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The Garden of Eden, was it real?

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hemi

hemi

Skilled Investigator
The biblical Garden of Eden was taken away from man because of sin, or the the bible and a few other texts say. The Bible says Edan was located east of Israel where four rivers meet- The Tigris and Euphrates and the Pison and Gihon. The later two have long been considered mythical but however; recent satellite photography suggest these rivers did exist in Iraq. Another theory places Eden's location beneath the Black Sea. Both the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh and Ancient Greek texts speak of a paradise lost.

I like to know if there is any other texts other than the Bible reinforce the idea of Eden and where it might be found? The Bible to me is more stories or guidelines on how you should live your life than historical fact. A good analogy would be the Bible to me is like a Dan Brown novel; it has facts in it but those facts have been bent to fit the story. So just like Atlantis is a mystery did a place like Eden really exist? Some facts I would suggest point to a Eden like place did exist.


History Channels Mysteries of the Garden of Eden
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Bro, your data is all kinds of wrong--EVERYBODY on the 'inside' knows that Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri.
 
I seriously doubt that the garden of Eden ever existed. To me it sounds like the Israelite adaptation of an earlier culture's story/legend which has become mythology over the years.
 
Xylo said:
I seriously doubt that the garden of Eden ever existed. To me it sounds like the Israelite adaptation of an earlier culture's story/legend which has become mythology over the years.
Click to expand...

Please don't think that I am saying THE Garden of Eden existed. I am just saying that a place like the Garden of Eden could have existed and that was the model for the biblical Garden of Eden.
 
hemi said:
Please don't think that I am saying THE Garden of Eden existed. I am just saying that a place like the Garden of Eden could have existed and that was the model for the biblical Garden of Eden.
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No I didn't take it that way. Sorry if my comment seemed to point that way.
 
hemi said:
The biblical Garden of Eden was taken away from man because of sin, or the the bible and a few other texts say. The Bible says Edan was located east of Israel where four rivers meet- The Tigris and Euphrates and the Pison and Gihon. The later two have long been considered mythical but however; recent satellite photography suggest these rivers did exist in Iraq. Another theory places Eden's location beneath the Black Sea. Both the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh and Ancient Greek texts speak of a paradise lost.

I like to know if there is any other texts other than the Bible reinforce the idea of Eden and where it might be found? The Bible to me is more stories or guidelines on how you should live your life than historical fact. A good analogy would be the Bible to me is like a Dan Brown novel; it has facts in it but those facts have been bent to fit the story. So just like Atlantis is a mystery did a place like Eden really exist? Some facts I would suggest point to a Eden like place did exist.


History Channels Mysteries of the Garden of Eden
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Click to expand...


Google "Gobekli Tepe"..it's a fascinating archaeological dig in Turkey going on right now by a team of German archaeologists who literally believe they've discovered the garden of eden.
 
Gobekli Tepe is a fascinating dig, I've been tracking that one myself having much more than a passing interest in archaeology and ancient civilizations, but I don't think there's really anything to connect it with Eden. It's been dated to about 11,500 years old, and I find the T shaped stelli and the engravings on them quite interesting. Excavations of the site are ongoing.
 
rhcball said:
Bro, your data is all kinds of wrong--EVERYBODY on the 'inside' knows that Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri.
Click to expand...

LOL! Good one dude! Actually that's a Mormon thing, and based on the supposition that Eden predated the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent, and that present Independence Missouri was actually the "center place" of Zion and the original dwelling place of Adam and Eve in the Garden which God planted "eastward in Eden", and that Adam and Eve traveled about 85 miles north after being kicked out for sinning.

Safe to say there's not much in the way of proof for this doctrine as the supercontinent is currently estimated to have broken up into the separate continents of today around 250 million years ago.
 
hemi said:
I like to know if there is any other texts other than the Bible reinforce the idea of Eden and where it might be found? The Bible to me is more stories or guidelines on how you should live your life than historical fact. A good analogy would be the Bible to me is like a Dan Brown novel; it has facts in it but those facts have been bent to fit the story. So just like Atlantis is a mystery did a place like Eden really exist? Some facts I would suggest point to a Eden like place did exist.
Click to expand...

If you take the Bible as your only source on this you will not get very far.
 
trainedobserver said:
But then again Barbara Eden was quite dreamy.
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She was, wasn't she?
I remember as a kid watching I dream of Jeanie thinking "What is that man's problem? And why is he toadying to generals when he could retire to an island with her?"
Same thing with Darrin in Bewitched. Such a craven toady, such a waste of a lovely witchy wife.
But I digress.

---------- Post added at 05:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:06 PM ----------

hemi said:
The biblical Garden of Eden was taken away from man because of sin, or the the bible and a few other texts say. The Bible says Edan was located east of Israel where four rivers meet- The Tigris and Euphrates and the Pison and Gihon. The later two have long been considered mythical but however; recent satellite photography suggest these rivers did exist in Iraq. Another theory places Eden's location beneath the Black Sea. Both the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh and Ancient Greek texts speak of a paradise lost.

I like to know if there is any other texts other than the Bible reinforce the idea of Eden and where it might be found? The Bible to me is more stories or guidelines on how you should live your life than historical fact. A good analogy would be the Bible to me is like a Dan Brown novel; it has facts in it but those facts have been bent to fit the story. So just like Atlantis is a mystery did a place like Eden really exist? Some facts I would suggest point to a Eden like place did exist.


History Channels Mysteries of the Garden of Eden
<EMBED style="WIDTH: 400px; HEIGHT: 326px" id=VideoPlayback type=application/x-shockwave-flash src=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-6679847234565133494&hl=en&fs=true allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always"> </EMBED>

<EMBED style="WIDTH: 255px; HEIGHT: 255px" id=VideoPlayback type=application/x-shockwave-flash src=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-6679847234565133494&hl=en&fs=true allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always">
Click to expand...

I think the Garden of Eden is a fairly unimportant plot device - the important part of the story is the idea that the human condition stems from the knowledge of Good and Evil (since the tree whose fruit they ate was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) - since we are creatures who know the difference, we are capable of either and both - but unlike animals and small children we are by virtue of that fact also culpable for our own wrongdoing. There is no guilt without choice.
It also has overtones of the common human cultural theme of a lost golden age - although that in itself can simply be put down to a natural longing for youth or childhood (by those who've forgotten what childhood was actually like).
 
I don't think Eden has ever existed outside the imagination of a storyteller with an agenda. It's likely just a bookend to the story arc offered by religious texts to encourage believers and followers. With elegant symmetry, we have the story of Man beginning in paradise and ending in paradise.

The only way I can conceive it as a physically real location, is in the context of upper-palaeolithic niche cultures. Up to 60kya, the human population of Earth is thought to have numbered just 1000s. Life was tough and resources were sparse. Some small populations were fortunate enough to discover coastal areas where they suddenly had access to plenty of food in the form of shellfish. The Western coastline of Africa has seen a handful of these cave areas explored in the recent past. Hearths, piles of empty shells and fish bones litter the areas.

Whilst not 'Eden' in a modern sense, maybe the shelter from extinction offered by these niches became oral histories of a 'paradise?' As our thinking evolved over subsequent millennia, perhaps the 'paradise' notion was elaborated and became part of the tar baby we fondly know as Old Testament Christianity.
 
Martina said:
Gobekli Tepe is a fascinating dig, I've been tracking that one myself having much more than a passing interest in archaeology and ancient civilizations, but I don't think there's really anything to connect it with Eden. It's been dated to about 11,500 years old, and I find the T shaped stelli and the engravings on them quite interesting. Excavations of the site are ongoing.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, Martina. Another fascinating aspect to the Gobekli Tepe dig are the Yazidis, followers of Melek Taus, or the Peacock Angel. They are a religion that predates both Chrisitianity and Islam, and consider themselves the the 'Sons of Adam' or 'Sons of the Jar'. It's a fascinating religion. They worship the angel Melek Taus, who Christians and Muslims consider Lucifer/Satan. They have an entirely different story about Lucifer's Fall from Heaven. In their perspective, Melek Taus was commanded by God to never bow down to anything but Him. When God created man, God commanded the angels to bow to man.Melek Taus refused. God banishes Melek Taus for a time, but before God reconciles with him, Melek Taus's tears quelch the fires of Hell. It's a fascinating counter story on the relationship between God, and His most powerful angel, in contrast to the Devil vs. God theme.

Here is a representation of Melek Taus, or the Peacock Angel:
[URL]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Melek_taus.png[/url]

Now beyond all this theology, one of the Yazidi's important points is that they are direct descendents of Adam, not Eve. They are the 'Sons of the Jar'. In their belief, before gender roles were assigned, Adam and Eve argued over which seed would be better in having children. They sealed one of their seeds in seperate jars and sealed them. Later they broke the seals of the jars, and in Eve's their were insects, while in Adam's, was a beautiful boychild. This child is the progenitor of the Yazidi people. Everyone else in the world is descended from Eve, the Yazidis are descended from Adam alone (in their beliefs).
 
Wow! Now that's a whole bunch I never heard of. There are a great many religions that pre-date Christianity and Islam, some of them based on pretty outlandish beliefs made up by those heading up those religions. The Mystery Cults of Egypt and the Levant for example, the Mythraic cult being the dominant one, but there were also the Phyrgian cult of Cybele and her son Attis, and the Egyptian cult of Osiris and his mother Isis. The cults where largely based on rituals and myths built up over time, some of the rituals, especially in the case of the Phyrgian cult, involving quite bloody and degrading rituals.

The rituals of the worship of Isis and Osiris were more refined and impressive than were those of the Phrygian cult. This Egyptian ritual was built around the legend of the Nile god of old, a god who died and was resurrected, which concept was derived from the observation of the annually recurring stoppage of vegetation growth followed by the springtime restoration of all living plants. The frenzy of the observance of these mystery cults and the orgies of their ceremonials, which were supposed to lead up to the "enthusiasm" of the realization of divinity, were sometimes most revolting.
 
it is very hard to say frankly speaking i have some doubts about it the existence of it is not very convincing because there are none who ever saw it with she or he own eyes
if it ever exists it must be a paradise
 
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