7. LIFE IN THE GARDEN
74:7.1 The children of Adam, except for four years’ attendance at the western schools, lived and worked in the “east of Eden.” They were trained intellectually until they were 16 in accordance with the methods of the Jerusem schools. From 16 to 20 they were taught in the Urantia schools at the other end of the Garden, serving there also as teachers in the lower grades.
74:7.2 The entire purpose of the western school system of the Garden was
74:7.3 The teaching in these schools included instruction regarding:
74:7.4 1. Health and the care of the body.
74:7.5 2. The golden rule, the standard of social intercourse.
74:7.6 3. The relation of individual rights to group rights and community obligations.
74:7.7 4. History and culture of the various earth races.
74:7.8 5. Methods of advancing and improving world trade.
74:7.9 6. Co-ordination of conflicting duties and emotions.
74:7.10 7. The cultivation of play, humour, and competitive substitutes for physical fighting.
74:7.11 ¶ The schools, in fact every activity of the Garden, were always open to visitors. Unarmed observers were freely admitted to Eden for short visits. To sojourn in the Garden a Urantian had to be “adopted.” He received instructions in the plan and purpose of the Adamic bestowal, signified his intention to adhere to this mission, and then made declaration of loyalty to the social rule of Adam and the spiritual sovereignty of the Universal Father.
74:7.12 ¶ The laws of the Garden were based on the older codes of Dalamatia and were promulgated under seven heads:
74:7.13 1. The laws of health and sanitation.
74:7.14 2. The social regulations of the Garden.
74:7.15 3. The code of trade and commerce.
74:7.16 4. The laws of fair play and competition.
74:7.17 5. The laws of home life.
74:7.18 6. The civil codes of the golden rule.
74:7.19 7. The seven commands of supreme moral rule.
74:7.20 ¶ The moral law of Eden was little different from the seven commandments of Dalamatia. But the Adamites taught many additional reasons for these commands; for instance, regarding the injunction against murder, the indwelling of the Thought Adjuster was presented as an additional reason for not destroying human life. They taught that “whoso sheds man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man.”
74:7.21 The public worship hour of Eden was noon; sunset was the hour of family worship. Adam did his best to discourage the use of set prayers, teaching that effective prayer must be wholly individual, that it must be the “desire of the soul”; but the Edenites continued to use the prayers and forms handed down from the times of Dalamatia. Adam also endeavoured to substitute the offerings of the fruit of the land for the blood sacrifices in the religious ceremonies but had made little progress before the disruption of the Garden.
74:7.22 ¶ Adam endeavoured to teach the races sex equality. The way Eve worked by the side of her husband made a profound impression upon all dwellers in the Garden. Adam definitely taught them that the woman, equally with the man, contributes those life factors which unite to form a new being. Theretofore, mankind had presumed that all procreation resided in the “loins of the father.” They had looked upon the mother as being merely a provision for nurturing the unborn and nursing the newborn.
74:7.23 Adam taught his contemporaries all they could comprehend, but that was not very much, comparatively speaking. Nevertheless, the more intelligent of the races of earth looked forward eagerly to the time when they would be permitted to intermarry with the superior children of the violet race. And what a different world Urantia would have become if this great plan of uplifting the races had been carried out! Even as it was, tremendous gains resulted from the small amount of the blood of this imported race which the evolutionary peoples incidentally secured.
74:7.24 And thus did Adam work for the welfare and uplift of the world of his sojourn. But it was a difficult task to lead these mixed and mongrel peoples in the better way.
8. THE LEGEND OF CREATION
74:8.1 The story of the creation of Urantia in six days was based on the tradition that Adam and Eve had spent just six days in their initial survey of the Garden. This circumstance lent almost sacred sanction to the time period of the week, which had been originally introduced by the Dalamatians. Adam’s spending six days inspecting the Garden and formulating preliminary plans for organization was not prearranged; it was worked out from day to day. The choosing of the seventh day for worship was wholly incidental to the facts herewith narrated.
74:8.2 The legend of the making of the world in six days was an afterthought, in fact, more than 30,000 years afterwards. One feature of the narrative, the sudden appearance of the sun and moon, may have taken origin in the traditions of the onetime sudden emergence of the world from a dense space cloud of minute matter which had long obscured both sun and moon.
74:8.3 The story of creating Eve out of Adam’s rib is a confused condensation of the Adamic arrival and the celestial surgery connected with the interchange of living substances associated with the coming of the corporeal staff of the Planetary Prince more than 450,000 years previously.
74:8.4 ¶ The majority of the world’s peoples have been influenced by the tradition that Adam and Eve had physical forms created for them upon their arrival on Urantia. The belief in man’s having been created from clay was well-nigh universal in the Eastern Hemisphere; this tradition can be traced from the Philippine Islands around the world to Africa. And many groups accepted this story of man’s clay origin by some form of special creation in the place of the earlier beliefs in progressive creation — evolution.
74:8.5 Away from the influences of Dalamatia and Eden, mankind tended toward the belief in the gradual ascent of the human race. The fact of evolution is not a modern discovery; the ancients understood the slow and evolutionary character of human progress. The early Greeks had clear ideas of this despite their proximity to Mesopotamia. Although the various races of earth became sadly mixed up in their notions of evolution, nevertheless, many of the primitive tribes believed and taught that they were the descendants of various animals. Primitive peoples made a practice of selecting for their “totems” the animals of their supposed ancestry. Certain North American Indian tribes believed they originated from beavers and coyotes. Certain African tribes teach that they are descended from the hyena, a Malay tribe from the lemur, a New Guinea group from the parrot.
74:8.6 The Babylonians, because of immediate contact with the remnants of the civilization of the Adamites, enlarged and embellished the story of man’s creation; they taught that he had descended directly from the gods. They held to an aristocratic origin for the race which was incompatible with even the doctrine of creation out of clay.
74:8.7 ¶ The Old Testament account of creation dates from long after the time of Moses; he never taught the Hebrews such a distorted story. But he did present a simple and condensed narrative of creation to the Israelites, hoping thereby to augment his appeal to worship the Creator, the Universal Father, whom he called the Lord God of Israel.
74:8.8 In his early teachings, Moses very wisely did not attempt to go back of Adam’s time, and since Moses was the supreme teacher of the Hebrews, the stories of Adam became intimately associated with those of creation. That the earlier traditions recognized pre-Adamic civilization is clearly shown by the fact that
