THE SEARCH FOR THE LOCATION OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN
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EASTWARDS IN EDEN
Mankind has always had a mysterious fascination with the location of the Garden of Eden. Joni Mitchell’s song ‘Woodstock’ typifies that search, and the unconscious longing we seem to have to ‘get back to the Garden.’
I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, “Where are you going?”
And this he told me
“I’m going on down to Yasgur’s farm
I’m gonna join in a rock ’n’ roll band
I’m gonna camp out on the land
I’m gonna try an’ get my soul free”
We are stardust
We are golden
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil’s bargain
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.
The Lord God planted a Garden eastward in Eden. (Genesis 2:8) This description suggests Eden was the district or area God chose for the location of the Garden. Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden.(Gen 2:10) The Gardens irrigation came from a river that flowed from the district of Eden.
Early English travelers spoke of an area in Mesopotamia (north of the Persian Gulf) referred to by the people groups there as Eden. A possible location for the Garden of Eden is just above the northern tip of the Persian Gulf in present day Iraq. The Euphrates and Tigris (Hiddekel) rivers, fed from the melting snows of the mountains of Armenia, enter the Gulf at that point.(Gen 2:10–14) Gold has been mined in nearby Arabia since 3000BC. The area has operative gold mines today. (Gen 2:11) The remainder of the earth at that time benefitted from a mist that came up from the ground. (Gen 2:9)
It may be the Garden of Eden was to be a special place for Adam and Eve as the parents of all humanity. Perhaps they would reside there as royalty, the first and only people to be created from the ground by God. Their work was…
