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Guitar's Cry
Disciple of Pan
Exactly!
Guitar's Cry
Disciple of Pan
It is likely due to importance of reproduction for ancient cultures and certain innate response mechanisms to outbreeding and inbreeding.
Etritonakin
Well-Known Member
If I have time.... meanwhile... If Adam and Eve had Cain and Abel -that is four people -Cain would not have worried about other people killing him -nor could he have found a wife.
....you can easily find these references in Genesis
"Adam was simply the first to be made with the potential to live forever -in the image and likeness of God.
Cain was worried what people who found him would do to him -and he also found a wife outside of Eden.
This is also a more logical explanation for the distinction between the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men"
Prometheus85
Active Member
A mythical birthplace of all humanity, and a metaphorical place of perfect innocence has little value. As a literal account of the early days of humanity it does not make much sense. Much of the exegesis Surroundings the story makes even less sense.
Terry Sampson
Well-Known Member
I not challenging your claim. Just wondering whether there are verses that you believe support your claim or if you base your claim on non-literal reasoning and interpretation.
Genesis 2:14 informs us that the “fourth river” circling Eden was the Euphrates.
It’s not in Africa.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Both myths.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
But since the story is mythical one can locate it any place one desires.
sooda
Veteran Member
Depends where you believe Havilah was located.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
It seems the Garden of Eden should still be around guarded by a cherubim with a flaming sword.
How anybody could not miss that is a mystery.
All I can say is that the Garden of Eden never existed , so naturally it would follow that it wasn't anywhere on the planet to begin with.
exchemist
Veteran Member
What a silly request.
1) Demanding "proof" of anything like this is quite unreasonable, The best anyone can do is offer evidence;
2) Absence of evidence from the bible (that it described a Middle-Eastern scenario) would in no way be evidence in favour of this daft S. African hypothesis;
3) The people who wrote the bible would not have been aware they were living in a particular part of the world we now call "the Middle East":
4) The Genesis account does, in fact, contain features that echo the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, which includes a Garden of the Gods. More here: Garden of the gods (Sumerian paradise) - Wikipedia
5) The whole story is an allegory anyway. No scholar seriously thinks the Garden of Eden ever physically existed, as a literal place. It describes an idealised state of human existence, i.e. before the Fall.
exchemist
Veteran Member
Correct. So what this tells us is that is pretty daft to take these biblical stories literally. They are allegories, with a message, but written for the understanding of the people of the time and not necessarily to be taken as literal.
Even the early church fathers knew this. Origen, writing in about 200AD, poured scorn on the notion of a literal Garden of Eden. He saw it as allegorical, reading it in the same way that scholars of his time read the Greek myths.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
DNA disagrees. And DNA doesn't lie.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Why would you take the word of men over the objective data of DNA?
Science says nothing of the sort.
Humankind (homo sapiens) is some 150-200 thousand years old.
The earth is 4.5 billion.
As per the objective data.
The bible is wrong.
The bible is wrong.
Because they do. As per the objective data again.
The bible is wrong.
Indeed.
Native
Free Natural Philosopher & Comparative Mythologist
And:
AND:Pretty silly - probably invented by Calvinist South African religious wingnuts.
The Genesis story is clearly from, and about, people living in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East.
In all cases "God" should once have gone on the Earth, creating the Garden of Eden in the claimed locations?
This surely doesn´t fit the specific story of Creation.
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Science does not say mankind is over a million years old so you are wrong there
Science also says the earth is over 4 billion years old so technically you are correct, it s over a million years old, much older
Where does the bible say earth or mankind is 5500 years old, verse please
The evidence is overwhelming that there was no world wide flood, and of course a world wide flood as described in the bible is impossible on so many levels
This is a tricky one, science does not really say we evolved from a common ancestor of monkeys but of apes, you should learn the difference. Although in the far longer term, all mammals evolved from a common ancestor.
There is a good reason that evidence, observation, measurement etc contradicts faith and guesswork.
HonestJoe
Well-Known Member
Wouldn't that suggest that Eden and it's surrounding geography somehow survived the Flood unaltered?
Well, the names might have changed.
Here is a very old map which at least proves that today's "Nile" was called "Tigris" then.
https://lib-dbserver.princeton.edu/...ebsites/africa/maps-central/1603 ortelius.jpg
So how do you know the names are reliable?
And why are all the animals that were in the Eden Garden not in the Middle East but in Southern Africa?