Eden and the Garden

Where was Eden?

In the beginning Yah spent time doing some separation which was necessary because what He was working with was unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep.  He separated light from darkness; the expanse separated the water which was now above and below this expanse; the lights in the expanse (Sky) separated day from night.  By Day Seven Yah was finished with His work and rested.  He blessed the Seventh Day and set it apart because that is the day He ceased from all the work of creation.  That is why we do all our work in six days and rest on the seventh.  This is a sign between us and our Creator and has nothing to do with the Gregorian calendar the world uses today.

Genesis 2:8 ~ Yah planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and that is where He placed Adam.

2:10 ~ A river issues from Eden to water the Garden and then divides becoming four branches: Pishon which winds through the whole land of Havilah, where the gold is along with bdellium and lapis lazuli. The second river is the Gihon that winds through the whole land of Cush. The third river is the Tigris that flows east of Asshur and the fourth is the Euphrates.

The course of these rivers were affected years later by The Flood yet both the Tigris and Euphrates are on the maps of today's world. The Pishon and the Gihon could have both been washed out during The Flood or renamed as years went by, maybe known only as streams and creeks in comparison to the rivers they once were.  The land associated with the river Pishon was known for its Gold, Bdellium and Lapis lazuli and called the land of Havilah, while the river Gihon went through the land of Cush.

According to modern day geology the Tigris and Euphrates have their sources within 50 miles of each other in eastern Turkey near Armenia and travel southeast through northern Syria and Iraq to the Persian Gulf.  The Pishon and Gihon would have their source near the same area since one river became four after watering The Garden.  In my research I have learned that the Tigris-Euphrates river system runs through the territory of four countries: Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria and that the Tigris has it's beginning in Armenia.

•Land of Havilah, where the Pishon ran, was known for its gold, bdellium and lapis lazuli.  Havilah is a descendant of Cush. Bdellium is a fragrant gum resin obtained from a tree (Commiphora africana) found in NW Africa and Arabia.

•Land of Cush is where the Gihon flowed. We read in Genesis 10 that Cush, a descendant of Ham, is the father of Nimrod who lived in the land of Shinar.  The Land of Shinar was a general geographic term for what is today Iraq, known in ancient times as Mesopotamia. There, two ancient empires, Assyria and Babylon, were centered.

 

•The Tigris flowed east of Asshur.  In Genesis 25:12 we read of Abraham's first born, Ishmael, his 12 sons and their offspring who populated the region from Havilah by Shur which was close to Egypt, all the way to Asshur.  Asshur was a son of Shem and from him came the Assyrian people (Syria).

•The Euphrates was simply called 'the fourth' without a land associated with it.  However its path is much like the Tigris, both flowing through Mesopotamia to what is now called the Persian Gulf.

 

In modern times this area is referred to as the Mideast or Middle East which includes: Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.  

Eden was somewhere in the Mideast, maybe in the area of eastern Turkey near Armenia. I do not have any more details in regards to the original location of Yah's Garden. However, many years later when The Flood began to recede the ark eventually settled on the mountains of Ararat (not thee Mount Ararat) and from Noah's three sons the whole world branched out from that area.  The mountains of Ararat are located within the southern end of the Ararat Plain halfway between Lake Van to the southwest in Turkey and Lake Sevan to the northeast in Armenia.  The mountain range straddles the borders of what are present-day Turkey, Armenia, Iran, and Azerbaijan  

 

Consider this coincident: Days earlier while I was researching data for this study, using Google Maps I had traced the Euphrates River from the Persian Gulf and eventually came near Lake Van in Turkey. Could it be that Yahweh set the ark down in an area where His pre-flood Garden was? The resulting Ararat Plain is a fertile agricultural zone with a temperate climate which would have made it an ideal place to restart humankind.  I also traced the Tigris River but lost track of it when I got to the area of Ormanardi, Turkey.  There are two or three streams feeding into the 'lake' where I lost the Tigris. Were they, once upon a time, the Pishon and Gihon?  Thoughts to ponder but not to be sidelined by.

While this has been a most interesting study, the end result is that I cannot pinpoint where the Garden was but am pretty sure of the general location. I used the evidence provided in Scriptures and used modern day maps along with the Atlas option provided by Bible Hub. The so called Cradle of Civilization is somewhere in the mountains of Ararat, somewhere between Turkey and Armenia. 

 

There are things we don't need to know else the bible would be way to big to carry around. Even in John 21:25 it is written: "Now there is much more that Yahshua did. If every one of them were written down, I think that the world itself would not contain the written books." The basics are recorded and have been preserved throughout the years. Granted, many versions of the 'bible' are fraught with error when compared with the ancient Hebrew texts, but it is by our sincere intentions as we search for Yahweh by reading Scriptures and being in study with other believers that His Spirit reveals the truth to us. By Faith we know Yah created man and man did go forth and multiply.  Yah told Abraham his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Yah told Jacob his offspring would be as the sands of the sea which are too numerous to count.  And here we are.