Christians believe that God created the universe then formed it and filled it. Within the newly shaped world, God created a garden in which he placed the first humans. The garden stood on top of a mountain surrounded by jewels and pre-historic beauty.
Within the garden lay two trees, one that bestowed life and one that bestowed the knowledge of good and evil. The first gave life. The second brought death.
After the garden’s formation, animals came to Adam. He named them all. Adam must have named the snake. And later, that same snake or one like it crept into the mountain garden. It spoke to the woman. It deceived and bedevilled her.
Adam and Eve together ate from a forbidden tree. Then God came down in the wind. He clothed them in the skins of a dead animal to symbolize the death sentence incurred upon them for eating of the tree.
Afterwards, God exiled them from the mountainous garden with all its beauty. Cherubim stood guard at the entrance to the mountain of God. Like giant lions or guard dogs, they possessed fiery swords that would terrify and turn back any would-be invaders. Neither the serpent nor humanity could ever enter into the God’s mountain garden again.
To enter into the world of the Bible, the real world, requires Imagination. Most of us live in a plastic world shaped by notions of common sense. Common sense dictates that the universe runs by pure natural law, that unseen realities cannot and do not interact with the material world, and that everything in the body has a material cause.