Where was the Garden of Eden located?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nanotwerp
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
LoganBice said:
That’s what I tend to believe. I think people don’t give enough credit to God using secondary causes to bring about his plans. He created the mechanism for how it all works, why would he not use it?
Click to expand...
YES!
and we see this in our Lords miracles, i.e. the healing of the blind man, where he uses the things of this earth mixed with his divinity.
 
Tous_Logous said:
Perhaps I was wrong in stating misinformation. Even though this thread was specifically about the Garden of Eden, it brings up questions of how Catholics are to interpret the Bible. I suggest reading the chapters I have provided from the CCC, if you haven’t already.

There are other chapters that talk about Adam/Eve (though I’m not sure about the Garden of Eden) in the CCC but I don’t have them at the moment. I’m confused…do you reject a “literal” (fundamentalist) approach of the first few chapters of Genesis (meaning there was no Garden of Eden, Adam/Eve, etc.)? Whether we believe wholly in what the first few chapters of Genesis state or not, the Church believes that Adam and Eve were real people. The genealogy of Jesus is traced all the way back to Adam, among other things.
Click to expand...
I reject a fundamentalist approach to Scripture full stop. I was always taught to reject a fundamentalist approach to Scripture as it leads to errors.

The thread related to the geographic location of Genesis. My comments relate purely to that one question - not Adam and Eve, not Jesus genealogy, or anything else.

In short, what I am saying, no more no less and I can’t make it any clearer, is I was never taught Catholics are compelled to believe the geographic location of Eden is exactly as described in Scripture, nor are they compelled to think it was a literal place. In an attempt to make it more clear, Catholics are compelled to believe God is our creator, but they are not compelled to believe each creative ‘day’ was 24 hours long which fundamentalists do.

I know you refer to passages of the Catechism, but I believe I wrote in my posts there are different takes on the sections you refer to. I can only tell you what I was taught. You are free to think what I was taught was wrong, but the fact remains that is what I was taught. I do not believe I was poorly catechised and I don’t think this can rationally be concluded purely on the basis I was taught Catholics Are not compelled to believe the geographic location of Eden as recorded in Genesis is absolutely accurate.
 
twf said:
They are probably Americans who have been heavily influenced by what was traditionally a very conservative Protestant culture. Pope St. John Paul and Pope Emeritus Benedict were definitely theistic evolutionists. Pope Emeritus Benedict, at the time Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote in his commentary on Genesis that the common descent of all living creatures (including man) is “virtually certain”.
Click to expand...
Pardon me.
It seems that the references to Cardinal Ratzinger may have been mixed up, including a “reference” which has been consistently misquoted. I would sincerely appreciate the citations, including page numbers, for your Cardinal Ratzinger references.

Please note: I would like to “correct” my memory. However, I am traveling and may not have access to a computer.
 
grannymh said:
Pardon me.
It seems that the references to Cardinal Ratzinger may have been mixed up, including a “reference” which has been consistently misquoted. I would sincerely appreciate the citations, including page numbers, for your Cardinal Ratzinger references.

Please note: I would like to “correct” my memory. However, I am traveling and may not have access to a computer.
Click to expand...
According to the widely accepted scientific account, the universe erupted 15 billion years ago in an explosion called the ‘Big Bang’ and has been expanding and cooling ever since. Later there gradually emerged the conditions necessary for the formation of atoms, still later the condensation of galaxies and stars, and about 10 billion years later the formation of planets. In our own solar system and on earth (formed about 4.5 billion years ago), the conditions have been favorable to the emergence of life. While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5–4 billion years ago. Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution.
Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God, plenary sessions held in Rome 2000–2002, published July 2004, §63
Click to expand...
And
We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the ‘project’ of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary—rather than mutually exclusive—realities.
— Cardinal Ratzinger, In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall (Eerdmans, 1995), p. 50.
Click to expand...
 
twf said:
And
Click to expand...
From post 61
Pope Emeritus Benedict, at the time Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote in his commentary on Genesis that the common descent of all living creatures **(including man) **is “virtually certain”.

Citation from post 66, relevant sentence.
“Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism.”

*Communion and Stewardship: *Human Persons Created in the Image of God, plenary sessions held in Rome 2000–2002, published July 2004, §63

Please note that *Communion and Stewardship *was prepared by a subcommison of the International Theological Commission and is not Cardinal Ratzinger’s book “In the Beginning …”

Also note the words in bold from post 61 do not appear in the report.
 
johnmann said:
Genesis points to modern day Iraq. There’s no other way to interpret “Tigris” and “Euphrates,” but literally. They’re proper names, not metaphorical “spiritual” rivers. We also have to reconcile the fact that the years don’t match up to when we scientifically know humans came into existence.

So if we aren’t Creationists, we have to acknowledge that the Creation story is not historically accurate regardless of how you interpret it. They impart greater truths using myths.
Click to expand...
I agree that sense the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are mentioned as running through the Garden of Eden then the Garden of Eden was somewhere in mesopotamia and biblical exegetes locate it I believe in southern mesopotamia. Since this is what Holy Scripture says, I have no reason to doubt this from science or otherwise.
As far as Genesis using myths to impart greater truths, can anyone with absolute certainty say that they are just myths?
Again, except for the seven days of creation being taken as seven 24 hour days which St Augustine himself did not hold, have the sciences proved with certainty that whatever else is said literally in the first three chapters of Genesis is not true?
 
Richca said:
I agree that sense the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are mentioned as running through the Garden of Eden then the Garden of Eden was somewhere in mesopotamia and biblical exegetes locate it I believe in southern mesopotamia. Since this is what Holy Scripture says, I have no reason to doubt this from science or otherwise.
As far as Genesis using myths to impart greater truths, can anyone with absolute certainty say that they are just myths?
Again, except for the seven days of creation being taken as seven 24 hour days which St Augustine himself did not hold, have the sciences proved with certainty that whatever else is said literally in the first three chapters of Genesis is not true? Interesting thought I think.
Click to expand...
Honestly I don’t think we will ever know with absolut certainty this side of heaven. Weather the garden was the whole world before the fall or just a specific place dosnt matter to me. All I know is God created the world, gave our first parents immortal souls and we descended from them. Whether God used secondary means or not dosnt change my faith in him or his plan. Guess we will have to ask God in the next life 👍
 
twf said:
They are probably Americans who have been heavily influenced by what was traditionally a very conservative Protestant culture. Pope St. John Paul and Pope Emeritus Benedict were definitely theistic evolutionists. Pope Emeritus Benedict, at the time Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote in his commentary on Genesis that the common descent of all living creatures (including man) is “virtually certain”.
Adam and Eve certainly existed, but when and where is unknown. Personally I believe that God set apart two hominids, a male and female, somewhere in ancient pre-historic Africa, and “breathed one them” (to use the language of Genesis), endowing them with souls: thus Adam and Eve came to be. Catholic scholars certainly agree that the Sacred Writer employed various symbolism and metaphors in writing the account of the Fall of man in Genesis. Did Adam and Eve rebel against God? Yes, original sin is a dogma of the Church…but did the story literally take place in a garden with a talking snake? Not necessarily.
Click to expand...
That’s a common story being spread but it has no basis in science or in the Bible. From a Catholic Answers tract:

"Adam and Eve: Real People

"It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

"In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

“The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “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. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).”

Pope John Paul II was only partly quoted. Here is the full quote:

"Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis.* In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.

"What is the significance of a theory such as this one? To open this question is to enter into the field of epistemology. A theory is a meta-scientific elaboration, which is distinct from, but in harmony with, the results of observation. With the help of such a theory a group of data and independent facts can be related to one another and interpreted in one comprehensive explanation. The theory proves its validity by the measure to which it can be verified. It is constantly being tested against the facts; when it can no longer explain these facts, it shows its limits and its lack of usefulness, and it must be revised.

"Moreover, the elaboration of a theory such as that of evolution, while obedient to the need for consistency with the observed data, must also involve importing some ideas from the philosophy of nature.

“And to tell the truth, rather than speaking about the theory of evolution, it is more accurate to speak of the theories of evolution. The use of the plural is required here—in part because of the diversity of explanations regarding the mechanism of evolution, and in part because of the diversity of philosophies involved. There are materialist and reductionist theories, as well as spiritualist theories. Here the final judgment is within the competence of philosophy and, beyond that, of theology.”

Pope Benedict

"BERLIN — Benedict XVI, in his first extended reflections on evolution published as pope, says that Darwin’s theory cannot be finally proven and that science has unnecessarily narrowed humanity’s view of creation.

"In a new book, Creation and Evolution, published Wednesday in German, the pope praised progress gained by science, but cautioned that evolution raises philosophical questions science alone cannot answer.

“The question is not to either make a decision for a creationism that fundamentally excludes science, or for an evolutionary theory that covers over its own gaps and does not want to see the questions that reach beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science,” the pope said."

So, it’s not as black and white as sometimes presented here.

Peace,
Ed
 
minkymurph said:
I reject a fundamentalist approach to Scripture full stop. I was always taught to reject a fundamentalist approach to Scripture as it leads to errors.

The thread related to the geographic location of Genesis. My comments relate purely to that one question - not Adam and Eve, not Jesus genealogy, or anything else.

In short, what I am saying, no more no less and I can’t make it any clearer, is I was never taught Catholics are compelled to believe the geographic location of Eden is exactly as described in Scripture, nor are they compelled to think it was a literal place. In an attempt to make it more clear, Catholics are compelled to believe God is our creator, but they are not compelled to believe each creative ‘day’ was 24 hours long which fundamentalists do.

I know you refer to passages of the Catechism, but I believe I wrote in my posts there are different takes on the sections you refer to. I can only tell you what I was taught. You are free to think what I was taught was wrong, but the fact remains that is what I was taught. I do not believe I was poorly catechised and I don’t think this can rationally be concluded purely on the basis I was taught Catholics Are not compelled to believe the geographic location of Eden as recorded in Genesis is absolutely accurate.
Click to expand...
I was taught the opposite in Catholic school. The Garden of Eden was a literal place in a certain place. The fruit, though never called an apple in the Bible, was literal. And Eve was created from Adam’s side after God put him in a deep sleep.

Peace,
Ed
 
4 miles south of Hoboken near Jersey City. That’s why it’s New Jersey is called “The Garden State”
 
Josephus in his Antiquities identifies the four rivers which come from the one river of Eden. The Phison is the Ganges, Phrath is Euphrates, Diglath is Tigris, and the Geon is the Nile, How one river feeds all four of these is a mystery? Otherwise, the area around Eden covers India, across the whole of the middle east, and the north east of Africa! That’s a large back yard! Perhaps it means the first pairs roots are from four genetic lines of earth? 🤷
 
LoganBice said:
Honestly I don’t think we will ever know with absolut certainty this side of heaven. Weather the garden was the whole world before the fall or just a specific place dosnt matter to me. All I know is God created the world, gave our first parents immortal souls and we descended from them. Whether God used secondary means or not dosnt change my faith in him or his plan. Guess we will have to ask God in the next life 👍
Click to expand...
That’s pretty much were I stand. 👍
 
edwest2 said:
I was taught the opposite in Catholic school. The Garden of Eden was a literal place in a certain place. The fruit, though never called an apple in the Bible, was literal. And Eve was created from Adam’s side after God put him in a deep sleep.

Peace,
Ed
Click to expand...
Were you taught each creative day was 24 hours long?
 
minkymurph said:
Were you taught each creative day was 24 hours long?
Click to expand...
That was not an issue at the time. However, here are a few words from a Catholic Answers tract:

"The Time Question

“Much less has been defined as to when the universe, life, and man appeared. The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age—that it has not existed from all eternity—but it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.”

Peace,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
That was not an issue at the time. However, here are a few words from a Catholic Answers tract:

"The Time Question

“Much less has been defined as to when the universe, life, and man appeared. The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age—that it has not existed from all eternity—but it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.”

Peace,
Ed
Click to expand...
I would guess there were lots of things that were not an issue in the past that are now. There were also lots of things that were an issue in the past that are not now. For example, I believe Thomas Aquinas had to be guarded by archers when he gave some of his lectures?

Has it been infallibly defined Genesis gives the exact geographic location of the Garden of Eden?
 
Richca said:
I agree that sense the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are mentioned as running through the Garden of Eden then the Garden of Eden was somewhere in mesopotamia and biblical exegetes locate it I believe in southern mesopotamia. Since this is what Holy Scripture says, I have no reason to doubt this from science or otherwise.
As far as Genesis using myths to impart greater truths, can anyone with absolute certainty say that they are just myths?
Again, except for the seven days of creation being taken as seven 24 hour days which St Augustine himself did not hold, have the sciences proved with certainty that whatever else is said literally in the first three chapters of Genesis is not true?
Click to expand...
They are not myths but rather '‘myth narratives.’ Myth narrative does not mean pure fiction.
There is an element of truth in all myths, even the most embellished.

The myth narratives of Genesis served an essential purpose and crucial to passing on believes, morals and many other things that held ancient cultures together. They are termed myth narratives to identify the form of writing they are, not to denote there is no truth in them. The purpose relating these myth narratives was to pass on truths, and those who related the stories and wrote them were not concerned about accuracy of minuscule details because such details were not important to them. What was important was the reason the narrative was told. This is why I find it hard to understand why some are of the opinion they should be given a literal reading, and not to do so is in some way rejected the truth they contain.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top