Garden of Eden and it's location
A prevalent theory has always been that the Garden of Eden was in Mesopotamia near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. After having read Vol I of Dr. Andrew Snelling's "Earth's Catastrophic Past", I have come to the conclusion that there is no way for us to know if the garden was located there or not. In fact, it most likely was not at that location. I'll elaborate more after hearing what others think about the subject.
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Permalink Reply by Jim W. on -
Curious....
The Egyptians and Chinese were both around at the time of the flood and both have an unbroken history. How is it that neither culture noticed they were under water?
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Permalink Reply by Charles Martin Jr on -
Interesting question, Jim. However, both the Egyptians AND most of the Chinese tribes have Flood mythology in their literature. They all believe, at some point, that the globe was covered in water, and only a handful of people survived. So, not to be rude, but your statement is false - they do have a "broken history."
Jim W. said:Curious....
The Egyptians and Chinese were both around at the time of the flood and both have an unbroken history. How is it that neither culture noticed they were under water?
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Permalink Reply by Colin Newton on
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This is an important and still unanswered question, which hindered me from accepting the young earth position for several years. AiG and CMI hold that the conventional chronology for Egypt must be wrong, but even the most recent treatment I'm aware of (Unwrapping the Pharaohs by David Down) doesn't really get beyond saying that some of the dynasties must have been contemporary rather than consecutive. That's fine as a hypothesis but we need the evidence to back it up. China isn't so much of a problem as far as I know, its history doesn't go far into the third millennium BC.
I favour a suggestion made by Whitcomb and Morris in The Genesis Flood, that the age of birth of son given in the genealogy from Noah to Abraham refers to the birth of the firstborn son, not necessarily the named son. This allows the Biblical chronology to be stretched a little, by inserting an unknown gap between the firstborn and the named sons in each generation. Clearly this does not open the door to old age thinking, as the maximum extension is the total age of all the patriarchs in the line, and the likely extension is merely centuries. I guesstimate the Flood as being sometime between 3000-2750 BC, which reduces but does not eliminate the need to discover which Egyptian dynasties overlapped.
One overlooked factor regarding the reestablishment of nations after the Flood is how long it would take population to recover. We have limited data on family size in the Bible, e.g. Shem, Ham and Japheth had 16 sons between them, Job had 10 surviving children. These and a few other cases suggest a five-fold to six-fold increase in each generation. However it must be likely that the average 10 or 12 children per family would be spread over an extended period of fertility within the longer lifespans of that era, which slows the rate of population growth significantly. I once did a back-of-an-envelope projection and my view is that it's not realistic to be talking about "nations" starting until approaching 400 years after the Flood, maybe longer. This doesn't necessarily preclude the Babel dispersion occurring before then, what I mean is that the resulting scattered groups were isolated villages rather than nations in any meaningful sense. This is probably why we don't see pyramids until the Egyptian fourth dynasty - the first arrivals from Babel had the skills to build them, but not the population resources.
Some years ago there was talk of an attempt to find the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah; I believe it came to nothing. I hope someday these are found and that there are Egyptian artefacts among them, this would tie Abraham's time to the Egyptian timeline and give us a clearer picture overall.
Jim W. said:Curious....
The Egyptians and Chinese were both around at the time of the flood and both have an unbroken history. How is it that neither culture noticed they were under water?
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Permalink Reply by Justin on -
Most pathetic attempt yet. The Chinese have a hugely similar Flood legend involving a man and his wife(who happened to be his sister) who were spared from a worldwide Flood. The Flood came from God who was cleansing the Earth. I can't remember all the specific details but that's the general story. Its part of their beginning mythology, written in one of the early dynasties.
The Ancients, either built pyramids before the Flood, since there was a civilization then(for some 2000 years) or the Egyptians built it after Babel. The Bible mentions that area and surroundings as the first where civilization started. Some believe the pyramids show signs that it was buried in water. If that's the case then it was Pre-Flood, if not, it was Post. Either way that argument fails.
The chronologies of Egyptians and Chinese can't be fully trusted. If two chronologies clash, then one of them is wrong OR their inflated. The Egyptians chronology is inflated as evidence by its contradiction of the Assyrian's chronology. And most importantly the Bible's chronology which is the source of absolute truth. The Egyptians mainly records dynasties, in chronological order maybe, but not in chronological time. If 2 rules came up at the same time both would be added one after the other. The Chinese as well can easily be explained by this. Not all History is recorded, and most is turned into mythology, such as the Flood. So even if history is recorded it's not always added to the Historical section of their archives.
Jim W. said:Curious....
The Egyptians and Chinese were both around at the time of the flood and both have an unbroken history. How is it that neither culture noticed they were under water?
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Permalink Reply by Charles Martin Jr on
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I hope, Jim, that your silence on this issue means you are doing some research on your own. Please, and I cannot stress this enough, do not take our word for it. Search it out for yourself. Find a book of world mythology, and you will probably find some of the stories I mentioned [you could also buy my book which has done the research for you, but since I'm a little biased towards it, I'd steer you away from it for the time being:-)]. Theodore Gaster has a great collection, based on the work of Sir James Frazer, if I'm not mistaken. If you can find a copy, I would. It's called Myth, Legend, and Custom. By the way, neither of these men were, to my knowledge, Christians, so it should be, from your standpoint, relatively unbaised.
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Permalink Reply by Gabriel Jones on
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There's a Glasgow in Motana for this ame reason, I would think.
Kevin W Anderson said:I too have read of reports that the Garden of Eden was in Mesopotamia, one report had it located under the waters of the Persian Gulf. If that were true then I have sailed right over it when I was there in the Navy. Just like the the Noah's ark, there is a drive for us to find these special places as if they would prove the Bible is correct to those that doubt and mock it. But we can not ever enter Eden for after the fall, the Lord placed a guard, as a bessing. to keep us from the tree of life. This guard was in place until the flood, for then the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. After the flood, the world had changed, we find evidence of this over all of the continents that were covered in flood sediments. A world wide flood would have left no place untouched and that would have included the Garden of Eden. Afterward, as people started to settle, they would find places and rivers that needed a name and they would use the names that they were familar with. So the modern rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates were named after two of Eden's rivers. If they were the original rivers of those names, where are the rivers Pishon and the Gihon? There were one river that flowed from Eden that separated in to four rivers, which does not fit any current location on earth. Even if we could figure out how the continents were onced arranged and what direction they were orientated it would still be mere speculation. That paradice was lost to us! What was not lost to us is the revelation of what happen there in that world and why we are so in need of a savior. The creation and the fall both very important points in 'His'tory.
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Permalink Reply by Gabriel Jones on
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hey, huh? Only 8 people were on the flood, and none of them where chinese or egyptian.
Charles Martin Jr said:Interesting question, Jim. However, both the Egyptians AND most of the Chinese tribes have Flood mythology in their literature. They all believe, at some point, that the globe was covered in water, and only a handful of people survived. So, not to be rude, but your statement is false - they do have a "broken history."
Jim W. said:Curious....
The Egyptians and Chinese were both around at the time of the flood and both have an unbroken history. How is it that neither culture noticed they were under water?
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Permalink Reply by Charles Martin Jr on
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Jim's point was that Chinese and Egyptian mythologies do not contain Flood stories, when, in fact, they do. Were they Egyptian or Chinese on the boat? Not likely. Then again, they weren't Hebrew, either; none of those nations, as best we can tell, were around yet.
Gabriel Andrew Melvill-Jones said:hey, huh? Only 8 people were on the flood, and none of them where chinese or egyptian.
Charles Martin Jr said:Interesting question, Jim. However, both the Egyptians AND most of the Chinese tribes have Flood mythology in their literature. They all believe, at some point, that the globe was covered in water, and only a handful of people survived. So, not to be rude, but your statement is false - they do have a "broken history."
Jim W. said:Curious....
The Egyptians and Chinese were both around at the time of the flood and both have an unbroken history. How is it that neither culture noticed they were under water?
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Permalink Reply by Charles Martin Jr on
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It would be virtually impossible for any of us to tell where rivers were before the Flood. I, too, am always wary when someone attempts to tell me what the geography was like - for certain - before that event.
Paul Iacono said:I must admit, I find it highly amusing that so many of you can argue on one thread that the global flood moved continents, built mountains, created the Grand Canyon, buried the entire planet in a mile of sediment, etc... and then argue on another thread that, all the same, we can tell where a particular river ran before the flood.
The mental gymnastics required to be a YEC repeatedly astound me.
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Permalink Reply by FN on
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I just read Joel Klenck's The Region of Eden and the Gardens of God. It was certainly thought provoking. His book provided sound arguments why Eden could not be in Israel.
1. Ezekiel 36:35 says the land of the future Messiah will be like Eden but is not the ancient location of Eden.
2. Other verses say that two rivers will flow out of the Temple of the Messiah. This differs from ancient Eden where one river emerged from the Garden that divided into four rivers.
Yes the scriptures state that Israel will be like the garden of Eden -- but no verses state that Israel comprises the location of the former ancient Garden.
Also, with regard to Paul's argument, it is clear that the Flood was not a geological food processor forming all paleontological strata (Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic). Mostly likely the Flood occurred sometime in the late Cenozoic, a period of tremendous geological upheaval.
Klenck's really presented good arguments in the second part of the book, where he compared the Biblical associations between major plant and animal taxa and similiar associations from paleontological strata from the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. Then he started quoting creationists and of all people -- Thomas Huxley (yes, Darwin's Bulldog) -- who at the end of his life wondered if geological periods were not contemporaneous biomes.
His arguments are certainly original and he has a sound knowledge of Hebrew, evolutionary and creationist platforms. Where did he study?
Frank N.
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Permalink Reply by Charles Martin Jr on
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Frank,
Sounds like a fascinating book. I may take a look at it. Thanks for the information!
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Permalink Reply by Rich Wendling on -
I agree that it is unlikely that the location of Eden exists today. The flood of Noah would have obliterated any trace of it. Any attempt to place Eden at any modern location is mere speculation.
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