You could say it was. Because Adam was banished from the Garden of Eden but when Cain gets banned out of God's presence, he's kicked out of Eden. Meaning Cain was still in Eden where he was born. And who was his father? Adam...Adam was still in Eden, just not allowed in the garden. So that indicates that Eden wasn't only a garden. Read into it and check for yourself.
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As described in the Bible, the Garden of Eden was a paradise on earth. However, Leon R. Kass (The Beginning of Wisdom) says that the Garden of Eden is a purely mythic place. Man was never put in the Garden of Eden, because the garden never really existed.
Kass says we can learn most from the story by regarding it as a mythical yet realistic portrait of permanent truths about our humanity, rather than as a historical yet idealised portrait of a blissful paradise we once enjoyed but lost.
For more information about the Garden of Eden and the creation narratives, please visit:
http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation
Yes; "nice" is putting it lightly. Eden was an actual place right here on Earth, and it was later destroyed in the Flood. The Persian Gulf coastline is known to have changed.
See also:
http://judaism.answers.com/hebrew/does-archaeology-support-the-hebrew-bible