At least two archaeologists have argued that the 'four rivers of
Genesis' appear to correspond to four rivers that ran during the
Wet Neolithic (7000 - 4000 BC or so).
The references are:
Hamblin, Dorothy. 1987. "Has the Garden of Eden
been located at last?." Smithsonian (5):127-134.
Sauer, James A. 1996. "The River Runs Dry:
Creation Story preserves historical memory."
Biblical Archaeology 22(4):52-57, 64.
Both archaeologists felt that the story of the Garden of
Eden refered to rivers that would have been dry at the
time Moses codified or wrote the Pentateuch.
If that is the case, then how would Moses have indicated
these rivers?
Ray
The issue:
PHSEELY@aol.com on 04/15/99 04:05:52 AM
Please respond to PHSEELY@aol.com
To: allen@infomagic.com
cc: gbrown@euclid.colorado.edu, asa@calvin.edu(bcc:
John R Zimmer/Rush/RSH)
Subject: Re: Precambrian geology (2)
Allen wrote in defence of the idea that Gen 2 was not describing the same
geography as existed in the time Moses,
<< If Havilah were the same place as mentioned later, where is the Pishon
River? This river remains unknown.
If Cush were the same place as mentioned later, where is the Gihon? This
river remains unknown.
The post flood Tigris runs through the heart of ancient Asshur, not to the
east of Asshur.
The Euphrates is not associated with any region, yet in the post flood
world, it is the river of mighty Nimrod's Babylon.>>
The first, second and fourth arguments are from silence. The argument
about
the course of the Tigris is not too bad; but, the river is still assciated
with Asshur; so the earth couldn't have changed too much.
More importantly, these verses would be pointless if they referred to areas
unknown to the reader. Gen 2:11, for example, "The name of the first is
Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where
there is gold;" would mean Moses is saying, "The name of the first river
was
called Pishon, but it no longer exists today. It flowed all around the
whole
land of Havilah, which had gold; but, neither the land nor the gold exists
there today. We have a river today of the same name that flows around a
land
of the same name which also has gold; but, there is no geographical
identity
between the river and land I am talking about and the ones you (the reader)
know about."
Surely, this is not a straight-forward interpretation of Gen 2:11ff.
Paul