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THE EARTHLY INHERITANCE SERIES of BIBLE SUBJECTS

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Various Bible study guides in subjects pertaining to

New Earth prophecy, as taught by Paul Phelps. 

 

For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD,

they shall inherit the earth.      Psalm 37:9

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THE GARDEN OF EDEN

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Bible quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version

except for my own translations or as otherwise indicated. 

 

There are good reasons to believe that the

Biblical Garden of Eden was in the Orient. 

 

A Bible study project by Paul Phelps. 

After several years of study this writing was completed in 2000. 

 

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     The Bible takes an outside view of man, a view of earth people as seen by an
outside observer.  Heaven and earth were created by God, and humanity also
was created by God (Gen. 1:1,27; Prov. 8:22-31; Is. 42:5).  We were individually
handcrafted from the beginning.  God formed man from the dust of the ground
(Gen. 2:7).  He at first made one single male and then later one single female
(Gen. 2:18-22).  So at the start there were just two humans, a man and a woman
(Gen. 2:25).  All are descended from this first couple, Adam and Eve. 

     God made a total life support environment so that humans can live on earth;
(Gen. 1:29-31—2:1-7).  God formed this earth to be inhabited; Isaiah 45:18,

                For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God),

                who formed the earth and made it (he established it;

                he did not create it a chaos, he formed it to be inhabited!)…

     God did not want humanity to begin life in a wild or dangerous location.  He
chose an eastern site (eastward of Israel).  All the animals and trees were there. 
The Garden of Eden was a nature sanctuary—a paradise.  Genesis 2:8,

                The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden,

                and there he put the man whom he had formed. 

     The Bible is not the only record of the Garden of Eden; other legends say the
same.  There is also a racial memory in the soul.  Everybody on earth wants to
return to our original paradise.  Some people think this is only a fantastic myth
or a legend of the past but this story is in the Biblical record of creation.  It was
written as a true report from the viewpoint of an outside observer and given to
humankind as a divine record of our earliest history. 

     Some people think earth is physically different from the past so that original
river and land formations no more exist.  But earth’s surface features were here
before man was ever created.  “The sea is his, for he made it; and the dry land,
which his hands have formed” (Ps. 95:5).  Mountains and oceans come from the
third creation day but man is from the sixth day (Gen. 1:9-10,24-31).  The Flood
did not change the established structure of earth.  Psalm 104:5-9,

vv 5-6,     You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken. 

                You cover it with the deep as with a garment;

                the waters stood above the mountains. 

Jeremiah 5:22,

                Do you not fear me? says the LORD; Do you not tremble before me? 

                I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier

                that it cannot pass; though the waves toss they cannot prevail,

                though they roar they cannot pass over it. 

     The Bible has not much detail but it is enough to tell us the main ideas of the
Garden of Eden.  Eden means pleasure.  God originally made earth for pleasure
but regrettably most of it has vanished due to the sin curse —and was replaced
by vanity —emptiness.        Ecclesiastes 2:10-11,

v 10,        Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. 

                I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart

                rejoiced in all my labour; and this was my reward from all my labour. 

v 11,        Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done—

                and on the labour in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity

                and grasping for the wind.  There was no profit under the sun. 

     The Garden of Eden as a perfect place no more exists, for the sin curse is in
all creation (Rom. 8:20).  Earth as a perfect place is gone until God restores it,
but Eden’s original location may yet be recognisable.  The Garden of Eden was
a real earthly place and we want to know where it was.  In the Bible, a garden is
an enclosed park (Heb. GAN).  We know the Garden of Eden was enclosed for
it had only one entrance.  God sent his angels to guard the only place of entry. 
Gen. 3:23-24,

v 23,        —therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden,

                to till the ground from which he was taken. 

v 24,        He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden

                he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning

                to guard the way to the tree of life. 

     The entrance was at the east side.  It was where a river flowed out, because a
river flowed out of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:10).  The Garden’s enclosure
can only be a mountain range making a natural wall surrounding it.  This means
the Garden of Eden is an interior basin accessible only through a river canyon. 
It was certainly in Asia because the Garden was eastward (Gen. 2:8).  Biblically
all directions begin at Jerusalem, therefore Eden is eastward of Jerusalem.  The
Jerusalem latitude extends eastward across the Himalayan highlands, ending at
China’s eastern coast near Shanghai.  Eden is someplace in that direction. 

     The Garden of Eden had a full variety of trees for beauty and food.  Gen. 2:9,

                Out of the ground the LORD God made to grow

                every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food…

     This needs a wide range of climate to accommodate many different types of
trees from tropical to arctic.  It needs a tropical climate for the interior valley
and it requires a continuous rise of mountain elevations—up to glacial heights. 
Taking all that into consideration we conclude that the Garden of Eden needed
an area at least the size of a large province. 

     A large area is also indicated by other factors: all the species of land birds
and land animals lived there; Gen. 2:19-20,

                Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field

                and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see

                what he would call them.  And whatever Adam called each

                living creature, that was its name.  So Adam gave names to

                all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. 

     A nature sanctuary for animals needs a big food supply.  The animals of Eden
were herb-eating.  In this era many animals are flesh-eating but in the Kingdom
era they will be herb-eating, as in Eden (Is. 11:6-8).  This will be a restoration of
the original creation (see Acts 3:21).             Genesis 1:30,

                And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air,

                and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the

                breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.  And it was so. 

Green growth was prolific, with fertile land and abundant water.  Genesis 2:5-6,

           … for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth,

                and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream*

                would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground—

                                                                                                    *(Heb. ED, vapour, mist)

     The Garden of Eden had four rivers, called heads.  This is a literal translation
of Genesis 2:10-14,

                And a river goes out of Eden to water the garden,

                and there it is divided into four riverheads. 

                The name of the first is Pishon...  The second river name is Gihon... 

                The third river name is Hiddekel…  The fourth river is the Euphrates. 

                                                                                                            (translation mine)

     The Garden of Eden was the source of river-water to the agricultural lowland
farther east where people later dwelt.  The main river going out of the garden
is not identified but was probably the fourth named river, the Euphrates.  These
four rivers began in the mountain highlands that surrounded an interior valley;
they were therefore snow and glacier-fed streams.  We may reasonably expect
the main river flowing out of the Garden of Eden to have been large!  We know
the main river went out at the east side (Gen. 3:23-24)—an important fact in our
subject for as one looks eastward of Jerusalem there is only one river that flows
continuously eastward.  It is the Chang Jiang (Yangzi River) of central China. 

     Some Bible scholars think the Garden of Eden was near Babylon (where the
Flood survivors built Babel) because a river named Euphrates flows near there. 
This is taken as sufficient reason to say that the Garden of Eden was in Babylon. 
But we think that some old world names were transferred into the Babylon area
because the Flood survivors only knew old-world names.  They took old-world
names to fit new geographic needs.  The fourth river in the Garden of Eden was
the Euphrates (Heb. PHRÀT, Gen. 2:14). 

     The land of Babylon does not fulfil the requirements of the Garden of Eden. 
It has just two rivers, not four, and they flow southward, not eastward.  Babylon
is not enclosed in mountains; it is open at the south and west and easy of access
from all sides.  The mountains that rise in the north and east are not tall, and do
not keep snow very long.  At the river’s exit there is no canyon for an entrance. 
Babylon’s rivers flow directly into the sea, but the Garden of Eden was not near
the sea, for God did not bring to Adam sea animals to be named (Gen. 2:19-20). 
 

     The Babylon region does not have the unique climate that could support and
preserve a complete range of tree species such as the Biblical record requires. 
A climate like that is rare.  There is no ancient evidence that the Babylon region
has ever supported a complete world-variety of plant and animal life. 

     Also the land of Canaan cannot qualify; the only valley in Canaan eastward of
Jerusalem is the Dead Sea valley, wherein all streams flow to the Dead Sea, and
none flow eastward.  In olden times that valley was luxuriant and well watered. 
In Abraham’s time it was “like the garden of the LORD” (Gen. 13:10) but was not
the original garden.  The Indus River region is worth consideration, except that
the river flows southwest, rather than east, and the southern plain towards India
is totally open, it is not enclosed.  Another possibility is the Brahmaputra River
area of eastern India; but this river flows west instead of east, and the latitude is
too far southward of Jerusalem’s latitude to be designated as east of Jerusalem. 
 

     It is only as we consider the Sichuan valley of west-central China that we find
an interior valley exactly matching the Biblical record.  It is called four streams
(Sichuan), and is a large basin surrounded on all sides by tall mountain ranges,
of which many are snow-clad throughout the year.  The area abounds in rivers. 
Sichuan Province is directly east of Jerusalem.  There are four big riverheads
that flow into the Yangzi, which then flows eastwards into China’s eastern plain. 
The Yangzi flows out of the Sichuan valley through awe-inspiring river canyons,
called Three Gorges.  The river is very wide leaving Sichuan; the only access is
along the narrow shore of the river facing canyon walls, and by riverboat.  This
amazing canyon is the entrance to the Garden of Eden—where God put angels
to guard the way (Gen. 3:24).  This province is truly ideal for a nature preserve
as it is large and offers a total climate variation from tropical to arctic.  It is very
famous for its vast abundance of rare plants and animals.  The Garden of Eden
probably included some of the surrounding highlands in adjoining provinces. 
 

     The Bible was first written in the West Asian Aramaic and Hebrew languages. 
These languages began in Babylon over four millennia ago (Gen. 11) but the
names from Eden pre-date those languages.  Bible names from Eden are useful
in their meanings.  We will explain the river names in regard to their meanings. 

     The river of Assyria called Tigris is called different names by peoples of the
area.  The Arabs call it Diglah.  The Babylonians called it Igna, Idiglat or Digla;
the Persians called it Tigra and the Greeks called it Tigris.  Daniel wrote about
a “great river” that he called Hiddekel (Heb. KHIDÈKEL), meaning ‘to increase
palm trees.’  The translators of the Greek Septuagint Bible changed this name
(in Dan. 10:4) into Tigris, (thus linking together the names Hiddekel and Tigris,
supposing they were the same).  Bible scholarship later accepted that decision
but in fact there is nothing to verify it.  There was never a reason to change the
name Hiddekel into Tigris.  Whenever the Scriptures mention the “great river”
(as in Genesis 15:18, or Revelation 16:12) the Euphrates River is always meant. 
The Hebrew Text Bible has no mention of any river named Tigris. 

     Assyria’s river is the Tigris but Daniel was in Babylon, and Babylon’s river is
the Euphrates.  Daniel was living near the Euphrates when he said ‘Hiddekel’
in Daniel 10:4 and he should properly have said Euphrates (PHRÀT).  The name
KHIDÈKEL fits well for Babylon’s profusion of palm trees, but the name PHRÀT
(to grow, to expand) is the name normally given in the Bible.  The Euphrates is
the largest river of west Asia.  It was pivotal to world events from ancient times
and has defined the limit of empires both east and west.  That is why the Bible
calls it simply “the river” (Deut. 11:24; Joshua 24:2-3).  It was given the name of
Eden’s fourth river (Heb. PHRÀT, Gr. Euphrates) because of its large size. 

     The Gihon and the Pishon were the other two rivers in Eden (Gen. 2:11-13). 
Gihon means to burst forth.  Pishon means to jump about (as calves playing). 
The name meanings of the four rivers are KHIDÈKEL—to increase palm trees;
GIKHÒN—to burst forth; PISHÒN—to jump about; PHRÀT—to grow, to expand. 
The names in their meanings are the original names of the rivers in Sichuan. 
Three of Eden’s rivers were identified by region (Genesis 2:11-14), but these
regional names applied to provinces in the old world from before the Flood. 
Originally these names were places in China surrounding the Garden of Eden,
but they reappeared as new names for new places after the world-Flood. 

     In Hebrew there is a relationship of the words Adam, man, red, and ground.  

Genesis 2:7,

                ... the LORD God formed man (ADÀM)

                from the dust of the ground (ADAMÀH)...

     The word ADÀM is a personal name, or may be translated as man, human;
it relates to the word ADAMÀH—red ground.  Evidently the ground from which
God first created man was red in colour for the word comes from DÀM—blood
and ADÒM—red.  Thus the words human, blood, ground, and red are related. 
The Sichuan valley is known as the ‘red basin’ (referring to the ground colour). 
So these evidences confirm our conclusion that the Sichuan Province of China
and nearby regions is the original place of the Garden of Eden.  Botanic studies
have confirmed that all tree species around the world have their genetic origin
from the Sichuan, Yunnan, and eastern Tibet regions of China.  

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