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Eden is gone

Writer's picture: Bible BrianBible Brian

Wouldn't it be amazing if we found the Garden of Eden? Many Christians really hope we find it one day, and many more believe we already have. The reasoning? There are two rivers there that bear the same names as two of the four described in Genesis 2.


Unfortunately, both sets of Christians are wrong. We will never find the Garden of Eden, because just like the rest of the world, it was destroyed in the flood. "But the rivers!" The rivers do exist, and they do have the same names. But this means nothing. Humans often re-use old names for new things. There's a Memphis in Egypt and a Memphis in Tennessee. There's a Beverly Hills in California and a Beverly Hills in Texas. La Paz is in both Mexico and Bolivia. Moscow is both in Russia and in Kansas. There's a Halifax in Canada and a Halifax in England.

You get the point. The two rivers having the same name does not mean they are the same two rivers. A more likely explanation is that the descendants of Noah who were dispersed from Babel and ended up in Iraq found two rivers that were formed post-flood, and named them similarly to the rivers of Eden. This stretches the imagination far less than having the actual Garden of Eden survive the flood that literally destroyed the whole world (2 Peter 3:6).


Rather than looking back to the long-lost Eden, we should instead look forward to the New Jerusalem, which was bought for us through the shedding of Jesus' blood.

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