Florida: Home of the Garden of Eden

[Ekklesian]

Did you read the entire article or just the intro? I think you missed the point.

I read the whole thing. He says Ponce de Leon wasn't looking for a "fountain of youth" at all, a point that seems to be debatable. You appear to be saying he fell victim to fake news.

I'm saying there may have been something to the stories. There's such a story in the New Testament.

 

[Ransom]

but wait a minute... .. this is no oceanfront in arizona.....

Well, not now. But imagine how the price of beachfront property in Arizona is going to soar when California finally sinks into the ocean.

 

[Ransom]

Where are the other two rivers that shared that junction? The four rivers didn't meet at that junction, they flowed from it. The rivers of Eden described in Genesis had a common source. Present day Tigris and Euphrates do not. Therefore, they can't be assumed to be the same rivers. The geography is wholly different.

According to you, so was the entire continent. I suppose we're expected to assume Genesis's original readers simply took that for granted?

That some geography has changed (and no one denies that some rivers dry up or change course) doesn't imply all of it has. It simply renders the text of the Bible nonsensical if it leads readers to believe the rivers flowing out of Eden were the Tigris and Euphrates they were familiar with, when it was actually closer to the Mississippi Delta.

 

[abcaines]

 

[DrHuk&Duck]

I read the whole thing. He says Ponce de Leon wasn't looking for a "fountain of youth" at all, a point that seems to be debatable. You appear to be saying he fell victim to fake news.

I'm saying there may have been something to the stories. There's such a story in the New Testament.

The fountain of youth does go back to biblical times and spans multiple global regions and cultures. What I was indicating is that by the time Ponce came around, people had educationally evolved enough to consider such notions foolish, but his rival had an axe to grind with Ponce, so he ascribed the foolish story as truth. That’s how I read it anyway….

 

[Ekklesian]

According to you, so was the entire continent. I suppose we're expected to assume Genesis's original readers simply took that for granted?

That some geography has changed (and no one denies that some rivers dry up or change course) doesn't imply all of it has. It simply renders the text of the Bible nonsensical if it leads readers to believe the rivers flowing out of Eden were the Tigris and Euphrates they were familiar with, when it was actually closer to the Mississippi Delta.

You could have a point, but it's not as tidy as you may think.

First, no one is arguing for Florida, so just stop.

Second, the river that watered Eden is unnamed. From Eden it turned into four rivers that watered other regions. Clearly, Eden is no more, and was gone long before the time of Moses, as well as its river, the source of the other four.

The tenses employed may not as conclusive as it appears on the surface.

Here's the passage in the Septuagint:

And a river proceeds out of Edem to water the garden, thence it divides itself into four heads.​

The name of the one, Phisom, this it is which encircles the whole land of Evilat, where there is gold.​

And the gold of that land is good, there also is carbuncle and emerald.​

And the name of the second river is Geon, this it is which encircles the whole land of Ethiopia.​

And the third river is Tigris, this is that which flows forth over against the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates.​

​

The English Standard Version

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.​

The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.​

And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there.​

The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush.​

And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.​

​

It may be that the present day Tigris and Euphrates are segments of their original selves. But they're flowing on the surface of hundreds and thousands of feet of layered sediments rife with marine fossils that buried the lush antediluvian vegetation that is now being pumped out as oil. Still the region that was Eden is lost.

 

[Ekklesian]

I like his videos, and he makes a compelling case here. He has to cheat though, and find someone that says 'Hebrew allows' someone to say the rivers flowed toward one another, instead of away from. But if you get to say that, I get to say Moses was likely speaking of new rivers formed by the Flood that were merely given the names of the orginal four by the post flood civilizations, as they, no doubt were their source of life as much as the originals were the source of life of the civilizations before the flood.

 

[DrHuk&Duck]

I just finished watching this video. I really enjoyed it. I don’t have enough knowledge to agree or disagree, but what he said makes sense.

 

[DrHuk&Duck]

As a duck hunter, I was already familiar with waterfowl hunting in parts of the Middle East, so when the guy mentioned the “marsh Arabs” in southern Iraq, that made sense to me.

 

[Ransom]

First, no one is arguing for Florida, so just stop.

From the OP:

One former lawyer and Baptist minister maintained for decades that this wilderness retreat [in the Florida panhandle] was the literal site of the Garden of Eden from the Bible's Book of Genesis.​

It is, in fact the very subject of this thread. Try to keep up.

The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.​

And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there.​

The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush.​

And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.​

Havilah, where there is gold, where there are precious stones. To say nothing of more familiar territory like Cush and Assyria. Looks like the text assumes its readers know where those lands are, at the time of writing--somewhere nearby in the Middle East, not across the ocean in the American South.

 

[Ekklesian]

From the OP:

One former lawyer and Baptist minister maintained for decades that this wilderness retreat [in the Florida panhandle] was the literal site of the Garden of Eden from the Bible's Book of Genesis.​

It is, in fact the very subject of this thread. Try to keep up.

No one in this thread is arguing for Florida.

Havilah, where there is gold, where there are precious stones. To say nothing of more familiar territory like Cush and Assyria. Looks like the text assumes its readers know where those lands are, at the time of writing--somewhere nearby in the Middle East, not across the ocean in the American South.

My point was the tenses employed. They're not consistent in all translations. The second-century Hebrews translating Genesis applied the present tense to Eden and its river as well as its four distributaries.

So does Young's Literal Translation.

And a river is going out from Eden to water the garden, and from thence it is parted, and hath become four chief [rivers];​

the name of the one is Pison, it is that which is surrounding the whole land of the Havilah where the gold is,​

and the gold of that land is good, there is the bdolach and the shoham stone;​

and the name of the second river is Gibon, it is that which is surrounding the whole land of Cush;​

and the name of the third river is Hiddekel, it is that which is going east of Asshur; and the fourth river is Phrat.​

The AV and others apply the past tense to Eden and its river, while presenting four in the present.

The ESV applies the present tense only to Tigris and Euphrates.

Where they're all in the present tense the argument could not be made that the regions and rivers described were something the audience of Genesis was familiar with.

Havilah, where there is gold, where there are precious stones

...and the gold of that land is good. Why the added detail if they were familiar with Havilah and what it was famous for?

I would agree that a small flood would leave the topology of a region relatively unchanged, but not a catastrophic global deluge.

 

[Ransom]

No one in this thread is arguing for Florida.

I said nothing about "in this thread."

Where they're all in the present tense the argument could not be made that the regions and rivers described were something the audience of Genesis was familiar with.

At the time of Moses, the Middle Assyrian Empire was on its way to becoming the dominant power in the region, and Moses married a Cushite. Obviously those nations were known to his audience. As for Havilah, Moses knew there were gold and gemstones there. He wrote it down, after all. As a member of the Egyptian royal court, perhaps he knew something about commerce with those nations that less educated Hebrews didn't.

My point being, of course, that Genesis is referencing lands that were knowable and possibly accessible (albeit distant) to his contemporaries--not some long-lost land that the flood had reconfigured out of existence.

 

[abcaines]

Genesis | Life Bible Ministry

www.lifebibleministry.com

Here's the teaching on the book of Genesis from Pastor Paul LeBouitille. I am presently working through these studies myself. Of course, his focus is more on applying the Word to our lives more than trying to try to answer the what and where but I trust many of his insights. He doesn't profess to be an apologist but he gives ample reason for his stance. You might agree or not but I don't think listening to him is a waste of time. The sermons tend to last the better part of an hour each.

 

[Ekklesian]

Genesis | Life Bible Ministry

www.lifebibleministry.com

Here's the teaching on the book of Genesis from Pastor Paul LeBouitille. I am presently working through these studies myself. Of course, his focus is more on applying the Word to our lives more than trying to try to answer the what and where but I trust many of his insights. He doesn't profess to be an apologist but he gives ample reason for his stance. You might agree or not but I don't think listening to him is a waste of time. The sermons tend to last the better part of an hour each.

 

[Ekklesian]

Clearly, we're presented with two Creation accounts, written in different styles, from different points of view. On the surface they appear to be contradictory, and were they not both appealed to in the New Testament, it would be difficult (for me) to consider some of the attempts made to reconcile them.

Gen. 2:4 is a clear introduction to the second account, and, as observed by the guy in the video, introduces God as Yahweh. They certainly seem to me to be two separate accounts by different authors.

I have to stop here and clarify...I am not denying the Mosaic authorship of Genesis with that. A confession of Mosaic authorship of the Pentetuech is not a confession that he penned every word. Neither is the allowance of other source material, deemed to be a true by Moses and included in the history being complied for the new nation that had just come into being, a denial of inspiration.

I think Genesis 5:1 is another such introduction. Right now I am of the opinion that original audience of most of the antedeluvian history, with the possible exception of Genesis 1, was not the Hebrews.

That is not a view that is without its difficulties, but they are difficulties that are born of an acceptance of the accounts as true and inspired.

 

[FSSL]

The angels arent doing a good job. They let us through