Eden: Where on earth was it?

“God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made.” Genesis 2:8

A GARDEN PARADISE, Eden (EE den) was home to the first humans.

Its location, “in the east,” may point toward the Persian Gulf areas of Iraq and Iran—east of where the writer probably lived, in what is now Israel.

God evicted Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden after they sinned.

The location of Eden remains a mystery with one intriguing clue: A river watered Eden and then broke into four branches: Tigris, Euphrates, Pishon, Gihon.

The first two rivers still flow through Iraq and empty into the Persian Gulf. The other two river names are lost to history.

One theory places Eden at the source of the Tigris and Euphrates: in the hills of Turkey.

Another says the writer disguised the location by reversing directions—to hide Eden—and that the four rivers flowed into Eden. That would put Eden in what is now the Persian Gulf, which was once a river.

Melting ice from the former Ice Age eventually filled the river valley with sea water, flooding Eden and turning it into a biblical version of the lost city of Atlantis.

Excerpt from the newly released Stephen M. Miller’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary.

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