about Eden

[TorchofGod]

I was reading Genesis again the other day. As always , I keep wondering where Eden was. I would say it was lost inthe flood except that the language seems to indicate that the writer was speakign of a places that could identify where it was.
Genesis 2:11
The name of the first [is] Pison: that [is] it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where [there is] gold;

Genesis 2:12
And the gold of that land [is] good: there [is] bdellium and the onyx stone.

Genesis 2:13
And the name of the second river [is] Gihon: the same [is] it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

Genesis 2:14
And the name of the third river [is] Hiddekel: that [is] it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river [is] Euphrates.
So my question then would be, if it was not buried in the flood where was it? I found some old maps of eurasia on the net but they were not too clear and not much help. I also noticed this thime I read Genesis 2 that the garden was in Eden, not Eden but in it.That makes me wonder about the rivers that came from the garden.
Genesis 2:10
And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

there was one river, which watered the garden.After the garden it split.
I know some beleive Eden was iraq, but I wondr?One river encompased africa I thin k. So I guess what i want os s ome help answering my curiosity.WAs the wirter talkingof somethignthat existed in his day? if so then we should be able to clearly find Eden. What are the modern names of the rivers Gihon and Hiddekel? Those two rivers frustrate me. Finally, what does archeological evidence show concerning where Eden was and so on?
I sure hope these questions made sense.

[Socrates]

Today @ 04:42 PM post located here
TorchofGod:

I was reading Genesis again the other day. As always , I keep wondering where Eden was. I would say it was lost in the flood

That's right. Augustine and Luther realised this.

except that the language seems to indicate that the writer was speakign of a places that could identify where it was.

Perhaps so. But don't forget that the original writer was probably not Moses but maybe Adam himself, while Moses was the editor of pre-existing tablets. Supporting evidence is the many editorial comments (e.g. Gen. 26:33, 32:32). Sometimes the ancient tablets were left alone, e.g. 10:19 where directions are matter-of-factly given to Sodom, a city long destroyed and under the Dead Sea by Moses' time.

Scripture Verse:

Genesis 2:10
And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

there was one river, which watered the garden.After the garden it split.
I know some beleive Eden was iraq, but I wonder?

It's obvious that the description of Eden is not Mesopotamia, because this doesn't have one river breaking into four, or a river going from there and flowing into Cush (Ethiopia) or modern-day or Sudan. The pre-Flood rivers were buried under thousands of feed of Flood sediments, so we have no idea where Eden was.

The correct explanation can be shown by recent history of emigration. New towns established by British settlers in North America, Australia and New Zealand were frequently assigned names that were familiar place-names in the land they had left; e.g. Liverpool, Hamilton, Oxford, Sheffield, Newcastle and Brighton. Similarly, features in the post-Flood world were given names familiar to those who survived the Flood.

[JohnStevenson]

[i]It's obvious that the description of Eden is not Mesopotamia, because this doesn't have one river breaking into four, or a river going from there and flowing into Cush (Ethiopia) or modern-day or Sudan

Rivers do not normally (if ever) break into four heads and flow in four different directions except in the case of a Delta such as the Nile. This could also have been descriptive of the area where the Tigris and the Euphrates flow into the Persian Gulf. Furthermore, we read that the Pishon "flows around the whole land of Havilah."

Havilah is a reference to lands in northern Arabia where the descendants of Ishmael made their homes (Genesis 25:18).

In the 1990's, Boston University scientist Farouk El-Baz used photos from satellites orbiting the earth and space Shuttle Imaging Radar to locate an underground river which now runs under a portion of the desert of Saudi Arabia (James A. Sauer, "The River Runs Dry," Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 22, No. 4, July/August 1996, pp. 52-54, 57, 64 and Molly Dewsnap, "The Kuwait River," Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 22, No. 4, July/August 1996, p. 55.).

In Kuwait, a dry riverbed (Wadi Al-Batin) cuts through limestone and appears to disappear into the desert of Saudi Arabia. Actually, the river ran underground along a fault line under the sand. From the Hyaz Mountains in Saudi Arabia, this river carried granite and basalt pebbles 650 miles northeast to deposit them at its delta in Kuwait near the Persian Gulf.

Some have theorized that this lost river corresponds to biblical descriptions of the Pishon River. This one discovery was enough to make Sauer, the former curator of the Harvard Semitic Museum’s archaeological collections, reverse his previous skepticism regarding the historical accuracy of the Bible.

The Gihon is said to flow around the whole land of Cush (Genesis 2:13). This presents a difficulty in that Cush was the land to the south of Egypt. However, there was also an area to the east of the Tigris River which was known as Cush. If this is the case, then this could be a reference to the Karun River which flows into the Tigris and Euphrates just before they enter the Persian Gulf.

[aicko]

That's right. Augustine and Luther realised this.



Perhaps so. But don't forget that the original writer was probably not Moses but maybe Adam himself, while Moses was the editor of pre-existing tablets. Supporting evidence is the many editorial comments (e.g. Gen. 26:33, 32:32). Sometimes the ancient tablets were left alone, e.g. 10:19 where directions are matter-of-factly given to Sodom, a city long destroyed and under the Dead Sea by Moses' time.



It's obvious that the description of Eden is not Mesopotamia, because this doesn't have one river breaking into four, or a river going from there and flowing into Cush (Ethiopia) or modern-day or Sudan. The pre-Flood rivers were buried under thousands of feed of Flood sediments, so we have no idea where Eden was.

The correct explanation can be shown by recent history of emigration. New towns established by British settlers in North America, Australia and New Zealand were frequently assigned names that were familiar place-names in the land they had left; e.g. Liverpool, Hamilton, Oxford, Sheffield, Newcastle and Brighton. Similarly, features in the post-Flood world were given names familiar to those who survived the Flood.

In Genesis 32:30 Jacob say's he has seen God face to face and the place he calls "Peniel". Have you ever been directed to Gray's Anatomy book. May I suggest you look at the human brain. find the place called pineal. While there look up "Arbor Vitae" or better known in English as "Tree of life". Perhaps this may be the place you are searching for. Humm....

[Christy]

By aiko: In Genesis 32:30 Jacob say's he has seen God face to face and the place he calls "Peniel". Have you ever been directed to Gray's Anatomy book. May I suggest you look at the human brain. find the place called pineal. While there look up "Arbor Vitae" or better known in English as "Tree of life". Perhaps this may be the place you are searching for. Humm....

[Christy]

I'm sorry, aicko

[shunyadragon]

I was reading Genesis again the other day. As always , I keep wondering where Eden was. I would say it was lost inthe flood except that the language seems to indicate that the writer was speakign of a places that could identify where it was.
Genesis 2:11
The name of the first [is] Pison: that [is] it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where [there is] gold;

Genesis 2:12
And the gold of that land [is] good: there [is] bdellium and the onyx stone.

Genesis 2:13
And the name of the second river [is] Gihon: the same [is] it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

Genesis 2:14
And the name of the third river [is] Hiddekel: that [is] it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river [is] Euphrates.
So my question then would be, if it was not buried in the flood where was it? I found some old maps of eurasia on the net but they were not too clear and not much help. I also noticed this thime I read Genesis 2 that the garden was in Eden, not Eden but in it.That makes me wonder about the rivers that came from the garden.
Genesis 2:10
And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

there was one river, which watered the garden.After the garden it split.
I know some beleive Eden was iraq, but I wondr?One river encompased africa I thin k. So I guess what i want os s ome help answering my curiosity.WAs the wirter talkingof somethignthat existed in his day? if so then we should be able to clearly find Eden. What are the modern names of the rivers Gihon and Hiddekel? Those two rivers frustrate me. Finally, what does archeological evidence show concerning where Eden was and so on?
I sure hope these questions made sense.

In terms of archeology and paleontology the 'Garden of Eden' is Central Africa centering on the head waters of the Nile and the rift valley. This is where the greatest diversity of human ancestors is found. Our human ancestors favored grasslands. The ape ancestors favored tropical rain forests.

[markporter]

hmm, well I'm not sure whether I believe in a literal eden or not, but there's an article on the asa site if you want to have a look at it http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2000/PSCF3-00Hill.html

[learning]

David Rohl had a web page about Eden that was really good, where it was up in the mountains of Turkey somewhere, he had a way of showing four rivers that started in this area, and the Tigris and Euphrates seem to come from there. I don't think that web page is available anymore, but it was interesting to read.

[learning]

Hey Mark, that's a pretty good link. I remember looking up the Pishon river, cause it said something about gold being found around there, but then found that some British explorer found gold in the area of the Pishon river years ago.

I was looking at a north American Indian magazine once in a book store, and they had something about the garden of Eden being around Lake Superior! Who knows where it was, but the Bible states things about the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, so I think it is somehow connected to them. It's just the other two rivers that are a mystery at times. David Rohl had a way of showing how the letters can be changed so that the rivers he found at the top of the Mesopotamia area fit, and some of the land around there fit too, in that some of it was called the 'land of Nod' etc. (as it goes on to talk about Cain going to live there in Genesis.)

[markporter]

Oh, the other thing which I should have pointed out is Genesis 3:24 which might seem to imply that the Garden of Eden is not a place which is meant to geographically accessible to the readers...

[JohnStevenson]

I just spent the better part of a week with OT Professor Richard Pratt from Reformed Theological Seminary -- his spin (an one held by a number of ancient Jewish scholars) was that Eden was at the site of Jerusalem. As such, it was "the mountain of God." This was seen as the one place that is at the center of the world.

Not sure that I buy it, but it is an interesting theory nevertheless.

[mikeledo]

The Garden of Eden story it based on the historical location of Dilmun, known as “the land of Eternal Life.”



The Sumerians (Sumerian/Babylonian/Assyrian will basically refer to the same continuous culture of that region) had numerous myths dealing with a place called Dilmun. Just what and where was Dilmun? There seems to have been two such places in Sumerian literature, just as in the Bible. There was an astral paradise-like place and a real geographic local that traded with and paid tribute to various Mesopotamian lands. Most scholars now identify Dilmun with the land of Bahrain.

The myth "Enki and Ninhursag" gives a good description of the land:

"Pure was Dilmun land!
Virginal was Dilmun land!

The lion slew not,
the wolf was not
carrying off lambs,

No eye-diseases said there:
'I the eye-disease.'

No headache said there:
'I headache.'

No old woman belonging to it said there:
'I old woman.'

No old man belonging to it said there:
'I old man.' "

In other words everyone lived forever.

Now let’s compare this with the Biblical Eden:

• A garden was planted in the east, in Eden. Paradise-Dilmun was also in the east. Similarity.
• Man was put in the Garden of Eden. In Sumeria Gods played in the Garden.
• Eden was full of all kinds of trees. Dilmun was the home of aromatics and cedar.
• Dilmun was a paradise with no disease or aging. This is similar to Eden according to Josephus in the "Antiquities of the Jews".

(A bit of irony: I obtained this list of similarities off a Christian web page which was attempting to prove Eden was not based on a Babylonian myth,)

Archeological digs of Saar, Bahrain (Dilmun) revealed an earthly paradise of many trees as fresh water bubbled up from the ground. Palm tress with dates grew without effort. The town was abandoned about 17th century B.C.E. perhaps due to a change in the water supply.

[A Beautiful Truth]

When I hear arguments like this (that the Bible has borrowed myths) I wonder why it is assumed that it was the Hebrews who did the borrowing?

Please explain.

~Charleen

[mikeledo]

When I hear arguments like this (that the Bible has borrowed myths) I wonder why it is assumed that it was the Hebrews who did the borrowing?

Please explain.

~Charleen

The reason why Hebrews are said to do the borrowing is that traditionally the Bible or OT stories are dated to an Iron Age period (800-1100BCE) whereas other myths or stories date hundreds or a thousand years earlier. We assume the Flintstones borrowed their story line from the Honeymooners and not the other way around because the Honeymooners existed first.

In my latest work I contend the basic book for the OT was written circa 2218 BCE. It compares favorably to the Babylonian texts of that era- most are given a circa 2400 BCE date. What this would mean is that the later Ugarit texts and Greek myths would have borrowed FROM the Bible. However modern scholarship is not yet on board with my work as it is not even published.

The period of the first draft has the Great Famine as its core background. This event caused many myths to arise also in Egypt at the same time as in Jerusalem. The myths are different but certain historical events show through.