Where is Eden?

[paygan]

steve53:

Bahrain?

Suggested by many, but this is off the map when you consider the dug-up on-the-ground archaeological evidence for a massive PPNB Neolithic ‘explosion of knowledge’ from the central Levant around 8,200 B.C. I have recently been creating the Wikipedia pages on Tell Aswad and Tell Ramad, both around Mount Hermon with supporting evidence of agriculture and proto-cities around this date to improve the chances of further investigation into my claims.

Bahrain might have been a great place at other points in history, as it is now, but it’s not The Garden of Eden (Kharsag). Agriculture doesn’t turn up around this area until about 6,500 B.C.

If I may ask, paygan, what are your views on the supernatural claims attributed to Eden, such as the cherubim, flaming swords guarding it, Trees of knowledge of good and evil and of life, etc.? As well as the supernatural claims in other books, such as the Qu’ran.

I believe Eden has been used as a metaphor for the experience we pass through when we die in such books as the Qu’ran, but do not believe this is supernatural as this would imply something outside God.

The trees I believe may have been transposed from “buildings” - Eden / Kharsag had 2 Great Houses - one of Life (Enlil’s Great House) and one of Knowledge (Ninkharsag’s Building of Knowledge) well documented in Sumerian myth. Enlil’s house remained unbuilt on when I visited and in immediate danger of local construction. The site of the building of knowledge has been turned into palaces for Indian tycoons.

The metaphors implied by the Revelation issues discussed (which I won’t go into) perhaps show one reason I am currently trying to raise awareness as fast as I can about this issue to save the Building of Life from the bulldozer.

However, would this mean that Adam and Eve lived in a physical version of Heaven and were then sent to Earth at the Fall? Or what other implications would it have?

The world before civilization, before we domesticated emmer wheat and used animal husbandry was the world of Adam and Eve. Perhaps this is the closest we got to a physical heaven. Most will admit we do not live in one now. But as Revelation claims, perhaps we can get it back with Christ’s assistance.

If the cherub is still there how did Paul enter??

I had the help of another brave soul called Karl and some strong supporting evidence to help. Many friends prayed that I would be protected by a sphere of light, and I was.

In my story, the cherubim metaphorically turned out to be the guys in the troop carrier full of AK-47 armed military in the image link below. When they turned up, they could have been Hezbollah come to take us hostage or Military come to arrest us for spying for Israel, they turned out to be Druze with great English and parents in Westminster. We got on great and had a lot of smiles and understanding. This is them waving us goodbye from the site of Eden’s granary.

files.fbstatic.com/PostImages/1025188/0/257e54cc-9b18-4353-89fa-970aff5a206c.jpg

 

[scameter18]

John7:

Sort of like heaven interpenetrating earth, the heavenly aspect which they lost when they fell (?) It doesn’t say in 2 Cor 12:2-3 that Paul was definitely in the body when he went to Paradise/third heaven…but I have a feeling like he was…just a hunch. Interesting to think about…maybe being cast out of Eden involved both a physical removal from the garden and spiritual removal/fall from heavenly Paradise spoken of in Revelation, a heavenly cherubim being placed at door/entry to Paradise to prevent reentry … If the cherub is still there how did Paul enter??

It actually doesn’t say it was Paul who was “caught up” to the third heaven, or what exactly that means. He simply says “a man in Christ”. But, according to the Catechism man was originally in a physical “state of justice”, where we did not die and there was no sin or separation from God. Because the wages of sin are death, both physical mortality and spiritual damnation, before sin we had neither. Despite many people’s assumption, Genesis says we were free to eat of the Tree of Life, since it was apart of the “others trees” besides Knowledge of Good and Evil. We were nourished and kept immortal by its fruit, provided directly by God. I think this mirrors the Eucharist, as well as the images in Revelation, as you noted. If the man St. Paul mentioned entered Paradise, it was God’s will, since He can overcome even His own work, such as the cherubim guards.

paygan:

I believe Eden has been used as a metaphor

The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man

The Eden account in Genesis does not use metaphorical language, but rather figurative. God walking, the Trees, the cherubim, etc. were not metaphorical, simply allegorical images that, while conveying a truth, meant nothing themselves. As Catholics, we believe God, Adam and Eve, and angels literally exist, so it is not a leap of faith to agree that their mention in Genesis is not metaphorical. However, discerning what in Genesis is figurative and what is literal is more difficult.

Usually, figurative language applies to qualitative or active words, such as verbs and adjectives, rather than nouns themselves; and while the figurative word/expression may not be factual, it is still true, and the nouns themselves are literal. Metaphor, on the other hand, uses unfactual and unliteral nouns to emphasize a literal noun and add layers of meaning atop (but not instead of) the literal. For example, saying “That car looks like a space ship” is metaphorical, using an inapplicable noun to focus on a literal noun. The sentence “the ground is thirsty” would be figurative, since the ground is literal but “thirst” is unfactual, but true and correlative to “dry”. Now, I think by metaphor, you mean “allegory”, as allegory is the use of a fake noun for a concept which can be discerned from the fake noun, but not necessarily, with no meaning in and of itself. Would you agree with this?

These replies to paygan, obviously, are also general responses for this topic as a whole, addressing the Catechism’s reference to figurative language.

 

[larkin31]

Now, I think by metaphor, you mean “allegory”, as allegory is the use of a fake noun for a concept which can be discerned from the fake noun, but not necessarily, with no meaning in and of itself. Would you agree with this?

I am an English teacher. I do not agree with this definition. But you two may agree.

Allegories are sometimes extended metaphors. Sometimes they are representative narrative tales with a moral or instructive purpose. And sometimes they include symbols that carry much meaning beyond the literal. One cannot by definition dismiss meaning from the nouns (and actions) in an allegory.

 

[scameter18]

Allegory is often a broad term, but your larger usage seems to include parable, which is distinct, where meaning is derived from the fictitious nouns and stories themselves rather than or on top of an underlying meaning. However, as an English teacher I would be happy if you could elaborate a bit about the distinction between figurative, parable, allegorical and metaphorical language, since it applies to the Catechism’s discussion of Eden.

 

[larkin31]

Allegory is often a broad term, but your larger usage seems to include parable, which is distinct, where meaning is derived from the fictitious nouns and stories themselves rather than or on top of an underlying meaning. However, as an English teacher I would be happy if you could elaborate a bit about the distinction between figurative, parable, allegorical and metaphorical language, since it applies to the Catechism’s discussion of Eden.

These terms overlap frequently on several edges, and are often used in the same passages.

One should consult the Catechism for interpretations of Biblical passages, no? Do you really want my opinion? I am usually rejected here out of hand!

More importantly: if you are truly going to do a very careful study of the rhetorical and syntactical and semantic meanings of the Eden story, you should study it in its original language. Translations frequently change idioms and parts of speech and levels of metaphor and symbolism–and we do not even know it. Besides, language carries cultural meaning given to it from the context of the time in which it is/was written.

 

[paygan]

I agree with both of you and find this discussion fascinating for my writing, I like the word figurative better. It seems a tighter definition and closer to what I meant than metaphorical.

Great to have an English teacher around Larkin31 (a Coventry poet after my own heart!)

Larkin31:

More importantly: if you are truly going to do a very careful study of the rhetorical and syntactical and semantic meanings of the Eden story, you should study it in its original language. Translations frequently change idioms and parts of speech and levels of metaphor and symbolism–and we do not even know it. Besides, language carries cultural meaning given to it from the context of the time in which it is/was written.

This is a great point here, and I thought it appropriate to post the first part of George Aaron Barton’s translation of the Barton Cylinder - recovered from the Nippur Library in 1898 - it’s probably the oldest religious text in the world dated between 2,300-2,700 B.C. and likely compiled from earlier material still. Many parts of this tale may seem familiar and of use for consideration of Larkin31’s point above :

Transliteration and Translation
[from Sumerian transcript]

1. He came forth,
2. from Kesh he came,
3. Enlil, the food of Enlil
4. gives him life
5. Unto Sir (Ninkharsag) there is a cry
6. She grants favour,
7. makes all live

---

1. …
2. The holy Tigris, the holy Euphrates
3. the holy sceptre of Enlil
4. establish Kharsag.
5. They give abundance
6. His sceptre protects (?)
7. (to) its lord, a prayer …
8. the sprouts of the land …
9. …man {?} … is not (?)
10. … are (?) … numerous
11. The hero, Enlil
12. makes bright.
13. … protect (?) [man]
14. O lord of darkness protect man
15. O lord of light protect man
16. O lord of the field protect man
17. O lord of the sanctuary protect man
18. Clothe thy king in singu
19. O god be favourable to man
20. Make strong the new temple platform
21. O divine lord protect the little habitation

…cont’d.in Miscillaneous Babylonian Inscriptions by George Aaron Barton, 1918 (or see Christian O’Brien’s revised 1985 more complete translation)

I think it’s a shame few seem to read these old tablets anymore.

 

[larkin31]

I agree with both of you and find this discussion fascinating for my writing, I like the word figurative better. It seems a tighter definition and closer to what I meant than metaphorical.

Great to have an English teacher around Larkin31 (a Coventry poet after my own heart!)

…A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

–Philip Larkin
Hull

 

[scameter18]

The numerous references to Biblical themes such as Eden, the Flood and others to me is a matter for comparative mythology study. From a Catholic perspective, it simply provides corroborating evidence, but the Biblical account takes precedence as the one account fully sanctified and validated by historic Jewish and Christian Church authority as true and historical. The variations in other myths from the Biblical account are due to their distinct mythologies, but as I said the Genesis account is the only one infallible.

But the point about studying it in the original language is certainly valid, as Christian biblical scholars have been doing since the beginning, following Jewish scholars before them. The Christian tradition of biblical interpretation is largely due to this effort that scholars such as St. Jerome and many others went to. From this tradition, the Catechism reports that the Eden account uses figurative language, but it does not specify which parts are figurative. That is why I requested larkin31’s help due to your expertise in English. Being agnostic, with your position rejected by Catholics, does not rule out your skills and talents, which I’m requesting to be used here.

 

[rcjones]

Ge 2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden;

planted - established
garden is contained in the word treasure
eastward - from ancient, that which is before, eternal
Eden - filthy

And the Lord God established a treasure in eternity before the fall.

If the Garden was established in timeless eternity, then creation also was done without time as we know it. Then time is a part of the fall which is why entropy increases. Time is our enemy as we all decay.

The four rivers are the four waters are the word of God in four voices as Prophet, Priest, King and Judge.

Having said that, I believe it was a real place, just outside of time, and that creation happened in seven literal ‘days’ but not solar days. Literal days …whatever they are outside of time.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Assuming that the Garden of Eden story in Genesis is not purely allegorical but was a real place with a real Adam and Eve, the Bible never says Eden was destroyed but rather is guarded by angels and flaming swords. But if Eden was on the Earth, where is it now?

It’s in our fridge. It’s a cheesecake. But whenever I think I can sneak in and get some, my wife turns up with a rolling pin.

Just kidding.

I had a discussion today with somebody I respect. He stated that some author had postulated that the Persian Gulf had once been a veritable oasis, landlocked and supplying everything needed from fresh water, to fish and anything else. Hence there was considerable leisure and consequent civilsation. If someone were writing from a Middle Eastern perspective, this would have qualified as the “Garden of Eden”.

However it became flooded, and the citizens who had developed quite a high civilisation simply moved further upstream into Mesopotamia, thus accounting for the sudden emergence of civiilisation in that area. He pointed out that one of the things that has long puzzled archaeologists was the almost overnight development of high civilisation from virtually nothing in that area.

This flooding event would have taken place about 8 to 10 thousand years ago, thus putting it in the Biblical time frame. A writer or story teller who lived in that area would have thought the whole world was being flooded.

It also locates the “Garden of Eden” in the Tigris and Euphrates areas, as nominated, and close to the emergence of civilisation.

That’s one opinion.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

While I’m at it, he also told me a story of a CSIRO scientist who was trying to develop a glass ellectrode which could measure two things, instead of the usual one.

I think one was the pH level, and there some other factor he wanted to build in eg. maybe temperature.

According to the scientist, the mathematics in doing so was horrendous.

He was incidentally an atheist at the time.

While he was doing this, a microbiologist called him over to look at a pathology sample.

Apparently this cell or cells in the human body somewhere has five finger like appendages that drop down into some sort of cellular reservoir. The whole thing is very small.

This organ or cell is attached to the brain by a single ganglion.

This item doesn’t just check one function - each little protrusion checks a different function ie. it monitors** five** different functions.

And not only that, it codes the information from each sensor so that the messages go to the appropriated part of the brain, but in such a way they can all be sent down the same ganglion without causing confusion.

Then of course there is the brain which has to interpret the signals and then take the appropriate action to ensure the various functions are kept at the correct status.

When the atheistic scientist compared this microbiological machine with it’s five functions to his very complex effort to build a glass electrode with just two functions, he gave up on his atheism.

 

[scameter18]

Interesting story about the atheist convert, I can certainly see his reason for conversion, though I’m sure more staunch atheists could find a reply - it does testify to the supremacy of God’s creativity and order. Even if that microbe came about “randomly”, as some say, the connected acts of chance prove God’s Providence. Thanks for the story.

To reply to your first post, your friend’s account seems more about Noah and the Flood than Eden. But you said that his account would place Eden geographically approximate, and “close to the emergence of civilisation”. To me the largest difficulty with Eden is assessing its relation to history, and the traditional views of its meaning and implications in the Bible. For example, many Christians say all people come from Eden. If so, it would have had to have happened thousands of years ago, maybe tens of thousands or more, and the time between Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses would be substantial. This is quite plausible. While it still doesn’t specifically tell where Eden was (since its geographic location isn’t biblically relevant to our salvation), it could’ve theoretically been anywhere. Adam and Eve’s ethnicity, appearance or anything else isn’t mentioned, so since many modern scientists say humanity began in eastern Africa, that could have been Eden. Like I said, the history is difficult but plausible.

Further, it’s also difficult to assess how Adam and Eve’s original sin ontologically affected the rest of nature, or if our experience of nature was simply affected because we left Eden, where everything was in harmony with us, such as our work not requiring “toil” and living things not trying to kill us, as said in Genesis. But this also requires deciphering myth (not falsehood) from fact, which in such ancient literature is even more difficult.

 

[Harri_Laaksonen]

Regarding myth/reality, often we mythify a past reality by forgetting some of the negative things and remembering the good times. A good example is the modern tendency to regard the 1950’s as some kind of social and economic golden age.

How often do us “old codgers” refer to “the good old days” of your youth and just mutter about how decrepit our society and culture have become during our life time.

It is not difficult to look backwards to a time shortly after the growth of agriculture about 8000 years ago and imagine some of the “old timers” around the camp fire reminding the young that before they had to toil to till the land, the hunter-gatherers of old had everything for the taking. The land gave freely. Forgetting that the preditors also took freely.

God grants His grace in stages and when we have joined the saints in Heaven, our decendants will look back to our time as some kind of ideal as they work through their salvation in Christ.

 

[redneck22]

Assuming that the Garden of Eden story in Genesis is not purely allegorical but was a real place with a real Adam and Eve, the Bible never says Eden was destroyed but rather is guarded by angels and flaming swords. But if Eden was on the Earth, where is it now?

The Bible makes it quite clear that the judgement passed on the descendants of Adam by God and on the earth by the flood of Noah’s day, wiped out/rearranged the surface of the earth and most likely the Garden of Eden. Noah and his family floated around on the Ark for about 370 days with no land to be identified, Eden was lost.

The location of Eden would not be known today, even if some geographical locations today have names like the Tigris and Euphrates, these names could have been attributed by Noah and his descendants from their recollections in the antediluvian world that was.

 

[Zooey]

I think that the “cherubim with flaming swords” keeping anyone from entering is probably a reference to the fact that the gates of Heaven were closed from time that sin entered the world until the time that the sacrificial death of Christ re-opened them.

Before somebody objects, I also believe that there were a literal pair of humans beings (one pair) who were our first parents. “Adam” & “Eve” may or may not have been their literal names. But they were the first of all humankind, & they were created by a special act of God.

 

[scameter18]

@Harri: Unfortunately that would make the Eden story a mere embellished recollection with no real relevance to us. If things were no different before the Fall, then the story means nothing.

@Redneck22: If the Flood destroyed Eden too, then angels could not have still been guarding it unless they were destroyed themselves. The Bible never insenuates that Eden was destroyed during the Flood, or that Adam and Eve even still knew where Eden was after the Fall. Noah and his descendants probably knew those rivers personally, but he wouldn’t have attributed them to Eden without good cause, unless he believed Eden had actually been a location on earth at some time.

@Zooey: I definitely agree that Eden is a model, in some way, for Heaven. There are many connections between them, both directly and symbolically. But if Adam and Eve were made in Heaven and then left it, that adds new difficulties.

 

[Harri_Laaksonen]

Please do not imply that I am denying The Fall. I am certainly among those who sees myself as a sinner who has fallen from grace many times and thanks God for His mercy in Christ. Humanity as a whole is also fallen. We see shadows of created goodness at times made concrete in the lives of saints, but they are rare. I do not however seek to find out the date of that Fall. It happened and we are all sinners.

What I am getting after is that as well as being part of the human condition, it is also very individual as is much of scripture. Most of us can not remember our own innocense but would like to regain it.

 

[redneck22]

@Redneck22: If the Flood destroyed Eden too, then angels could not have still been guarding it unless they were destroyed themselves.

Why do you think they are still guarding it?

The Bible never insenuates that Eden was destroyed during the Flood, or that Adam and Eve even still knew where Eden was after the Fall.

Genesis 7:19-24: The waters prevailed so exceedingly upon the earth, that all the high mountains, that are under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail, when the mountains were covered. Then all flesh perished that moved upon the earth, both fowl and cattle and beast, and everything that creepeth and moveth upon the earth, and every man. Everything in whose nostrils the spirit of life did breathe, whatsoever they were in the dry land, they died. So he destroyed everything that was upon the earth, from man to beast, to the creeping thing, and to the fowl of the heaven: they were even destroyed from the earth. And Noah only remained, and they that were with him in the Ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

2 Peter 3:3-6: *This first understand, that there shall come in the last days, mockers, which will walk after their lusts, And say, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the Fathers died, all things continue alike from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly know not, that the heavens were of old, and the earth that was of the water, and by the water, by the word of God. **Wherefore the world that then was, perished, overflowed with the water. ***

Noah and his descendants probably knew those rivers personally, but he wouldn’t have attributed them to Eden without good cause, unless he believed Eden had actually been a location on earth at some time.

I agree, in the antideluvian world, they could have followed those rivers upstream from where they flowed to find Eden. Enosh, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Methusela and Lamech were all alive when Adam and Noah were alive (at different periods of their lives, of course). They could have personally known both Adam and Noah and would have passed on much of their knowledge from Adam to Noah. Abram was 58 when Noah died, so Noah could have passed on to Abram all written and verb knowledge prior to the Flood.

 

[scameter18]

@Harri: I did not meant to imply that you deny the Fall. My point was that, according to Genesis, the Fall did not only affect us spiritually, but the world itself was changed, at least our experience of it. Childbirth became difficult, where it hadn’t been before (Genesis 3:16), we lost bodily immortality, had to work the earth by difficult toil, and the very organisms of nature would hurt us (Genesis 3:17-19). The world itself was changed. Either this changed occurred because we left Eden and the world outside it was this way, or the “condition” of Eden left and so the earth we lived in changed, or some other reason.

@redneck22:
-Because after the Bible mentions it (Genesis 3:24) it is, as far as I am aware, said again in the Bible that the angels were removed or that Eden was changed in any way.
-Those quotes do not mention Eden as apart of the normal world, or say that Eden was destroyed. If the angels could have prevented Adam and Eve from returning to it, I doubt the Flood would have overcome them.
-Well, that is also a difficulty. It is never said again that Eden was seen by anyone else after Adam and Eve, so either they knew it was impossible to find it, or no one looked, and the latter seems unlikely if Eden was accessible. People lived all around those areas and yet it isn’t mentioned, so where Eden was after the Fall is difficult to discern.

To me, it seems most likely that “Eden”, meaning “paradise”, is more of a condition and, while it was certainly on Earth, it was not a geographical region or nation like Israel, Egypt, etc. Rather, it was where God placed Adam and Eve, an area that was fully in harmony with His will and so where mankind did not die, suffer, or experience any other consequences of sin. At the Fall, this condition was removed and the angels guarded this harmony until God decided to give it out as salvation selectively as grace. The angels make us unable to save ourselves.

 

[Zooey]

@Harri: Unfortunately that would make the Eden story a mere embellished recollection with no real relevance to us. If things were no different before the Fall, then the story means nothing.

@Redneck22: If the Flood destroyed Eden too, then angels could not have still been guarding it unless they were destroyed themselves. The Bible never insenuates that Eden was destroyed during the Flood, or that Adam and Eve even still knew where Eden was after the Fall. Noah and his descendants probably knew those rivers personally, but he wouldn’t have attributed them to Eden without good cause, unless he believed Eden had actually been a location on earth at some time.

@Zooey: I definitely agree that Eden is a model, in some way, for Heaven. There are many connections between them, both directly and symbolically. But if Adam and Eve were made in Heaven and then left it, that adds new difficulties.

Don’t you think, though, that before the fall, that Adam & Eve had access to the Presence of God? In a way that has never been true since then??
I do realize that there are problems no matter** how** we interpret things…