Finding Eden? Ideas and Implications

[shernren]

I've been looking at the work of theologian C. John Collins who has some very interesting ideas concerning Eden. He has taken considerable effort to try to identify a geography that makes sense with Genesis' description of Eden:

And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
(Genesis 2:10-14 ESV)

We know about the Tigris and the Euphrates. What about the Pishon and Gihon? Collins notes that:

Cush may be the land in Africa (Sudan), or it may be the land of the Kassites (a people in western Iran). If it is the land of the Kassites, that points us to Mesopotamia; but what then of the gold of Havilah? There is a known source of gold in Arabia, south of modern Medina; and from near those gold fields a now-dry river once arose, flowing toward the Persian Gulf through the modern Kuwait. Thus we might have the Pishon. If Cush refers to the Kassites, then the Gihon would be a river flowing down from the Zagros Mountains, such as the modern Kerkheh or the Diz plus Karun Rivers.

Then the rivers may have come together in Eden, which would locate it in the Persian Gulf, and flow from there into the garden (which are not synonymous).

I cannot personally vouch for the geographical accuracy of this. Paradoxically, however, accurately identifying the region causes far more trouble for literalist readers than for those who would read Genesis 1-11 as myth. After all, there is nothing that prevents a mythmaker from using accurate geographical details. Just because The Phantom of the Opera uses accurate descriptions of Paris does not make its events any more factual. Indeed, it is precisely a degree of verisimilitude that often makes fiction all the more compelling as fiction.

On the other hand, literalist interpretation interjects a global, catastrophic, surface-altering flood between the actual creation of this Eden and garden and Moses' reception of the story. But if the Tigris and Euphrates and Gihon and Pishon are rivers present after the flood (and indirectly present as a result of it), then how can they be used to describe Eden's location? How could God and Moses use these landmarks to describe the geography of the location if its original geography was completely different? After all, there can be no other purpose for identifiable geographical landmarks to be included in a narrative like this if not for allowing the actual place to be found, or at least hinted at.

Even more intriguingly, how is the land from which the man is made described?

When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up--for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground-- then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
(Genesis 2:5-7 ESV)

I will quote Collins at length here:

It also helps to recall the climate of the western Levant: it rains in the fall and winter, and not at all in the summer. At the end of the summer, and with no man to work the ground (by irrigation), the ground is quite dry and barren; after the rains begin to fall, then the plants may spring up. This makes sense, because the text gives a reason for no bush or small plant: "for the Lord God had not caused it to rain" (2:5); this is not at all the same as "he had not yet created them," which is what Driver [arguing for two creation stories amalgated] and Futato [suggesting from a framework view that Gen 2 retells both days 3 and 6] seem to require. Rather, it is in terms of the ordinary experience of the Israelite audience.

We are then able to understand just what Genesis 2:5-8 means: in some land, at the end of the dry season, when the "mist" (or rain cloud) was rising to begin the rains, God formed the first man; he then planted a garden in Eden and moved the man there. Some time after that he made the woman.

This way of reading Genesis 2:5-8 has the advantages of (1) following directly from the discourse relations; (2) using ordinary meanings of words; and (3) making it easy to harmonize Genesis 2:4-25 with the sixth day of Genesis 1. But it also has a strong impact on the amount of time that must have been involved. If the time of year and the absence of man are the reasons for why the plants were "not yet in the land," then this means that the familiar seasonal cycle was in effect; and for this to be so, the seasonal cycle must have been in operation for some number of years. If we want to continue to harmonize the two pericopes, we will not be able to maintain ordinary days in Genesis 1 ...

 

[juvenissun]

(Genesis 2:10-14 ESV)

I cannot personally vouch for the geographical accuracy of this. Paradoxically, however, accurately identifying the region causes far more trouble for literalist readers than for those who would read Genesis 1-11 as myth.

Wrong. Whether the identification in geography or paleogeography is true or not, doing this would take ONE fewer trouble than not doing it.

Read it as a myth is only trying to take an easy way out and to avoid the troubles altogether.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Wrong. Whether the identification in geography or paleogeography is true or not, doing this would take ONE fewer trouble than not doing it.

Read it as a myth is only trying to take an easy way out and to avoid the troubles altogether.

Really?

Reading Genesis as myth is easy? Because in my experience, reading things literally is easy. It doesn't require any real through- just cursory consumption. It's going through sustained exegesis to demonstrate the non-historical character of a text that takes the form of narrative that I find hard.

 

[billwald]

Eden was a mystical/magical place that could not exist on THIS planet unless isolated by a force field or magical spell.

 

[Scotishfury09]

Eden was a mystical/magical place that could not exist on THIS planet unless isolated by a force field or magical spell.

Magical spell? Apparently Harry Potter really is a Christ figure.

 

[lemmings]

Reading Genesis as myth is easy?

Reading it as myth is only easy in the sense that you do not have to invent absurdly complex rules to conform to our observations.

 

[Scotishfury09]

lemmings, I love your signature.

 

[lemmings]

lemmings, I love your signature.

Glad you liked it, I would highly recommend that you read Douglas Adams’ books.

 

[Assyrian]

Cush may be the land in Africa (Sudan), or it may be the land of the Kassites (a people in western Iran). If it is the land of the Kassites, that points us to Mesopotamia; but what then of the gold of Havilah? There is a known source of gold in Arabia, south of modern Medina; and from near those gold fields a now-dry river once arose, flowing toward the Persian Gulf through the modern Kuwait. Thus we might have the Pishon. If Cush refers to the Kassites, then the Gihon would be a river flowing down from the Zagros Mountains, such as the modern Kerkheh or the Diz plus Karun Rivers.

But everyone knew what Cush was. If Genesis was written by Moses for the Israelites coming out of Egypt they would all have know Cush was the region up the Nile from where they had spent the last few hundred years. Would the Israelites have even heard of what was an obscure hill tribe far away in the Zagros mountains? Why call the place Cush when that word meant Ethiopia? If Genesis was written later during the Exile in Babylon, the people would have heard of the Kassites, They would even have had a Hebrew version of the name. They would not have mixed it up with Cush south of Egypt or written it the same way as the region they refer to again and again in the OT.

No, this is the problem with literalism, words can mean anything you like if their actual meaning does not suit. Except for 'day' of course

I like the book of Revelation's interpretation of the river. The river with the tree of life beside it comes from heaven, from the Paradise of God. It is the River of Life. Genesis gives the river an impossible geography, because literal geographic location was not the point. The point was the river of God was for the whole world and God's plan was for all of mankind whether they lived as far away as black people of Cush or beyond the Indus.

 

[juvenissun]

Eden was a mystical/magical place that could not exist on THIS planet unless isolated by a force field or magical spell.

I remember one Mod has a concept that times and spaces are intertwined. If that were the case (quite likely), then we may say that the Eden is, and is not, on this earth.

Yes, God does say it is guarded now so we can not go there even we can do time travel (over Iraq/Iran).

 

[juvenissun]

Genesis gives the river an impossible geography, because literal geographic location was not the point.

We (even for non-geologist) should bear a mind, regards to this type of issue, that the earth has a history (short or long). What we see today is really a "fuzzy image" of what the earth was, similar, but different, in many ways.

 

[Assyrian]

The Nile, Tigris and Euphrates cannot have the same source, the geography is impossible. You could had a very different geography in the past, but then calling rivers that flow in very different directions through very different regions, by the same name as rivers we have today would be meaningless.

 

[juvenissun]

The Nile, Tigris and Euphrates cannot have the same source, the geography is impossible. You could had a very different geography in the past, but then calling rivers that flow in very different directions through very different regions, by the same name as rivers we have today would be meaningless.

Not saying that is a proper remark to what you said. But many many major rivers changed courses (many are reversed) after the last ice age. This is only one generally acceptable example to illustrate the volatility of the landscape (and geography) on earth.

 

[Molal]

Not saying that is a proper remark to what you said. But many many major rivers changed courses (many are reversed) after the last ice age. This is only one generally acceptable example to illustrate the volatility of the landscape (and geography) on earth.

Juve,

Can you explain to us when the last ice age occurred and how you derived your answer?

Also, your statement:

This is only one generally acceptable example to illustrate the volatility of the landscape (and geography) on earth.

does not seem to make sense. Do you mean there is only one acceptable answer, that being glaciation, or do you mean there is more than one acceptable answer, of which glaciation is one?

 

[Assyrian]

Not saying that is a proper remark to what you said. But many many major rivers changed courses (many are reversed) after the last ice age. This is only one generally acceptable example to illustrate the volatility of the landscape (and geography) on earth.

But we are not just talking about rivers simply changing course here are we? A river when one course is blocked finding a new direction to go, or if the geology tilt flowing backwards along its course? You can see the continuity there, the same river that has undergone changes (sorry Heraclitus).

According to YEC geology you had a landscape before the flood with rivers and hills. Then this is completely scoured away by a year long flood of turbulent water and abrasive sediment that sandblasts the whole thing away. In the process kilometers thick of sediment are laid down in brand new soft geological strata. As the flood recedes and mountains are raised up, the water rushing of the land carves new features into these soft layers of geological strata, completely new valleys, canyons and river courses.

How is there any relationship between a river that flowed in one direction in a preflood landscape that was completely obliterate, and a new river, completely unrelated to the old one, flowing in a completely different direction in a completely different landscape made of completely different geological strata?

 

[shernren]

But everyone knew what Cush was. If Genesis was written by Moses for the Israelites coming out of Egypt they would all have know Cush was the region up the Nile from where they had spent the last few hundred years. Would the Israelites have even heard of what was an obscure hill tribe far away in the Zagros mountains? Why call the place Cush when that word meant Ethiopia? If Genesis was written later during the Exile in Babylon, the people would have heard of the Kassites, They would even have had a Hebrew version of the name. They would not have mixed it up with Cush south of Egypt or written it the same way as the region they refer to again and again in the OT.

That may well be true. I'm still quite open on the issue of Mosaic authorship, anyway. But when you mentioned Cush, though, I thought about:

The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD. Therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD." The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
(Genesis 10:7-10 ESV)

Wouldn't "Nimrod" have had Babylonian affiliations, whether or not he historically existed? Just wondering aloud.

No, this is the problem with literalism, words can mean anything you like if their actual meaning does not suit. Except for 'day' of course.

No, I don't think this is literalism. Looking at a map of Paris while reading The Phantom of the Opera does not constitute accepting all of Gaston Leroux's events as real and historical! It is certainly not appropriate to priorly assume that the real world will conform itself to a story's descriptions. But it is appropriate and helpful to see how far a story, by the storywriter's accuracy (or not!), has conformed itself to the real world.

Were the Tigris and Euphrates the same rivers we know today? Why not? What about the Gihon and Pishon, what were they? And does that mean the author was trying to point to an actual geographical location? I found these speculations interesting; I pursue them. John Collins is hardly a literalist; he thinks it is irresponsible to shoehorn Genesis 1 into six actual, historical, 24-hour days (read my sig). But for all of that he is still conservative.

As for the four rivers meeting, some people have tried to interpret it as a confluence instead of a common source:

A corresponding theory is that the "there" or "thence" of verse 10 references greater Eden and not the garden, and that the description is of looking upriver from the garden into Eden and that from "there/thence" the river "separates" or "diverges" [Heb פרד = PRD] into four separate rivers. Following each of these upstream, past the various lands, leads you to their headwaters.​

 

[Assyrian]

That may well be true. I'm still quite open on the issue of Mosaic authorship, anyway. But when you mentioned Cush, though, I thought about:

The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD. Therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD." The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
(Genesis 10:7-10 ESV)

Wouldn't "Nimrod" have had Babylonian affiliations, whether or not he historically existed? Just wondering aloud.

Hard to avoid when everyone is spreading from the Plain of Shinar, but the location of Cush and where Cushites come from was well known in biblical times. I was looking at Delitzsch's New Commentary on Genesis and he claimed Gihon was an old Coptic word for the Upper Nile. It raises a question of whether Coptic Christians adopted the word from the bible or vice versa.

No, I don't think this is literalism.

My bad. I realise non literalists play the hunting Eden game too, I am just so used to literalists trying to justify the geography by relocating Cush.

Looking at a map of Paris while reading The Phantom of the Opera does not constitute accepting all of Gaston Leroux's events as real and historical! It is certainly not appropriate to priorly assume that the real world will conform itself to a story's descriptions. But it is appropriate and helpful to see how far a story, by the storywriter's accuracy (or not!), has conformed itself to the real world.

Were the Tigris and Euphrates the same rivers we know today? Why not? What about the Gihon and Pishon, what were they? And does that mean the author was trying to point to an actual geographical location? I found these speculations interesting; I pursue them. John Collins is hardly a literalist; he thinks it is irresponsible to shoehorn Genesis 1 into six actual, historical, 24-hour days (read my sig). But for all of that he is still conservative.


As for the four rivers meeting, some people have tried to interpret it as a confluence instead of a common source:

A corresponding theory is that the "there" or "thence" of verse 10 references greater Eden and not the garden, and that the description is of looking upriver from the garden into Eden and that from "there/thence" the river "separates" or "diverges" [Heb פרד = PRD] into four separate rivers. Following each of these upstream, past the various lands, leads you to their headwaters.​

I realise it gets read both ways, I don't know which is the best translation, but I am not too worried, I don't think either of them can possible work. It is the problem of flowing around the land of Cush, whichever direction it flows.

But the idea of a stream flowing from Eden and then dividing suggests the river diverges downstream rather than these being tributaries. It fits the imagery in Revelation fo the river flowing from the throne of God and also the interpetation in both Jewish apocalyptic writing and Ezekiel, that Eden is on a mountain. The river would have to flow downhill from there before it could split into streams.

 

[juvenissun]

Juve,

Can you explain to us when the last ice age occurred and how you derived your answer?

Also, your statement:



does not seem to make sense. Do you mean there is only one acceptable answer, that being glaciation, or do you mean there is more than one acceptable answer, of which glaciation is one?

According to the conventional geological wisdom, the last glaciation ended about 10,000 years ago.

Sorry that I think faster than I type. I do mean there are more than one way to change the landscape and geography easily.

 

[juvenissun]

According to YEC geology you had a landscape before the flood with rivers and hills. Then this is completely scoured away by a year long flood of turbulent water and abrasive sediment that sandblasts the whole thing away. In the process kilometers thick of sediment are laid down in brand new soft geological strata. As the flood recedes and mountains are raised up, the water rushing of the land carves new features into these soft layers of geological strata, completely new valleys, canyons and river courses.

I do not feel well with the idea that the Flood deposited, and then turned around to erode the soft sediments into an valley or canyon which is what we see today. I would not take this process into my Flood model.

 

[Assyrian]

That is standard YEC geology though?