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  • From: "Walter R. Mattfeld" <mattfeld12 AT charter.net>
  • To: "b-hebrew List" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Re: Eden's Four Rivers
  • Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 05:24:31 -0400

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





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