It was a perfect paradise, but because of the
disobedience of man, humanity lost access to the Garden of Eden forever. But was it a
real place, and if so where is it today? Even those individuals who might not know anything
about Christianity or the Bible are typically aware of the Garden of Eden. A perfect place
without evil, death, or pain, who's vast gardens were full of rich, always ripe fruits and the most
beautiful flowers on all the earth. In essence, the garden of Eden is paradise, and often
used symbolically to represent perfect bliss. But humanity messed things up by... well, being
human. You're probably familiar with the story of the apple, and how Eve- the first woman-
was tempted to pluck an apple from the tree of knowledge at the heart of the garden of Eden
and thus disobeyed God. After pressuring Adam to also eat the apple, both Adam and Eve
were cursed to leave the perfect garden of Eden and wander the earth for the rest of their
lives, where they would have to toil with blood, sweat, and tears to make a living
for themselves out of the hard, unforgiving ground. And that's pretty much
been humanity's state for thousands of years. But could there be more to
the story than just myth? Interestingly, the Bible actually records
the garden of Eden as not a spiritual place, but a very real, physical space that's definitely
located somewhere on our planet. In Genesis 2: 8-14, the Bible states: The Lord God planted
a garden eastward in Eden. . . . Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from
there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon . . . . The name
of the second river is Gihon. . . . The name of the third river is Hiddekel [Tigris].
;. . . The fourth river is the Euphrates. The Genesis narrative clearly states that a
single river went through the holy garden, and when it exited it turned into four rivers.
Two of those rivers are Pishon and Gihon, rivers that we don't recognize today. But two
of them are well known to us- Hiddekel, better known as the Tigris, and the Euphrates. Both of
these rivers run through ancient Mesopotamia, and straight through the modern day nation
of Iraq. The two rivers even share the same headwaters in the area around Mt. Ararat- which
means that finding the Garden of Eden should be as simple as finding the other two rivers and
seeing where they intersect the two known rivers. But there's a problem, because the Pishon
and Gihon rivers are unknown to us, and no other rivers flow out of the same
headwaters as the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Famous French reformer John
Calvin made note of the difficulties in using known geography to locate the
garden of Eden, writing the following: Many think that Pison and Gihon are the
Ganges and the Nile; the error, however, of these men is abundantly refuted by the
distance of the positions of these rivers. Persons are not wanting who fly across even to
the Danube; as if indeed the habitation of one man stretched itself from the most remote
part of Asia to the extremity of Europe. But since many other celebrated rivers flow by
the region of which we are speaking, there is greater probability in the opinion of those who
believe that two of these rivers are pointed out, although their names are now obsolete. Be this
as it may, the difficulty is not yet solved. For Moses divides the one river which flowed
by the garden into four heads. Yet it appears, that the fountains of the Euphrates and the
Tigris were far distant from each other. A popular belief at the time of John
Calvin was that the other two rivers which poured out of the garden of Eden
were the mighty Ganges and Nile rivers, two of the largest and most important rivers
in the world then and today. But Calvin notes the difficulty in this being true, as obviously
the rivers are very far apart from each other, and he notes that one man in the
ancient world surely couldn't have habituated on both the Nile and Ganges-
the distance again is simply far too great. Calvin then supposes what others have- that
the names of the rivers have been lost to us and that the Pishon and Gihon are names
for rivers that we know today by different names. This isn't entirely implausible, as the
fertile crescent was known for being a location of much strife in ancient times- the names of
even two important rivers being wiped out from the cultural record is not impossible.
But Calvin makes a final observation, that even if this were true, and though the
Tigris and Euphrates share the same headwaters, they simply don't flow from the exact same source-
a singular, unified river which splits into four. What we have now is three missing
rivers, because don't forget- the river that flowed through Eden is what split
into four to create the other four rivers. And yet the author of Genesis is
insistent that Eden was a real, geographical place, and not a
symbol or mythological location. Creationists and biblical literalists
have an answer for the missing rivers: they were destroyed by flooding. Rather, by
one specific flood: Noah's flood. In the Bible, the world grows so wicked that God decides to
wipe the slate clean. He finds Noah and his family to be the only faithful people left on the
face of the earth- which to be fair at the time would only have been a few tens of thousand
of people. Thus to ensure humanity survives, he orders Noah to build a massive ark that can
hold him and his family along with two of every land species, male and female of course. The
rain starts to pour- which confuses people because until that point there had been
no rain- and eventually everything floods leaving only Noah and his boat full of animals
to survive and repopulate the earth. The bible is clear that the flood was so bad that it
covered even the tops of the mountains up. There are obviously a whole host of problems with
this account- namely that it would be impossible to house and feed 2 of every land species
for over a year in one boat. Also, it would be impossible to even build that boat without the
assistance of modern technology- though Noah did build for years. The material cost alone though
would have made it necessary for Noah to be the Jeff Bezos of his day, though to be fair the flood
account doesn't mention if Noah was rich or not. Then there's the more scientific problems.
Flooding the entire earth so that even the tops of the mountains would be below sea
level is simply impossible. All that water would have had to go somewhere after the
flood, and we're talking about incredible, mind-boggling amounts of water. At the very least
we should see that water locked up in massive glaciers dozens of miles tall in the poles, but
we don't. If Noah's ark had also been coasting on water above mountain top high he would have
had to deal with a thinner atmosphere- though we suppose its possible the atmosphere would have
been compressed by the rising floodwaters to perhaps mitigate some of the altitude sickness
which would be plaguing Noah and his animals. Perhaps most importantly of all though is the fact that there's simply zero evidence for
a global flood- no matter what Ken Ham (https://content.swncdn.com/zcast/oneplace/host-images/answers-in-genesis/640x480.jpg)
and his cherry-picked science like to say.
But it might surprise you to learn that evidence for a regional flood is very
much present, and one of staggering scale. The flood of Genesis is repeated across other
ancient literature, including famously in the epic of Gilgamesh, leading to cries of plagiarism
from critics. This would be a stretch for sure, as the two works bear nothing more than
superficial similarities- but both could very well be reporting on a very real event, just
not in quite the scale described in either work. Sediment deposits found across Iraq indicate that
the region was prone to some massive flooding in the past. One sediment deposit in southeastern
Iraq is a whopping 3 meters thick, with 2.4 meter deposits to the southeast of Baghdad.
Those deposits were dated to about 2900 BC, nearly 1500 years before Genesis was officially
put down on paper. The area however was already home to the descendants of those early scribes,
and they would definitely have witnessed floods devastating enough to wash away entire villages,
and wide enough to cover hundreds of square miles. Massive floods can indeed rewrite
the geography of the earth; we have ample evidence of large-scale catastrophic
flooding erasing river systems from existence or diverting the flow of ancient rivers. But
the problem once more becomes with where the floods took place. Massive regional flooding
in the Mesopotamian valley wouldn't have been able to reach to the mountains where the
headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates lay- that would have required truly mythical levels of
flooding. Without being able to extend that far, no amount of flooding could have erased
our two missing rivers from existence. Climate change could have possibly dried up
these two ancient rivers, but again modern geography doesn't show any evidence of major
rivers linking up with a shared source in the area. The Tigris and Euphrates could possibly
have shared a source in the past, but even this is highly unlikely given the terrain and course
of the two rivers today. Even then, the original river which fed the four rivers who broke off
“like the spokes of a wheel” is also missing from both geology and history - no people from the area
have ever reported any such river in the terrain. It could be argued then that the
garden of Eden exists 'spiritually', perhaps just out of phase with the real world
and that's why no physical evidence of its location can actually be found. However, the
ancient writers were adamant that this was a real location- though it might be best
not to find it today even if we could, given that God very famously set a flaming sword
and a troupe of angels to guard its entrance. The most likely answer though is the simplest:
it was myth. The Genesis account is not meant to be taken literally and was simply a
mythologized account of the creation of man, not just an origin story but a way for early
man to explore some truths about God himself and his relationship with us. We see the
same in the poetic work of the Book of Job, itself not a historical account but
rather a poetic exploration into some of the most difficult aspects of life,
spirituality, and the nature of good and evil. What might surprise you is that this is not a
new revelation- Christians throughout history have always believed that Genesis was not
history, but enlightened mythology that was supposed to be studied for its spiritual
truths, not its historical accuracy. Famed Christian philosopher William Lane Craig argues
that Genesis should be considered 'mytho-history', as it contains accurate historical details
alongside what are obvious mythological passages. This view fits perfectly into the way
that ancient man understood, and spoke about his world, combining real history with mythological
flourishes woven together into a single narrative. What's curious- or sad- about Genesis is that
its ancient audience understood better what parts were myth and what parts weren't compared
to a modern audience. As Dr. Craig points out, the ancient Jews lived and died by agriculture,
which meant they understood things like the water cycle extremely well as their lives
literally depended on it. Genesis claims that before the flood the earth was watered
by springs from beneath it, as no rain had ever fallen until the fateful day that God
flooded the earth. But an ancient, farming audience would have understood this to be pure
myth due to their knowledge of the water cycle. Meanwhile, modern creationists like
Ken Ham try to twist science into making something work that even the
ancients knew was never meant to be taken as physical fact. This likely is also
true about the Garden of Eden, as man did not descend from two single individuals
but rather evolved from the great apes. So if you're looking for the Garden of Eden today, it exists only as a symbol of what man loses
every time he disobeys God's commands- your garden of Eden is the peace you could enjoy
if you followed God’s will such as being kind to those who hate you, or practicing
restraint against your passionate impulses. Now go check out What The Bible
Actually Says About the Devil, or click this other video instead!
