Thursday, October 25, 2012

Another Eden?

What, on Earth, Went Wrong?
We're answering your question (and the one in the little poem), namely; if God made everything so lovely and perfect, why is everything so unlovely and so imperfect in the world today?

Yes, and if it's awful, why doesn't God do something to make it better?

Which is why we need to go to the Garden of Eden.

Surely there wasn't a real place. It's just a story, isn't it?

The Bible actually tells us where the Garden is - or was.

A stream flowed in Eden and watered the garden; beyond Eden it divided into four rivers. The first river is the Pishon; it flows around the country of Havilah. (Pure gold is found there and also rare perfume and precious stones.) The second river is the Gihon; it flows around the country of Cush. The third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates.

 So get the map! ...
And tell me more.

People have argued for centuries about where the Garden of Eden was. A Professor Juris Zarins (born 1945 in Germany but now a Professor in America) ...

... reckons that the priginal Eden is now below the waters of the Persian Gulf. (the shaded bit) The Tigris and Euphrates rivers are still flowing today but the other two have disappeared. The prof has taken photos from planes and reckons that the Pishon and Gihon are now dried-up river valleys as shown on the map. Other archaeologists don't agree with him, however.

OK. So there might have been a real Eden. But you cannot be serious about there being just one man and one woman to start it all off. It's too far-fetched to say that Adam and Eve were real people.

Are you watching Andrew Marr's "History of the World" on Sunday evenings.

No fear; homework to finish!

He reminded me of "Mitochondrial Eve"

Seriously?

In 1987, a group of geneticists published a surprising study in the journal Nature. The researchers examined the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) taken from 147 people across all of today's major racial groups. These researchers found that the lineage of all people alive today falls on one of two branches in humanity's family tree. One of these branches consists of nothing but African lineage, the other contains all other groups, including some African lineage. Even more impressive, the geneticists concluded that every person on Earth right now can trace his or her lineage back to a single common female ancestor who lived around 200,000 years ago.

Yes, yes, yes. That may well be a genetical fact, but you can't expand that to include apples, snakes and God walking about round the Persian gulf, can you?

We'll have a look next Tuesday.

By the way, who wrote that poem? [click on "What on Earth Went Wrong? - on the right] Was it you; or did you pinch it from someone else?

No comment!

[fbb has a Friday morning club to run, chunks of family invading the peace and quiet of the fbb family pile for half term and Sunday service to orgainse. Hence no Sunday bible Blog this week.  It's all go!]

 Next Bible Blog : Tuesday 30th October 

2 comments:

  1. According to the Genesis 2:8-14. the Garden of Eden located between two rivers :
    River Gihon which is know as Bule Nile coming down from Ethiopia to Sudan.
    Pishon which is know as White Nile coming down from lake Victoria in Uganda
    The all two rivers running thought land of Cush according to Bible. which show the Garden of Eden between two Rivers:
    River Pishon : which is call White Nile today.
    River Gihon:which is call Blue Nile today.
    To find out where these two rivers located . In Sudan . According imagination Adam and Eve where creatures in land of Cush. know as Sudan. Because the garden of Eden located in land of Cush. In this Earth every things is disappear.

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  2. "fatbusbloke" has the correct map of the Garden in Eden.

    The Karun river is the Gihon of the Kassites.
    Had the Gijon been the Nile river then the Bible would have mentioned it as flowing through the entirety of Egypt which is right next door to Israel and geographically better known to the ancient Jewish readers than was far away Sudan.

    The Karun which was in Kassite territory (now Iran) was well known to the Jews as they were living in that region since Babylonian and Persian empire times.

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