Where in the world was the Garden of Eden?

[Marcia]

Maybe there are other creation stories because -- hellooo? -- there was a Creator and a creation! Those pagan stories reflect the truth but in a very warped form. The accounts are very different from Genesis.

Genesis is very straightforward and simple, unlike the fanciful pagan myths. I don't think Adam was some generic man - after all, Jesus referred to him as a real being, Adam is listed in the geneology of Jesus in either Matthew or Luke, and the first man is referred to in a literal way by Paul in Romans 5.

I totally believe in Genesis as a literal account of creation; I believe in the 6 days of creation as literal; I believe that Adam and Eve were literally first man and woman. :thumbs: And this is someone speaking (or writing) who was a total New Ager and who was good at New Age metaphorical reading of the Bible (I had Unity's Metaphysical Dictionary of the Bible and many psychics and others who started me on that path).

So sue me! :laugh:

We've had this discussion a lot in the Baptist forums.

 

[tinytim]

So if Adam wasn't real....
then Eve wasn't...

that means sin is a figment of my imagination...
How cool is that...

 

[LeBuick]

So if Adam wasn't real....
then Eve wasn't...

that means sin is a figment of my imagination...
How cool is that...

It also mean women are imagining the pain during child birth. Those fakers, what some folks won't do for sympathy... :laugh: :wavey: :thumbs:

 

[DHK]

Every ancient religion has a story about the creation and man's beginning. It has been suggested that Genesis is just the Hebrew accounting for creation.

Yes it is. It is the first account. Others copied from it, and therefore have their similarities.

Even the term adam is generic and not a name until about the 5th chapter of Genesis. Adam early on refers to all humankind. These are not literal days in the first 11 chapters of Genesis and one fails miserably in other areas if he supposes a literalism in the least.

It is a generic name only because Adam was the first man created man and thus named man (Adam). The meaning (as often is the case) comes from the name. The same is true for Eve, Abraham, Jacob, Israel, etc.
To say that these are not literal days in Genesis has great problems associated with. Most people back (or try to) with the verse that says: "a thousand years is as a day." But is it? That is just a figure of speech describing what time is like with God, first of all.
Secondly, What happened when God created the plants? Was there light for 1000 years, and then darkness for 1000 years (which would have killed off all the vegetation. Plants need sunlight and can't wait a thousand years for it. Many of the flowers need the pollination of insects like bees in order for them to actually exist. Would they have had to wait a couple of thousand years for the insects to be created? Again the plants would die before the insects would have been created. The plants would have been dead before the animals (all herbivores at that time) were created. They all would have died of starvation. If they weren't 24 hour days, creation would have been a mess. There are too many problems with any other theory. You sort it all out. There is a balance in nature that God created. There is intelligent design. All of nature has harmony. One part cannot exist without the other. Study ecology sometime.

On the flood, it was local. God, at that point, was virtually dealing with a nation, and that nation had failed miserably. God chose Noah, the representative of that nation, to survive and to begin over....within a chosen nation.

Who told you that story?
If that is your story then answer these objections:

Arguments for a Universal Flood
1. The depth of the Flood (7:19,20--even the highest mountains)
2. The duration of the Flood--over one year.
3. The size of the ark---it could accommodate up to 50,000 animals.
4. Need for an ark at all--if a local flood, then just walk to another land close by.
5. The testimony of Peter--2 Peter 3:3-7

Even so, his three sons branched off to various regions of the same locality. The years required to develop the nations in the Bible alone requires more years than we can even imagine, and they certainly didn't come from three sons of one man. Imposible and unimaginable.
Cheers,

Jim

Study Genesis chapter 10 and 11. Chronologically chapter 11 comes before chapter 10, but don't let that bother you. It explains how the nations were scattered, and how they all came from three men. If you don't believe the Biblical account of Creation and the Flood that what can you believe?
DHK

 

[DHK]

The garden of Eden was a real garden just as it is described in Genesis chapter two. It perished in the flood, as the world was completely reconstructed at that time. No man knows where it is. It would even be foolish to try and guess. The names that are familiar to us today, like the Euphrates River, were probably named only by memory of those that survived the Flood. They renamed rivers and such after what they remember from before the Flood. But they weren't the same rivers or places. All was lost; all was relocated. Nothing was geographically the same.
DHK

 

[BobRyan]

Imagine it: the fountains of the deep being broken up, and rain the like we have probably never seen falling from the sky. There are not many forces on the planet that can move more dirt than water does.

My guess is, the rivers we know as the Tigris and Euphrates, may not even be the same rivers we read of in Genesis. As changed as the earth was after the flood, I doubt that very much was recognizable to Noah and family as they stepped of the ark. Of course, they wouldn't be getting off at the same place they got on. But with the upheavals created by the natural forces that God unleashed on the earth, I don't think anything was where it had been before the flood. The rivers that now are named Tigris and Euphrates possibly got their names in memory of the pre-flood world.

The "problem" is that Moses is writing AFTER the flood telling HIS READERS WHERE the Garden of Eden was. If the context of location is from the POV of a POST flood writer - then you would think that it must be the same rivers we see today.

 

[Jim1999]

DHK, PLease don't be so condescending in your responses. I was not born yesterday, and this is not my first look at scriptures. I was prolly studying the word before you were in nappies.

There is more than one understanding of the Genesis account of creation and the flood, and you still have to account for the millions of years required to populate the world, and many nations. The Bible is the book of salvation. It is not the complete text of history, geology or even nature.

Cheers,

Jim

 

[DHK]

Why would it take millions of years to populate the world when men lived to be 900 years of age.
Even after the flood, men lived longer than we did.

 

[BobRyan]

It took about 4500 years to go from "eight people after the flood" to the current number.

It took about 4300 years to reach "1 billion" in the year 1800.

It took another 100 years to reach 2 billion in the year 1900.

It took about 50 years to reach 3 billion.

 

[BobRyan]

DHK, PLease don't be so condescending in your responses. I was not born yesterday, and this is not my first look at scriptures. I was prolly studying the word before you were in nappies.

There is more than one understanding of the Genesis account of creation and the flood, and you still have to account for the millions of years required to populate the world, and many nations. The Bible is the book of salvation. It is not the complete text of history, geology or even nature.

Jim is going to post a well reasoned "bullet proof" position on some Bible topic "I just know it".

But I don't think it will be on authorship inspiration, accuracy and reliability of the book of Genesis.

In Christ,

Bob

 

[genesis12]

I have a friend who says his wife is a dinosaur. Her ancestors survived the flood and everything (he says).

 

[Brother Bob]

I think I know her!!! Or used to.

 

[drfuss]

DHK writes:
"Why would it take millions of years to populate the world when men lived to be 900 years of age.
Even after the flood, men lived longer than we did."

Yes, and since men lived longer, I suspect women's child bearing years could have been 50 years instead of today's 25 years.

Here is one to consider. I have a friend that believes the Garden of Eden was really on another planet. When God "drove them from the garden", He really transported them to earth. This theory allows for an old evolving earth with Adam and Eve starting the human race as we know it.

I don't believe it, but it is an interesting concept.

 

[BobRyan]

The angel "Stands outside the garden" with a flaming swors so that no one may enter.:type:

Did Adam and Eve have spaceships??:laugh: :laugh: :tongue3:

 

[Jarthur001]

As to the OP. I think it is clear and well documented.

Has no one heard the song...

"Almost Heaven.....West Virginia"?​

I rest my case.

 

[BobRyan]

"Take me home country road"

 

[LeBuick]

The angel "Stands outside the garden" with a flaming swors so that no one may enter.:type:

Did Adam and Eve have spaceships??

You missed the thread on Benny Hinn, Adam didn't need no stickin spaceship, he could fly. :laugh:

 

[mman]

DHK, PLease don't be so condescending in your responses. I was not born yesterday, and this is not my first look at scriptures. I was prolly studying the word before you were in nappies.

There is more than one understanding of the Genesis account of creation and the flood, and you still have to account for the millions of years required to populate the world, and many nations. The Bible is the book of salvation. It is not the complete text of history, geology or even nature.

Cheers,

Jim

Below is a summary of an Article found here: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/489

6 Billion people are now on the earth
Current population growth at 1.7%
Earth's population doubles every 40 years (Historically)
Starting with 8 people 4500 years ago, to reach current population, a growth rate of .5% is needed. This is in the ball park due to war, disease, famine, etc

If man has been here for 1 million years, then the population would be more than 1X10 to the 5000 (1 followed by 5000 zeros) people on the Earth today!

The entire universe (at an estimated size of 20 billion light-years in diameter) can only hold 1 x 10 to the 100th power.

 

[BobRyan]

You missed the thread on Benny Hinn, Adam didn't need no stickin spaceship, he could fly. :laugh:

You mean "stinking spaceships" right? Adam "don't need no stinking spaceships" not "stickin-spaceship". If the space ship got "Stuck" then he would never make it here from his garden of Eden planet.

But as you point out - the "Hinn-theory" is that people fly in space.

Come to think of it - I saw them flying around the space shuttle out in space one time.

Maybe Hinn has a point!!:tongue3:

 

[Stinker2]

When the ancient Jews were taken into captivity by the Babylonians they may have been inspired to add to the creation story, this paradise garden:

http://www.gkindia.com/architecture/hanginggarden.htm