The Garden of Eden

73:1.1On a nor­mal planet the ar­rival of the Ma­te­rial Son would or­di­nar­ily her­ald the ap­proach of a great age of in­ven­tion, ma­te­rial prog­ress, and in­tel­lec­tual en­light­en­ment. The post-Adamic era is the great sci­en­tific age of most worlds, but not so on Uran­tia. Though the planet was peo­pled by races phys­i­cally fit, the tribes lan­guished in the depths of sav­agery and moral stag­na­tion.

73:1.2Ten thou­sand years af­ter the re­bel­lion prac­ti­cally all the gains of the Prince’s ad­min­is­tra­tion had been ef­faced; the races of the world were lit­tle bet­ter off than if this mis­guided Son had never come to Uran­tia. Only among the Nod­ites and the Ama­don­ites was there per­sis­tence of the tra­di­tions of Dala­ma­tia and the cul­ture of the Plan­e­tary Prince.

73:1.3The Nod­ites were the de­scen­dants of the rebel mem­bers of the Prince’s staff, their name de­riv­ing from their first leader, Nod, one­time chair­man of the Dala­ma­tia com­mis­sion on in­dus­try and trade. The Ama­don­ites were the de­scen­dants of those An­don­ites who chose to re­main loyal with Van and Amadon. “Amadonite” is more of a cul­tural and re­li­gious des­ig­na­tion than a racial term; racially con­sid­ered the Ama­don­ites were es­sen­tially An­don­ites. “Nod­ite” is both a cul­tural and racial term, for the Nod­ites them­selves con­sti­tuted the eighth race of Uran­tia.

73:1.4There ex­isted a tra­di­tional en­mity be­tween the Nod­ites and the Ama­don­ites. This feud was con­stantly com­ing to the sur­face when­ever the off­spring of these two groups would try to en­gage in some com­mon en­ter­prise. Even later, in the af­fairs of Eden, it was ex­ceed­ingly dif­fi­cult for them to work to­gether in peace.

73:1.5Shortly af­ter the de­struc­tion of Dala­ma­tia the fol­low­ers of Nod be­came di­vided into three ma­jor groups. The cen­tral group re­mained in the im­me­di­ate vicin­ity of their orig­i­nal home near the head­wa­ters of the Per­sian Gulf. The east­ern group mi­grated to the high­land re­gions of Elam just east of the Eu­phrates val­ley. The west­ern group was sit­u­ated on the north­east­ern Syr­ian shores of the Med­i­ter­ra­nean and in ad­ja­cent ter­ri­tory.

73:1.6These Nod­ites had freely mated with the San­gik races and had left be­hind an able progeny. And some of the de­scen­dants of the re­bel­lious Dala­ma­tians sub­se­quently joined Van and his loyal fol­low­ers in the lands north of Mes­o­po­ta­mia. Here, in the vicin­ity of Lake Van and the south­ern Caspian Sea re­gion, the Nod­ites min­gled and mixed with the Ama­don­ites, and they were num­bered among the “mighty men of old.”

73:1.7Prior to the ar­rival of Adam and Eve these groups—Nod­ites and Ama­don­ites—were the most ad­vanced and cul­tured races on earth.