Charles J. Aebi Charles J. Aebi The Garden of Eden is usually thought to have
been somewhere in the Middle East, possibly in Iraq, though many
areas and even other continents have been suggested. Eden was
before the flood, and there is evidence that before the flood
the whole earth had a warm climate. Many things may have been
different before the flood, including climate, atmosphere, topography,
and man's life span potential; but, suppose that things have not
changed that much where would that put Eden? One theory places
Eden in Armenia or Turkey, at the headwaters of the Tigris and
Euphrates, and supposes that some unknown river fed these and
two other rivers. Another puts Eden in the lower Tigris and Euphrates
Valleys in Babylonia (Iraq or Kuwait today) where the two rivers
come together today, then divide into the delta at the head of
the Persian Gulf; this is more likely if the topography has not
changed much.
The word Eden is thought to come from either Hebrew
(in which it would mean "delight" or "paradise")
or from Assyrian (in which it would mean "plain"). Eden
is found 19 times in the American Standard Version, sometimes
referring to the name of a person, as in 2 Chronicles 29:12. The
garden was "eastward in Eden," referring either to the
eastern part of whatever region was called Eden early in human
history, or to some area east of where Moses was when he wrote
Genesis, that is, east of the Sinai Peninsula.
Clues in Genesis 2:8-14 include the statement
that a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, which may
suggest an arid country that needed irrigation from a river. This
is true of most of the Middle East. It also says Eden's river
divided into four rivers which are named, and two of the names
correspond to two known rivers of the Middle East, the Tigris
(called "Hiddekel" in the King James Version) and the
Euphrates. Those rivers may or may not be the Tigris and Euphrates
we know today. The flood of Noah's day could have changed the
locations of what we now know as the Tigris and the Euphrates,
as could have earthquakes or geologic uplifts. The division of
a river into four branches might suggest a delta, and other geographic
features also are possible as explanations of this phenomenon.
Genesis 2:8-14 names the Pishon River and says
it flows around the whole land of Havilah. Havilah perhaps was
in what we now know as Arabia, but another option is the Sinai
(Genesis 25:18). Havilah and Cush, in the table of nations in
Genesis 10, seem to have been located in Africa. The second river,
the Gihon, is said to flow around the whole land of Cush, which
at times was between Egypt and Ethiopia, in northern Africa, although
"Cush" may sometimes describe parts of Ethiopia, Arabia,
or even Mesopotamia. Cush is mentioned about a dozen times in
the Old Testament, depending on which translation is used.
If the Tigris and Euphrates in Genesis 2 are the
current rivers of that name, Eden could have been either in southern
Iraq where the delta now is or elsewhere in the Tigris-Euphrates
Valleys. The Tigris is said in Genesis 2:14 to flow east of Assyria
(at the time when Moses wrote); in later Old Testament history
the Tigris flowed through Assyria. Gold, onyx, and bdellium were
present around Havilah. These things certainly suggest the Middle
East. The Tigris and Euphrates meet today in southern Iraq and
then split into rivers flowing through the delta in Kuwait into
the Persian Gulf. If the delta has formed farther out into the
Persian Gulf than in earlier times, the Gulf could have been farther
northwest than it now is, which would put Eden somewhere in southern
Iraq.
Since God made it impossible for man to return
to Eden (Genesis 3:24), perhaps (as with Moses' burial place)
He did not want later generations to know its precise location.
- 2660 Layman Rd., Vincent, OH 45784. cjandi@jukno.com