Why was there a Garden of Eden?

He Lives has raised a question that, I confess, is new to me. It shouldn't have been. That's why I read his blog.

The question is this. If there was no death, even of animals, before the Fall, was that true over the entire earth, or just in the Garden of Eden?

If your answer is "over the whole earth," then what, if anything, was special about the Garden of Eden? Why was there such a place, and what else was special about it?

That's a good question. Heddle's answer is that there was, indeed, death of animals before the Fall, but that the Garden of Eden was a place that was protected from that.

I'm not sure that I buy this answer, but I don't have a better one. One reason I'm not fully convinced is that David Snoke has argued that, when Adam was warned about eating from the Tree of Life, Adam had seen animal death. If he hadn't seen it, it would have been difficult for him to understand the warning. I'm not sure that that is true, either, of course. But if He Lives is correct, then presumably Adam wouldn't have seen death before the warning in Genesis 2.

Thanks for reading!