened heart. They
were both buried in the center of the temple of divine
service which had been built in accordance with their
plans soon after the wall of the colony had been
completed. And this was the origin of the practice of
burying noted and pious men and women under the floors
of the places of worship.
76:5.6
The supermaterial government of Urantia, under the
direction of the Melchizedeks, continued, but direct
physical contact with the evolutionary races had been
severed. From the distant days of the arrival of the
corporeal staff of the Planetary Prince, down through
the times of Van and Amadon to the arrival of Adam and
Eve, physical representatives of the universe government
had been stationed on the planet. But with the Adamic
default this regime, extending over a period of more
than four hundred and fifty thousand years, came to an
end. In the spiritual spheres, angelic helpers continued
to struggle in conjunction with the Thought Adjusters,
both working heroically for the salvage of the
individual; but no comprehensive plan for far-reaching
world welfare was promulgated to the mortals of earth
until the arrival of Machiventa Melchizedek, in the
times of Abraham, who, with the power, patience, and
authority of a Son of God, did lay the foundations for
the further uplift and spiritual rehabilitation of
unfortunate Urantia.
76:5.7
Misfortune has not, however, been the sole lot of
Urantia; this planet has also been the most fortunate in
the local universe of Nebadon. Urantians should count it
all gain if the blunders of their ancestors and the
mistakes of their early world rulers so plunged the
planet into such a hopeless state of confusion, all the
more confounded by evil and sin, that this very
background of darkness should so appeal to Michael of
Nebadon that he selected this world as the arena wherein
to reveal the loving personality of the Father in
heaven. It is not that Urantia needed a Creator Son to
set its tangled affairs in order; it is rather that the
evil and sin on Urantia afforded the Creator Son a more
striking background against which to reveal the
matchless love, mercy, and patience of the Paradise
Father.
6. SURVIVAL OF ADAM AND EVE
76:6.1
Adam and Eve went to their mortal rest with strong faith
in the promises made to them by the Melchizedeks that
they would sometime awake from the sleep of death to
resume life on the mansion worlds, worlds all so
familiar to them in the days preceding their mission in
the material flesh of the violet race on Urantia.
76:6.2
They did not long rest in the oblivion of the
unconscious sleep of the mortals of the realm. On the
third day after Adam's death, the second following his
reverent burial, the orders of Lanaforge, sustained by
the acting Most High of Edentia and concurred in by the
Union of Days on Salvington, acting for Michael, were
placed in Gabriel's hands, directing the special roll
call of the distinguished survivors of the Adamic
default on Urantia. And in accordance with this mandate
of special resurrection, number twenty-six of the
Urantia series, Adam and Eve were repersonalized and
reassembled in the resurrection halls of the mansion
worlds of Satania together with 1,316 of their
associates in the experience of the first garden. Many
other loyal souls had already been translated at the
time of Adam's arrival, which was attended by a
dispensational adjudication of both the sleeping
survivors and of the living qualified ascenders.
76:6.3
Adam and Eve quickly passed through the worlds of
progressive ascension until they attained citizenship on
Jerusem, once again to be residents of the planet of
their origin but this time as members of a different
order of universe personalities. They left Jerusem as
permanent citizens -- Sons of God; they returned as
ascendant citizens -- sons of man. They were immediately
attached to the Urantia service on the system capital,
later being assigned membership among the four and
twenty counselors who constitute the present
advisory-control body of Urantia.
76:6.4
And thus ends the story of the Planetary Adam and Eve of
Urantia, a story of trial, tragedy, and triumph, at
least personal triumph for your well-meaning but deluded
Material Son and Daughter and undoubtedly, in the end, a
story of ultimate triumph for their world and its
rebellion-tossed and evil-harassed inhabitants. When all
is summed up, Adam and Eve made a mighty contribution to
the speedy civilization and accelerated biologic
progress of the human race. They left a great culture on
earth, but it was not possible for such an advanced
civilization to survive in the face of the early
dilution and the eventual submergence of the Adamic
inheritance. It is the people who make a civilization;
civilization does not make the people.
76:6.5
Presented by Solonia, the seraphic "voice in the
Garden."
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