Location of Eden

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did anybody catch the History Channel program about the location of Eden?

A scientist was looking at satellite images and saw what appear to be two dry rivers running east and west out of the Persian Gulf.

Realizing that ocean levels would have been 500 feet lower than present levels, due to the last ice age, the confluence of the four rivers in Genesis would now be underwater, in the Gulf.

So, Eden in the ancient stories and writings was not a mythical place, but one that would have been known to the ancient writers and listeners of the Genesis story.

Perhaps its true. The same scientist speculates that the flood accounts in the Bible actually occurred, as melting glaciers inundated low lying valleys, in sometimes violent ways.
 
"You were in Eden, the garden of God… (Ezek 28:13, RSVCE will be used for all bible quotes unless otherwise noted ) "…[Y]ou were on the holy mountain of God… (Ezek 28:14, emphasis mine). Ancient Jewish belief was that this garden, garden of Eden, was on top of a holy and sacred moutain. In fact, ancient Jewish belief was that the garden was in Jereusalem, before the banishment. After the fall, it was removed from Jerusalem.
Also, covenants are made on moutains. Creation story is a covenant story. 👍
 
At best guesses, Eden is somewhere in Iraq, I think southwest of Bagdad. Don’t the Tigris and the Euphrates converge on Eden (or something like that)?
 
Rev 2:7
“…To him that overcometh
will I give to eat of the tree of life
which is in the midst of the paradise of God”

Eze 28:13
“…Eden, the garden of God…”

I always thought Eden/paradise is in some ‘layer’ of heaven (third heaven, 2 Cor 12.2-4 ?)
otherwise how could it along with the Tree of life have survived the flood to appear in Rev 2.7 🤷 ?
 
I saw the special on the History channel too. Very interesting. What is now the Persian Gulf is where the Euphrates and Tigris would have met (aka Eden), and has not always been under water.
 
Jesus is the tree of life. Where is Jesus throne? Heaven. All the early church fathers saw that the tree of life was a “type” of Jesus. That is why you hear in the epistles the reference to Jesus hanging on a tree(tree of life).Jesus’ body, blood, soul, and divinity (the Eucharist) is our fruit from the tree of life. John 6 will make this come alive. “If you don’t eat my flesh…” In Rev. 2 you see that people are not doing the works they did at first. The Lord wants them to “repent.” Confession and the Eucharist isn’t wonderful how the Lord works? The Spirit will grant them to eat of the tree of life (Eucharist).If they repent do good works like before. That’s confession. Don’t forget how Adam and Eve fell in the beginning. By eating! Isn’t it wonderful that our Lord saves us by the very thing that made us fall, eating (John 6)! Also, in Genesis you can’t forget that God wanted a confession from Adam and Eve
(Gen 3:13). God knows everything. He knew what they did but he wanted them to confess it. Notice how in Rev. 2 that the Spirit knows what they are doing there too.
Christ is in Heaven. That is why in mass we “lift up our hearts” lift them up where? Heaven. We are lifted up in Heaven to eat from the “tree of life.” Blessed be God! :highprayer:
 
I would expect that the Flood so severely altered the landscape that few, if any traces, of the original layout remained.
 
Crumpy said:
did anybody catch the History Channel program about the location of Eden?

A scientist was looking at satellite images and saw what appear to be two dry rivers running east and west out of the Persian Gulf.

Realizing that ocean levels would have been 500 feet lower than present levels, due to the last ice age, the confluence of the four rivers in Genesis would now be underwater, in the Gulf.
Click to expand...

However, if Gen.2 is not asserting facts of geography, but writing something quite different, such a confluence is neither here nor there: a text talking about non-geographical entities cannot be proved to be doing so merely because the places it mentions actually exist. Even if hobbits did once exist, their real existence would not for one moment be evidence (let alone proof) of the historicity of the events in “The Hobbit”, because Tolkien was writing a story, and not a work of geography or palaeontology. The real existence of four rivers in the region of Eden does not & would not for one second prove that Gen.2 is intended to describe a real geography. Fictions can perfectly well be inspired by real entities: as the countless host of films about the wars of this century shows.​

So, Eden in the ancient stories and writings was not a mythical place, but one that would have been known to the ancient writers and listeners of the Genesis story.

Perhaps its true. The same scientist speculates that the flood accounts in the Bible actually occurred, as melting glaciers inundated low lying valleys, in sometimes violent ways.
Click to expand...

The Sumerian “paradise” was Dilmun. It is pretty certain that Dilmun = modern Bahrein; which is a real place. Does that make the Flood-hero Ziudsura an historical person ? For he was deified & taken to live there after the Flood.​

Proving place X = Biblical location Y does not necessarily mean that the text mentioning Biblical location Y is talking about real events when it says that events 1, 2, 3…999 took place in place X. Equally:
  • The existence of Ithaca is not a reason to believe that Odysseus killed the suitors for his wife Penelope ( the Homeric Ithaca may be Levkas anyway);
  • the existence of Cumae does not mean that its Sibyl existed, far less that she said to the hero Aeneas what Virgil says she did;
  • the existence of the Orkney Isles is not a reason to believe in the existence of King Lot of Orkney, the contemporary of King Arthur
    • and the existence of a real place called Eden, does not mean there was a garden in Eden; nor does it tell anyone anything about whether the events related in Gen.2 & 3 are real events.
A fiction can have** verisimilitude** even when it has no historicity. And conversely - the real existence of the historical person Abraham Lincoln is not proof of the truth of every statement made about him.

As for theological statements & claims: texts about gods don’t prove the existence of gods - so even if Cassandra were as solidly as Julius Caesar, that would not mean that she received the gift of prophecy from a real god named Apollo, nor that Julius Caesar was, as he claimed to be, really a descendant of a real goddess named Venus. The Biblical texts are no different: as texts, that is what they are: texts. That they make claims about the national god of Israel does not for one moment mean those claims are any more worthy of belief than texts about any other god. The theological difference is not in what the Biblical texts are in themselves; of themselves, they are another lot of texts like any other - the difference is in God, not in the Bible. God acts on these texts, to work through them; left to themselves, they are dead. God is proved real by what God does - not by the Biblical stories about Him. It would not matter if they were all a complete pack of lies - God is bigger than a mere book, or anything in it. 🙂
 
*"A fiction can have verisimilitude even when it has no historicity. And conversely - the real existence of the historical person Abraham Lincoln is not proof of the truth of every statement made about him.

As for theological statements & claims: texts about gods don’t prove the existence of gods - so even if Cassandra were as solidly as Julius Caesar, that would not mean that she received the gift of prophecy from a real god named Apollo, nor that Julius Caesar was, as he claimed to be, really a descendant of a real goddess named Venus. The Biblical texts are no different: as texts, that is what they are: texts. That they make claims about the national god of Israel does not for one moment mean those claims are any more worthy of belief than texts about any other god. The theological difference is not in what the Biblical texts are in themselves; of themselves, they are another lot of texts like any other - the difference is in God, not in the Bible. God acts on these texts, to work through them; left to themselves, they are dead. God is proved real by what God does - not by the Biblical stories about Him. It would not matter if they were all a complete pack of lies - God is bigger than a mere book, or anything in it."*

You need read the church document “Dei Verbum.” It will help you understand your faith better. Peace.
 
the Hill of Tara…ireland

The word Tara itself also means ‘enlightenment’. In 1992 Archaeologists discovered that lying beneath this Holy Mountain once known as The Gateway to God is a shrine of sorts. The shrine is oval in shape and at its widest point might stretch to approximately 170 metres all underground and yet to be excavated. Sounds like something as big as Noah’s Ark is underneath there and we do not know what. Some people even think it might be The Ark of The Covenant or The Second Ark. Others think it is where the Ark was built and the flood covered it over but mysteriously protected it. There are even some who say it is The Garden of Eden thus meaning Ireland is the land of Eden. If Patrick was right and God does a full circle, if Eden was the start of the circle it would make sense it be the end of same circle.
 
How in the world would anybody know this from the devastation of the Flood?
 
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