Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Walter R. Mattfeld" <mattfeld12 AT charter.net>]

Dear Jack,

The problem with Turkey is that the biblical text suggests a single river 
became four. While the Tigris and Euphrates do originate in Turkey they are 
NOT branches of a single river.

I _reject_ the Christian "apologetic" notion that there was a worldwide 
Noahic flood that destroyed the ancient pre-flood watercourses of the river 
of Eden and its four headwaters. Archaeology has established the 
Mesopotamian flood story is placed at Shuruppak. The site has been excavted 
and the flood layer found dating to ca. 2900 BCE and it was local (this 
aligns "somewhat" with the bible dating the flood to the same 3rd 
millennium). So the "nonsense" that Eden's rivers have been lost due to a 
worldwide flood is NOT going to fly with me or others. The only river in the 
pre-Shuruppak flood world with four branches _is_ the Euphrates, as 
determined by hydrologic surveys by archaeologists (cf. the map provided 
with my article).

http://www.bibleorigins.net/EdensFourRivers.html

Others who have objected to the mountains of Turkey as Eden because this is 
the area where the Tigris and Euphrates arise, have reservations of a 
"naked" Adam and Eve running around in these mountains and being subjected 
to the accompanying cold weather, especially at night.

Others understand that Solomon's temple showed on its walls pictures of 
cherubbim with palmtrees. They noted that palmtree plantations exist "all 
over the place" in the floodplains of Lower Mesopotamia, but NOT in the 
mountains of Turkey (the weather being too severe and cold). These scholars 
argue that from the Solomonic cherubs and palmtrees, that the tree of life 
is probably a datepalm, and as dateplams THRIVE in lower Mesopotamia and NOT 
the mountains of Turkey, Eden ought to be somewhere in Lower Mesopotamia.

Regards. Walter