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Genesis 2:15(NIV)


I'm curious to know, now, in which which country is the Garden of Eden located? (which is mentioned in Genesis)

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The world was destroyed with flood, thus the renaming of the Rivers were just for historic proofs of the reality of the garden on earth. Who named the rivers those names? Was it God or man? What do those names of the rivers mean in the languages of those who claim the presence of Eden in their countries? That's how to get closer to the answer –  user1911 Jul 29 '12 at 9:43
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7 Answers

up vote 17 down vote accepted

Per Genesis 2:


While Mesopatamia (i.e. Iraq) is where the Tigris & Euphrates are, the remaining two rivers (Gihon is in Israel, and the Pishon is, I believe unknown, though some scholars think it is the Nile) are not.

There are thus two possibilities:

  1. The Flood altered where these rivers flowed
  2. The location is not meant to be literal

In any event, the Flood probably did wipe out the Garden of Eden, and even if it didn't, there was an angel (in Genesis 3:24) who is guarding the entrance.

Update: For an interesting excursion into the idea of "mapping" Eden, check out this article showing maps of Eden from 1914. They are highly speculative, but show the diversity of thought around where Eden might be.

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So is the answer Iraq or Israel? –  Wikis Mar 15 '12 at 7:39
3. The new rivers were named for older rivers 4. This is made up –  zipquincy Jul 29 '12 at 16:45
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Assuming it was a literal garden in the physical world, and not a metaphor, it was most likely somewhere between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, close to the border between modern day Iraq and Iran, or maybe the Eastern region of modern Turkey.

Just Googling for Tigris, Euphrates and Eden will give you more sources you can probably read in a lifetime :)

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John Sailhamer proposes a rather novel idea in his book Genesis Unbound:


I haven't read the book myself, but thinking about the Torah texts, it does solve a number of problems. But the theory is at least as controversial as every other theory I know of.

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Is the implication here that the Garden of Eden would be roughly equivalent to modern Israel? –  Caleb May 29 '12 at 16:06
@Caleb: That's correct, more or less. I believe the idea is that the entire story of Genesis is the story of how the Promised Land came to be. (But I have not read the book itself, so there may be more to it than that.) –  Jon Ericson May 31 '12 at 19:32
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well i know that the gihon river is all gone but a little portion of it left is located in ethiopia africa and the gihon river used to flow down the middle of the red sea gowing through the sinai peninsula to the mediterranean sea and down through ethiopia africa. and pison river actually ran kind of east to west across saudia arabia from the red sea to the persian gulf the pison runs smack down the middle of modern day kuwait. and both the hiddekel and the euphrates both run thru modern day iraq but the euphrates also goes through syria but the hiddekel goes through modern day turkey. so the garden of eden is not in iraq like they think it is. there is two possible places where the former location of eden would be located either at the bottom of the persian gulf or the mediterranean sea. and that is where i think it is located.

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Welcome to the site! Can you improve this answer by providing supporting evidence and references? meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/692/… –  David Stratton Jan 5 at 23:57
Also, please take the time to capitalize according to standard English usage and maybe break up your post into paragraphs as appropriate. It is very difficult to read in this format. –  Caleb Jan 7 at 9:47
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Most sources conclude that finding Eden would be just about impossible. That's aside from the fact that god placed an angel to guard it. That tells me god doesn't want us in there and that's assuming anything survived the flood Source.

Here is another source with information on Eden and some clues to location Insight. scroll down it's the last article.

Many believe that south of Van lake in modern day Turkey may have been the location of Eden. Source

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This is a question can't really be answered. All we can do is guess. John Calvin could not answers this and I know that I have no clue. When you factor in how the earth changed from Pangea to what we have today and then the changes the Flood would have caused no one can say for certain. But here are some links that talk about the Garden of Eden, Creation, and A map of Pangea. And two links for any who would like to venture into the Tanakh online. chabad.org is the better of the two if you just want to read the books of the Tanakh. Torah - The Pentateuch is part of the Tanakh (Jewish Bible).





http://www.mechon-mamre.org/ http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/63255/jewish/The-Bible-with-Rashi.htm

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protected by wax eagle Jul 26 at 13:56

