Close your eyes and think of the entirety of the land that you live on.

Do you picture an entire continent?

Maybe you picture the shape of every continent wrapped around a ball floating through space.

Now ask an ancient person to think of the entirety of the land that we live on,

and they might

picture something a lot simpler, but also a lot more profound.

They'll picture a cosmic mountain bordered by the chaotic sea, and they picture themselves

living on the flanks of this cosmic mountain.

But at the top, where the peak slices into the sky, that's where the human and divine come together.

In the ancient Near East, the union of heaven and earth was conceived of as a mountain, whose base was at the bottom of the earth, and whose peak was the top of heaven.

The cosmic mountain was the meeting place of the gods, which provide the waters of life

that flow out into the world. Today we look at how biblical authors pick up this common ancient

conception and depict the garden and Eden as the top of a cosmic mountain. From this garden, a stream

flows down. It breaks into four rivers, and it waters the entire land.

Now, the story in Genesis doesn't explicitly state that the garden and Eden was on top of a mountain.

But there are these clues, and the prophet Ezekiel just comes out and says it.

He calls Eden the mountain of God.

They're not hiding it.

These four rivers that go out to the nations of the world all come from one place,

namely the river singular in Eden.

God places humans to live on top of this mountain,

and he gives them access to the source of eternal life

...