NOM

I was at a family gathering (wife's side of the family) when a brother-in-law came up to me and asked, "so where exactly WAS the Garden of Eden?" It was an interesting question, since the guy asking it is completely irreligious but raised by Buddhist parents. He was actually responding to discussion in the other room between two other in-laws, one Mormon and one nondenominational evangelical. So his question was really, was the Garden of Eden in the Middle East or in Missouri? I just said"probably in Iraq."

I've been doing a little more research on the topic. The name Eden exists in Hebrew and Aramaic but apparently originates in the Sumerian language, where it translates to something like "swampy wilderness." The first city, Eridu, is now high and dry in the desert but after the last ice age the ocean levels were 3-5 meters higher than today. Since the alluvial plain of southern Iraq is so flat that was all it took to make the location of Eridu a marshland. As far as we know, this was the first city of the human race and the location of the first temple. The water receded over a few thousand years and the wetlands moved farther south, basically casting Eridu out of the garden. Eridu is written in cuneiform as NUN-KI, a glyph that evolved from a symbol for reeds.

So, the point I'm trying to make in a roundabout way is that it is highly unlikely that a place in Missouri would have a Sumerian name, and that there is interesting evidence that the myth is based on a real location near the Persian Gulf. Also, Eridu is in the vicinity of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, as described in Genesis. Independence is a little out of the way.

You should mention that in HP on Sunday. Great info as always.

It should also be noted that southern Iraq had a beautiful and fertile marshland up until Saddam Hussein drained it to evict and punish the Shia people in the late 1980's.

Well according to the guys at Universal Model they have evidence that the first people were in America, https://universalmodel.com/portfolio_pa ... -images-2/.

Universal Model People wrote:The Clovis Point discovery presents and documents, with a number of evidences, the place of origin for the first humans(emphasis added). The evidence includes an explanation about American archaeological chronology, an explanation for why we find fossilized (lithified) animal bones and human artifacts together, directly associated, and other evidences identifying where human beings first populated planet Earth.

It's damning that they seek out and hold up the evidence that confirms their worldview, but reject the evidence against it.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself... See viewtopic.php?f=4&t=444&p=4449&hilit=un ... odel#p4449 for background on the Universal Model.

Q. Where was the Garden of Eden?

A. Up your butt and around the corner.*

*Does anyone remember this retort from childhood in the 80s? I hope so!

In all seriousness, this question is a great example of the kinds of problems that come from literalism. I mean, I know that Gondor is west of Mordor, but what good does that info do me?

achilles wrote:Q. Where was the Garden of Eden?

A. Up your butt and around the corner.*

*Does anyone remember this retort from childhood in the 80s? I hope so!

Like

What about the city of A'tlan Tis which may or may not have been located in the Mediterranean Basin during the last ice age? Homo Sapiens have been around for a long time and our knowledge of their activities and culture seems incomplete.

There are a myriad of creation stories, the most poetic of which is the Finnish Kalavala.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_creation_myths

achilles wrote: I mean, I know that Gondor is west of Mordor, but what good does that info do me?

A good Middle Earth travel agent would advise that, unless you are a staunch conservative, you should walk in the direction of the setting sun.

Since we're talking about "the real" Eden and middle eastern marshes....There is a whole academic school of thought that "the fruit" was actually agriculture, and being cast out was when was we stopped being a society of hunter/gathers and started settling down. Interesting way to look at it, so i thought i'd share. http://www.huichawaii.org/assets/white, ... ulture.pdf

"Humankind’s “fall” from God, its break from divine authority, comes with Eve’s
testing of God’s word--with her decision to explore God’s world on her own and
thereby to discover for herself what is good and bad about it. In effect, civilization
is inaugurated when one woman is no longer satisfied with simply accepting what
she has learned from others, but seeks to discover and test scientifically whether
what she has been told is actually true or not."

mooseman wrote:Since we're talking about "the real" Eden and middle eastern marshes....There is a whole academic school of thought that "the fruit" was actually agriculture, and being cast out was when was we stopped being a society of hunter/gathers and started settling down. Interesting way to look at it, so i thought i'd share. http://www.huichawaii.org/assets/white, ... ulture.pdf

"Humankind’s “fall” from God, its break from divine authority, comes with Eve’s
testing of God’s word--with her decision to explore God’s world on her own and
thereby to discover for herself what is good and bad about it. In effect, civilization
is inaugurated when one woman is no longer satisfied with simply accepting what
she has learned from others, but seeks to discover and test scientifically whether
what she has been told is actually true or not."

I can only imagine how enjoyable SS would be to discuss things at this level. Just think of how much of an enlightened, egalitarian, informed and conscientious culture we would be to discuss things at this level. Instead, we get to learn that all everything about modern man is the result of a damn apple.

achilles wrote:Q. Where was the Garden of Eden?

A. Up your butt and around the corner.*

*Does anyone remember this retort from childhood in the 80s? I hope so!

I've heard that during my childhood in the new millennium too.

Linked wrote:Sorry, I couldn't help myself... See viewtopic.php?f=4&t=444&p=4449&hilit=un ... odel#p4449 for background on the Universal Model.

That stuff drives me absolutely crazy.

mooseman wrote:Since we're talking about "the real" Eden and middle eastern marshes....There is a whole academic school of thought that "the fruit" was actually agriculture, and being cast out was when was we stopped being a society of hunter/gathers and started settling down. Interesting way to look at it, so i thought i'd share.

Thanks, mooseman. I like that. One thing that most people don't realize is that hunting/gathering is a much less labor-intensive lifestyle. Agriculture became a necessity as populations grew and societies stratified. They needed to figure out how to intensify the yield of the land, which always means increased human labor. People stopped eating from the tree at their own leisure and began toiling by the sweat of their brow at the demands of The Man.

I once read a quote by Nibley that kind of supersized me. He suggested that the casting out of the garden was symbolic of the encroachment of the desert over time. Interesting in that it denies Adam and Eve as individuals leaving a garden, but the garden leaving a society of unnamed people. He also promoted a local flood, suggesting that if the author understood that Noah saw water to the horizon he would assume that the entire world had been flooded, particularly if he believed that world to be flat.