The Greek word pa·raʹdei·sos occurs three times in the Christian Greek Scriptures. (Lu 23:43; 2Co 12:4; Re 2:7) Greek writers as far back as Xenophon (c. 431-352 B.C.E.) used the word, and Pollux attributed it to a Persian origin (pairidaeza). (Cyropaedia, I, iii, 14; Anabasis, I, ii, 7; Onomasticon, IX, 13)

The three terms (Hebrew par·desʹ, Persian pairidaeza, and Greek pa·raʹdei·sos), however, all convey the basic idea of a beautiful park or parklike garden. The first such park was that made by man’s Creator, Jehovah God, in Eden. (Ge 2:8, 9, 15) It is called a gan, or “garden,” in Hebrew but was obviously parklike in size and nature. The Greek Septuagint appropriately uses the term pa·raʹdei·sos with reference to that garden. (See EDEN No. 1; GARDEN [Garden of Eden].)