Here's What Happened To Adam And Eve's Bodies, According To Jewish Belief

You may be familiar with the Biblical story of the first humans, Adam and Eve. The pair met their downfall after eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (the Bible never specifies what kind of fruit, just one of the untold truths of Adam and Eve). But the details of what happened to the pair after God banished them from the Garden of Eden are less well known. This includes what happened to their bodies after they died. To get some answers, we have to go to Judaic and Islamic sources, mostly apocryphal texts.

After living to the venerable age of 930, Adam died. The Bible does not specify when Eve died or whether it was before or after Adam, though apocryphal texts say she followed him six days later. In the Jewish tradition, they were buried in the Cave of Machepla in Hebron, a city in the West Bank. In the Islamic faith, this burial site is considered one possibility among several others. The cave is considered sacred to both these religions, as well as in Christianity, since it's also the traditional burial place of the prophet Abraham and his son, Isaac, and grandson, Jacob (along with their wives). They're considered the patriarchs and matriarchs of these faiths and gave the cave its other name — the Cave of the Patriarchs.

As the biblical story goes, Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, and their eldest son, Cain, ultimately kills his brother, Abel. After these events, the Book of Genesis — the first book of the Bible and the Torah — doesn't delve into the latter part of the couple's life or death, except to say that they had another son, Seth, when Adam was 130 years old, and Adam died 800 years after this. But the Jewish apocryphal texts, the "Life of Adam and Eve" and the closely related "Apocalypse of Moses," expand on Adam and Eve's life, which includes having 30 more children, before Adam suffers a painful and deadly illness.

Prior to this, Adam tells his children where to bury him, per "The Life of Adam and Eve." "When Adam knew that the hour of his death had come, he said to all his children: Now I am 930 years old, and if I die, bury me beside the great garden of God near his dwelling," it reads. In the "Apocalypse of Moses," God seals Adam's grave and promises to raise him from the dead at the time of the Resurrection. In this version, Eve dies six days later and is buried next to Adam and their son Abel.

In Judaic tradition, Adam chose the Cave of Machpelah as his burial location because it was the entrance to the Garden of Eden. In the Zohar, part of the body of Jewish mystical texts, it describes how Adam and Eve's burial spot was unknown until the prophet Abraham discovered the cave. After living to 175, nowhere close to Adam, but impressive nonetheless, Abraham was buried in the same cave along with the other patriarchs and matriarchs.

But wait — in some Islamic sources, Adam's grave isn't in Hebron. Instead, there are a myriad of potential last resting places, including Mecca, Sri Lanka, Najaf, Iraq, India, and Jerusalem. Similarly, it's believed Eve isn't buried next to her husband but rather in a separate grave in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Still, for many believers, it's the Cave of Machpelah where Adam and Eve were laid to rest. Today, the site includes a massive stone structure around the cave dating to the first century and attributed to Herod the Great. On top sits the Ibrahimi Mosque. All three Abrahamic religions consider it a very holy space.