-Jay-

The little detail of using names with which post "flood" people would identify tells against your little fantasy here, Robert. Had there been a concept of a completely different geography, there'd have been no need whatsoever to mention familiar place names.

Further, there is absolutely nothing in the Genesis accounts to support any dramatic reshaping of the Earth. The account have waters rising, submerging everything, then draining away. Despite arguments you (and others) have made about the great reshaping force of water, there's nothing in the Genesis account for you to really latch on to to support that notion. You are, frankly, making it up as you go along and become aware of evidence that refutes the Genesis stories.

I think it's very interesting how many conservative Christians will, on the on hand, insist that the Bible is an accurate reflection of history and science, but on the other hand feel quite free to pull things out of their ears to support Biblical concepts that are refuted by simple observation. Could you please point to the verse that says "Thou shalt pull shit out of thine arse to support these ancient myths"?

regards,

NinJay

Hex

Well, actually ...

We not only get the names of the rivers, but the lands. Now, it -should- be simple enough to trace the four named rivers (Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel and Euphrates) back to a single source, if this is the set-up, no?

Now, the Pison and Gihon are highly speculated about as to if they have contemporary riverbeds and which ones. The Hiddekel has been recognized as another name for the Tigris (which is still in existance) so argueably, you could debate that.

The Euphrates, though, we know about. It still exists, so we're safe there. What we need to look at then, is the source for this river.

What we find is that it is "formed by the confluence of the Kara (or Karasu or Korasuyu) and the Murat (or Murad) rivers, E central Turkey, and flowing generally S through Turkey into Syria, then SE through Iraq, joining with the Tigris River in SE Iraq to form the Shatt al Arab; the united river flows into the Persian Gulf." The "Murat River ... is the major headstream of the Euphrates. It was also called Arsanias in antiquity. The river rises near Mount Ararat north of Lake Van, in eastern Turkey, and flows westward for 722 km (449 miles) through a mountainous region. There it unites with the Karasu Çayi and forms the Upper Euphrates near Malatya." (Nice descriptions from here.)

Pretty handy, no? And now all we have to do is look for other rivers that tie in here and we're set, since no rivers we know of flow up-hill (up-mountain?). Could be the 'Murat' is our technical term for what Yahweh meant by 'Euphrates', right? Can we, perhaps, tie the Tigris in here as the Hiddekel?

Well, the "Tigris river ... originates in the Taurus Mountains at Lake Hazar and flows 1,180 mi (1,900 km) southeast through Turkey and past Baghdad to unite with the Euphrates River at Al-Qurnah in southeastern Iraq."(Again, nice description from here.)

Hrm. The Taurus Mountains are big ...
Well, if Ararat is in the Taurus, could this work? Well, take a look at this: (larger image hidden - SFW)N/AThey start in the same range, but in different places. Separated not by flat land, but by rather mountainous terrain. (And as stated, water flows down-hill, so ...)

Does looking for the lands help? Well, we do know where Ethiopia is, but it's in Africa. And ... unfortunately, no river 'compasseth the whole land'; in fact, they all seem to start -inside- the country and flow -out-.(larger image hidden - SFW)N/A

Havilah is tricky. Given other Biblical descriptions, it might be Yemen. By no Pison river. And how would the river get from the Taurus Mountains to Yemen?

There is an issue with Assyria and the river Hiddekel; that being that the Tigris goes right through (and, in fact originates in) Assyria, so it's hard to 'goeth toward the east of Assyria', even if one discounts the aspect that rivers are usually seen to 'goeth' in the direction they flow. Now, here, I'm not looking at the maximum size of the Assyrian Empire, as that would also nicely include almost all of the Tigris AND Euphrates, as well as most of the Lower Nile and so forth.


Unfortunately, all this adds up to discordant information about the area. Something in here -has- to be wrong in order for any ONE location to be the site of Eden's garden.

Why's that important? Because we need to know -where- to dig for relevant information. At least a general idea. And here, we've got the whole of the middle east where we have a confluance of Rivers that, perhaps, don't (or never did) exist in the configurations described ... :huh:


What you'd like to look at here is Paleobotanical studies, like the following (Note: No buildings, a range of different dates, all focused in the 'Middle East' to keep context with the discussion. Also note that I just grabebd a sample of citations. If you want something more refined, please let me know.):

Winteraceous Pollen in the Lower Cretaceous of Israel: Early Evidence of a Magnolialean Angiosperm Family; James W. Walker; Gilbert J. Brenner; Audrey G. Walker; Science, New Series, Vol. 220, No. 4603. (Jun. 17, 1983), pp. 1273-1275. Abstract: Pollen of the primitive angiosperm family Winteraceae has been discovered in the Aptian-Albian of Israel, extending the fossil record of this phylogenetically important family of flowering plants from the uppermost Upper Cretaceous back some 40 million years to the upper Lower Cretaceous. This appears to represent the earliest known record of a magnolialean angiosperm family and is convincing evidence for the existence in the Early Cretaceous of an extant family of angiosperms.

Isozyme Divergence between Eastern Asian, North American, and Turkish Species of Liquidambar (Hamamelidaceae); Margaret T. Hoey; Clifford R. Parks; American Journal of Botany, Vol. 78, No. 7. (Jul., 1991), pp. 938-947. Abstract: The deciduous woody genus Liquidambar has four morphologically similar species in eastern and western Asia, eastern North America, and Central America. Liquidambar styraciflua is found in the eastern United States and Central America, L. orientalis is native only to southwest Turkey, and L. formosana and L. acalycina occur in eastern Asia. This genus is one of many that contributes to the floristic similarities observed between these different regions. Allelic variation was scored at 22 isozyme loci from 41 populations. The level of genetic divergence between species on different continents is high. Nei's genetic identity was 0.431 between L. formosana and L. styraciflua, 0.485 between L. acalycina and L. styraciflua, 0.512 between L. orientalis and L. styraciflua, 0.256 between L. formosana and L. orientalis, and 0.305 between L. acalycina and L. orientalis. Estimates of time of divergence from the isozyme data suggest that the current species diverged before or during the Miocene. The pattern of relationships portrayed by the isozyme data suggest a longer period of separation between the eastern and western Asian forms of this genus. In addition, the eastern North American and Turkish species appear to be the most closely related intercontinental pair of species providing evidence for a North Atlantic land bridge as late as the Miocene. It would appear, therefore, that the North American populations were in contact with the Asian populations over the North Pacific and North Atlantic possibly as late as the Miocene, but that the separation between the two Asian populations occurred much earlier. The time of divergence as measured from the isozyme data correlates with an independent assessment of the origin of these disjuncts as determined from the fossil record.

A New Species of Coenothyris (Brachiopoda) from the Triassic (Upper Anisian-Ladinian) of Israel; Howard R. Feldman; Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 76, No. 1. (Jan., 2002), pp. 34-42. Abstract: Coenothyris oweni new species is described from the Lower Member (Upper Anisian-Ladinian) of the Triassic Saharonim Formation (Upper Anisian--Lower Carnian) at Har Gevanim, Makhtesh Ramon, southern Israel. The Saharonim Formation was deposited under normal, calm, shallow marine conditions as part of the ingression of the Saharonim Sea. The presence of Coenothyris along with characteristic conodonts, ostracodes, foraminiferans, bivalves, cephalopods, gastropods, echinoderms and vertebrate remains is 1) indicative of the Sephardic Province; 2) diagnostic of the Middle Triassic series of Israel; and 3) important in differentiating the Sephardic Province from the Germanic Muschelkalk and Tethyan Realm faunas to the north and correlating the Triassic rocks in the Negev.

Fossil Fungal Spores: Anatolinites gen. nov.; William C. Elsik; Volkan Ş. Ediger; Zühtü Bati; Palynology, Vol. 14. (1990), pp. 91-103. Abstract: The fossil fungal spore Anatolinites gen. nov. is described. The form-genus includes species previously included in Brachysporisporites Lange & Smith 1971 emend. Ediger 1981. Anatolinites differs from Brachysporisporites by having two pores. The morphology of this genus, including the biometry of the type species Anatolinites dongyingensis (Ke & Shi 1978) emend. comb. nov., from the Thrace Basin, Turkey, is described in detail, with illustrations from both transmitted light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Other new taxa include Anatolinites alaskaensis sp. nov., A. alternarioides sp. nov., A. chubutensis sp. nov., A. claibornensis sp. nov., A. holocenicus sp. nov., A. reklawensis sp. nov., and A. subcapsilaris (Sheffy & Dilcher 1971) emend. comb. nov.

Specialization and the Middle/Upper Paleolithic Transition [and Comments and Reply]; Luis Abel Orquera; Neal W. Ackerly; Frank E. Bayham; David L. Browman; Philip G. Chase; G. A. Clark; Vicente Giancotti Tassone; Kurt R. Moore; Milla Y. Ohel; Randall White; Current Anthropology, Vol. 25, No. 1. (Feb., 1984), pp. 73-98. Abstract: Discussions of the differences between the Middle and the Upper Paleolithic usually oppose them as if they differed in essence and resort to lists of features apparently disconnected among themselves. This approach may be questioned; in fact, we are dealing with successive stages of a continuous evolutionary process, and we ought to be seeking, on a broader geographical and chrono-cultural basis, a unifying principle of which the features considered diagnostic are implications. That principle may be the search for greater efficiency in the interaction with the environment that in the Paleolithic produced a tendency toward specialization. Thus the Upper Paleolithic would include archaeological manifestations that are demonstrably specialized, and the Middle Paleolithic would be viewed as a stage in which the first steps in that direction can be distinguished. The article discusses the conditions that characterize specialization, its conceptualization, and its archaeological identification. This approach also allows one to distinguish different levels of accomplishment within a given stage and to compare the degrees of evolution achieved by Paleolithic groups in different areas and continents before the steps were taken that led to food production.

How the Ancients Viewed Deforestation; J. Donald Hughes; Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 10, No. 4. (Winter, 1983), pp. 435-445.


Plant remains would, of course be recovered using floation and water-screening archaeological methods. In looking at a garden: We would find samples that were not representative of merely one ecosystem, but all of them. Especially if the garden itself were destroyed in one, single, fast inundation/hydrological deposition occurance. Packing in mud really helps up the chances of fossilization/preservation.


It would be just that simple.

If there was somewhere to look. :Cheeky:

Thanks. :wave:

- Hex

Diogenes the Cynic

The discussion of Biblical Canon has been split here.

DtC, Moderator, BC&H

Robert Byers

My point was that the geographic description of eden and rivers is either evidence of the bible saying the pre-flood world was different or the bible has its geography wrong and so the bible is not true.
The names are rightly used because this area was least affected by the flood as it had the Ark floating around here.

We don't make stuff up. we can move within the boundaries the bible sets.
It makes real but still conservative boundaries. We are told the old world was destroyed completly and not just need see drowning but a complete smashup.
It all works.
Robert byers

Hex

Robert -

Then please explain the Euphrates and Assyria being used to give a location of Eden. If the " old world was destroyed completly", then why use the names of existant locations/features? And, if it were the "least affected by the flood as it had the Ark floating around", why do we -not- find those other locations/features?

I only ask because a world-wide destructive flood should be a worldwide destructive flood. A 'selective' flood ... Well ... then we're on to a different story, aren't we?

Thanks, :wave:

- Hex

-Jay-

See Hex's post. Once again you're faced with a lot of consilient evidence to indicate that the Genesis accounts are just so much culturally driven mythology, yet you tenaciously cling to notions of their veracity. Why?

What kind of bullshit logic is this? Are you now claiming some localized region that wasn't as "floody" as the rest of the world? Tell us, oh wise Robert, how did the physics of this work? Does it ever occur to you that whenever you add some twisted layer of interpretation onto the heap, it just undermines your position even more?

Of course you make stuff up, not the least of which is your creative reimagining of what the Bible says. The problem (or one of them, anyway) is that you (and I'm not just referring to you, Rob) don't appear to see the house of cards you build. When you start invoking "complete smashups", you pretty well negate the dramatic but necessarily smooth sorting effects you invoke to explain the fossil record. When you invoke hydrodynamic sorting, you have to misrepresent the fossil record itself, which moves from tiny, simpler forms forward in time to dinosaurs, then into modern, but generally smaller, organisms again. You deal with one objection, and another pops up.

It's like intellectual Whack-a-Mole.

N/A
regards,

NinJay

Malintent

Prior to Galileo, those "biblical boundaries", as you call it, were a lot closer to biblical literalism than they are today. Moving within the boundaries of the bible is as easy as moving those boundaries, for fundies like you that just MAKE SHIT UP.
Your bible is a faerie tale written by ignorant goat herders. It all works.

WVIncagold

I wonder why we have not located the entrance by satellite since it is guarded by a cherub with a large flaming sword. Robert explain if the area wasn't as flooded as the rest of the world did the angle give up its post? did it die in the flood? Can angles die? anyways i am truly interested would not the angle been able to magically prevent the water from entering the garden? if so then what was the need for the boat. could not the angle and god just herded the airmails into eden and start all over again? Where is eden? Where or where can we visit the greatest zoo ever created where lions are herbivores and there is a tree that gives the knowledge of life and the most important the talking snakes contained therein.

Robert Byers

If I understand you.
The flood/chaos probably was less severe in this area in order to preserve the Ark. perhaps some giant eddy actions going on. Yet the area would still be changed a little.
The reason for the location of eden is the evidence. The readers knew thee was no river with four heads. The river, Euphrates, was famous for going into the sea. it was not a head of another river.
If you disagree then this should be a case of biblical geography error. Am i wrong in my reasoning?
Read more carefully the account.
Rob Byers

Robert Byers

No need for anger here. I'm making my points. Damn good ones.
Its logical to see the area where the Ark was floating as being less damaged by the flood in order to preserve the inmates. Still changing the land however in some ways.
I see my thoughts here as persuasive to any audience.
If you say the eden account is based on the world when it was written then you have biblical geography error. Run with it.!
Otherwise humbly agree that the bible authors expected the readers to understand the geography had been rearranged by the flood. The Euphrates is not a head of a larger river. Back then everyone knew that.
Rob byers