DrZoidberg

I've read two theories. One is from Babylonian/Mesopotamian lore and it's a place called Edinu on the eastern shore of the Caspian see. The other is that the Persians had sacred gardens which were some sort of botanical gardens with specimens taken from various places in the empire. The idea of the garden of Eden were taken from this one.

But my money is on that it's a real place on earth.... just not a magical place.

kcdad

It is simply explaining why Israel... WHY are the Jews in Israel? Because their forefather left his homeland. Why are people in a world full of evil? Because our forefather was kicked out of the garden. Is it a coincidence that Eden and Abram's home are the same place?

brettpalmer

I'll do it one better: If there was a garden, as described in the Bible, then there couldn't have been a worldwide, catastrophic flood as described in the Bible (so much for the inerrancy claim). Or, if there was a worldwide catastrophic flood, there couldn't have been a garden "in Eden," as described in the Bible (again, so much for the inerrancy claim). I analyzed this in great detail, here: http://www.thebibleskeptic.com/paradise.html

avi

Umm, brett, I don't mean to be a nit-picker, but, did not the flood take place several generations of folks AFTER the departure from the Garden of Eden? I don't see how your conclusion follows...?

In other words, there could have been a garden, and a thousand years later, there could have been a flood. The two situations seem to have been described with a temporal separation of sufficient margin to have satisfactorily accounted for both myths.

avi

gdeering

I think he means that you could not use post-flood landmarks to determine where anything was pre-flood. Also, that since it does not say that God put everything back the way it was (like the Grand Canyon) you could not use a (memory) of a pre-flood place name to know where the location was post-flood. The pre and post-flood rivers would be different rivers, for instance.

brettpalmer

Exactly. Genesis 6:13 states clearly,

The violence that Yahweh unleashes upon the earth to destroy it along with all life would have had to be unlike any natural disaster ever known. In such a disaster, any trace of the once beautiful and bountiful garden of Eden would have been utterly wiped out. This is how most believers in the biblical tales explain why no physical remains of the garden of Eden can be found in the region of modern Iraq. The garden disappeared in the violence of the great flood. So, how can you use modern landmarks (the rivers and names of regions) to describe an area that was obliterated in the Great Flood?

avi

I guess, as a guy who grew up with floods every year, I have an inaccurate picture of the situation. Even considering Katrina, after the flood waters receded, there remained pre-flood landmarks, which is not to write that damage to the "earth", was not observed, in that horrific disaster.

Did Noah's flood level mountains? Did the flood destroy river beds? In the years following Noah's flood, did the waters not eventually recede, leaving the landscape more or less intact? In the hilly terrain of western Asia, one imagines that river beds etched over millenia would remain, even after a flood of magnitude sufficient to reach Mount Everest.

Eventually, the water on land would be transported to the air, cool, and fall as snow in the arctic regions, creating glaciers, and the net result would be a drop in the water level, with a return of the continents, including the original river beds....

avi

Minimalist

Wait...they think the snakes can talk, right?