This book searches for the origins of modern thinking in one of the best-known stories of our cultural heritage. By applying institutional and constitutional economics to biblical interpretation, it uses new approach to reconstruct the Paradise story. The author challenges the old conceptual dualism between economics and theology/philosophy.

This book offers a radical new way of approaching the Old Testament. Sigmund Wagner-Tsukamoto argues that rational, institutional and constitutional economic lessons can be derived from the Old Testament, with applications to social conflict and resolution. The book suggests that this religious text also anticipated many modern economic advances.