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| Chicago
Sun Times |
Garden of Eden said to be in Turkey
January 12, 2001
BY PETER GOODSPEED
A California-based biblical scholar, who recently found what may be the
remains of
Sodom and Gomorrah at the bottom of the Dead Sea, claims to have used
satellite
photographs from NASA to locate the Garden of Eden--in eastern Turkey.
Michael Sanders, director of expeditions for the Mysteries of the Bible
Research
Foundation in Irvine, Calif., said careful study of satellite
photographs taken by the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration proves the Bible's
description of the
Garden of Eden is completely, and literally, accurate.
The Book of Genesis in the Bible says: "A river went out of Eden to
water the
garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads." It
goes on to
identify the four rivers as the Pison, the Gihon, the Hiddekel and the
Euphrates.
For years, biblical scholars have debated the exact location and even
the existence
of Eden, a garden paradise from which Adam and Eve were expelled for
eating the
fruit of the tree of knowledge.
Eden is variously said to have been located in the Horn of Africa, on
the Seychelles
Islands in the Indian Ocean, on the edge of the Sinai Desert and,
according to the
revelations of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, in western
Missouri.
More recently, many biblical scholars have suggested the Garden of Eden
lay at the
head of the Persian Gulf, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers run into
the sea.
Under that theory, the Tigris would match up with the Bible's Hiddekel
River, the
Karun River in Iran would correspond to the Pison and the Gihon River
would be
the Wadi al-Batin river system that once drained the central part of the
Arabian
peninsula.
Some theorists have gone so far as to suggest the serpent mentioned in
the Bible's
creation story may have been an allegory for the sinuous Shat al-Arab
waterway at
the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates.
But Sanders now argues the Garden of Eden can be discovered through a
simple
and literal interpretation of the Bible story.
"It is obvious from the biblical account, when you read about a river
rising out of
Eden, that rivers don't rise in the desert," he said. "With the
satellite image, it is just
remarkable that there are actually four rivers in this region in
Turkey."
By his reckoning, they are the Murat River, which runs through Samsun on
the coast
of the Black Sea, the Tigris, the Euphrates and the north fork of the
Euphrates.
He said his discovery dovetails with other recent biblical studies that
suggest many
biblical events, from the Garden of Eden to the Great Flood and the
construction of
the Tower of Babel, took place in Turkey, rather than in Mesopotamia,
which today
is part of Iraq.
National Post |
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