Not a metaphoric Garden of Eden, mind you, but the real, true
thing? The notion would seem to strike many people as absurd,
not the least reason being that it’s a stretch to believe the
Bible’s take on Creation is the literal truth. Another reason is
that it positions the Garden as the spot where four rivers —
Pishon, Gihon, Tigris and Euphrates — branch out. The first two
are mysteries but the last two are actually in the Middle East.
But at one time a case was made that Serpent Mound in Adams
County — southwest Ohio’s greatest example of land art and one
of the nation’ best known earthworks — was indeed the actual
Garden of Eden. And the story of that theory, as well as a lot
of others about the Garden’s actual location, are discussed in a
delightfully provocative and well-researched recent book, Brook
Wilensky-Lanford’s Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of
Eden. Some of those theories are flawed but thoughtful and even
scholarly; others are breathtakingly half-baked. It’s been
established that Ohio’s