# Where did the authors of Genesis think the Garden of Eden was located? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 21, 2022, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401 "2022-03-21T01:22:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2022, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/61 "2022-03-21T23:16:57Z")
The Mississippi doesn’t have any one source, either, but if I say that something is near “the headwaters of the Mississippi”, I’d still expect that people would know where I mean. And for that matter, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers both seem to have very little branching, and when they do, it’s quite clear which one is the main stream. And if I’m reading the map right, both come from somewhere in eastern Turkey, in the general vicinity of Diyabakir. So leaving the two unknown rivers aside, it looks like “near the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates” is actually fairly well-defined. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2022, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/62 "2022-03-21T23:30:08Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I mean, it is not like there has been any recent archaeological discoveries. [Biblical Archaeology’s Top 10 Discoveries of 2020.](https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2020/december/biblical-archaeology-new-discoveries-2020-bible-artifacts.html) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/63 "2022-03-22T01:18:51Z")
Those are Middle East archaeology. Of course, those areas overlap with places mentioned in the Bible but the emphasis placed on certain areas because they can possibly “prove” the accuracy of the Bible has slanted and stunted archaeology for 200 years. Fortunately, the past few decades have seen a total revolution in the understanding of past cultures. [Biblical scholarship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_criticism) itself has even less overlap with “biblical archaeology” than those finds have with the Bible and has also been almost totally transformed as an academic subject over the past 60 years. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/64 "2022-03-22T01:21:21Z")
Yes, obviously there have been dozens and dozens. But none that found Eden. Did I really have to write out any recent archaeological discoveries regarding the Garden of Eden, or could that be understood in the context of what is being discussed here? I don’t know any archaeological discoveries afaik ever about finding the site of Eden. Got any? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/65 "2022-03-22T01:25:56Z")
Indeed that is the main alternate theory. But scholars in ancient Hebrew, such as the ones who did the Anchor Bible, believe Genesis meant down where they converge, near the Gulf. I am not such a expert, but I trust them . And look at it this way. The Fabulous Garden of Eden, would it be out in some foothills, or near the Fertile crescent, the Cradle of Civilization? And if you prefer the alternate theory, that is fine. Still, Genesis does spell out the location, it is near The Tigris and Euphrates rivers. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/66 "2022-03-22T01:31:32Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, obviously there have been dozens and dozens. But none that found Eden. No archaeological discoveries afaik know ever about finding the site of Eden. Got any? For Eden specifically? No, but you just said that there can’t be any new research on stuff that happened “4-8000 years ago,” which is obviously wrong. And, of course, archaeology can be useful for tracing the development of myths as much as history, so the lack of a historical Eden site doesn’t preclude learning new things about it from more recent discoveries. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/67 "2022-03-22T01:32:45Z")
Context. What are we discussing? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/68 "2022-03-22T01:36:04Z")
At the moment, your reliance on incredibly dated scholarly work. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/69 "2022-03-22T01:52:52Z")
It was pretty clear to me it meant with regards to Eden rather than more recent and historically verifiable stuff. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/70 "2022-03-22T02:04:03Z")
Sure, You have something more recent? 1950 something is pretty recent when we are talking Biblical scholarship. Not in archaeology, sure. I am always willing to learn- my my classes were in the early 80s, so if anyone has any more recent scholarship studies on the location of the Garden of Eden, I would love to read them. A cursory Google search found nothing but some Creationists. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/71 "2022-03-22T14:56:16Z")
“The Living Torah” by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (1981) contains a map with several possible locations for Eden, as well as other unidentified lands and rivers mentioned in that verse, marked. Three locations marked as possibly being Eden are on a band between the Euphrates river and the southern end of the Caspian Sea, in northern Iran/Iraq/Syria, and a fourth possibility is to the east of the Caspian Sea, in Turkmenistan. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/72 "2022-03-22T16:09:01Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > my classes were in the early 80s, Cutting edge scholarship takes years to filter into coursework so they were probably based on nothing newer than Asimov used. Modern biblical scholarship long ago stopped considering the questions as articulated by the OP - though those are common layperson questions - meaningful in any way. Most study the culture and context rather than literalisms: why the writers told the stories they did, why they stitched together conflicting stories back to back, and why these stories and not others extant at the time were considered more “official.” Facebook wasn’t the first to think of the world as “meta.” ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/73 "2022-03-22T18:58:35Z")
Interesting. Thanks. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Cutting edge scholarship takes years to filter into coursework so they were probably based on nothing newer than Asimov used. So, let us see your scholarship and cites then. I would be happy to read them. Mine aren’t outdated if you can’t find anything newer. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/74 "2022-03-22T19:20:22Z")
My scholarship on what exactly? The thing I said wasn’t even considered a meaningful question? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/75 "2022-03-22T19:22:57Z")
Then - what is your point? A Factual Question was asked. I answered it with cites. I invited others to come up with other viewpoints and cites. But only Chronos and cmkeller have done anything like that. You seem to be here just to snark at my answer to a Factual Question. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/77 "2022-12-30T00:20:37Z")
Reviving this thread due to a new book (partially) on the subject that I have just read. The Six Days of Creation, by Rabbi Alexander Hool, suggests, based on clues in the Talmud and Midrash, that Eden was located in the bit of Africa (Eritrea/Ethiopia) that is just west of the southernmost tip of Yemen. As for the rivers, he suggests that the Euphrates mentioned in those verses is actually an underground river that flows north from there, through Israel, and then feeds the above-ground Euphrates somewhere north of classic Babylon, that “Gichon” is the Nile, and that “Pishon” is the Wadi el-Arish, and that it used to be a longer and truer river, but that at some point later in history, the Red Sea expanded and swallowed up much of the land that that river had flowed through. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/78 "2022-12-30T01:08:51Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > In the Christian Bible, Genesis is copied in its entirety from the Torah. Genesis was not “copied from” the Torah. It is quite literally **part of** the Torah. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/79 "2022-12-30T02:25:21Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > Genesis was not “copied from” the Torah. It is quite literally **part of** the Torah. Is any Christian book of Genesis in Hebrew? ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/80 "2022-12-30T02:30:22Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > “copied from” the Torah I think I meant that it is translated with all the religious, cultural and political context of the time of each translation. The Old Testament of the Christian bible doesn’t really contain the Torah. It is a selected set of translations done by Christians, where the Pentateuch is the _translated_ Torah and the rest is derived from a selection of the other texts. I would hesitate therefore to claim they are identical. It is clear that there are elements in every translation that where there is some ambiguity or elements of conflict with the reigning Christian dogma that translations will reflect that dogma, or the dogma accepted by the translator. The nature of Judaism has changed dramatically over its history, and some of the older beliefs don’t sit well with modern Christian dogma. So there is always an element of flexible translation to temper the narrative. Moreover, the Torah is written in Hebrew. It doesn’t need translation. It is read as is by speakers of the language. In translation it loses a significant amount of its nature. Being a written version of an oral tradition it contains rhythm and rhyme that is either lost or very hard to translate. Such translations are done, but whether they are considered a definitive text is a different matter. Christians consider their translations as definitive despite the clear conflicts and contradictory elements in their history. Some Christians are wont to tell Jews what the Pentateucht actually means. A reply that the Torah is read untranslated by someone who understands Hebrew, and perhaps has a closer connection to the text seems to be ignored. This is splitting hairs, and far too long a reply, but I think that was why I wrote what I did. It was a while ago. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401/81 "2022-12-30T16:06:56Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > The Old Testament of the Christian bible doesn’t really contain the Torah. It is a selected set of translations done by Christians, where the Pentateuch is the _translated_ Torah > … > Christians consider their translations as definitive… This may have been true at one time, when the [Vulgate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgate) or some other translation was considered the official Christian Bible; but I don’t think it’s true or fair to say today that the “Christian Bible” is any particular translation. I think most knowledgeable Christians today would tell you that the Christian Bible consists of the Old Testament, almost all of which was originally written in Hebrew, and the New Testament, which was originally written in Greek. And the most serious Bible students will learn those languages to be able to read them in the original. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-the-authors-of-genesis-think-the-garden-of-eden-was-located/961401.md?page=5)