Young-earth answer to the "rivers of Eden" question, and why it fails

A YOUNG-EARTH ANSWER TO THE "RIVERS OF EDEN" QUESTION

THE YOUNG-EARTH ANSWER to the "rivers of Eden question"is that "Iraqís
rivers bear the same names as two of Edenís four, but settlers often name
new landmarks after familiar things in their old world."
<http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i3/editorial.asp>

So it's purely a "settler"-inspired coincidence in their opinion. Such
similarities in names may not be taken to imply common ancestry. But
think again, study the verses in Genesis, chapter 2. You would have to
ignore not only the sameness of the names of two major rivers that they
say have nothing do to with the ones on the "pre-Flood" earth, but you
also must ignore the sameness of the names of later lands that those
rivers "wound through" or "ran along," i.e., the lands of "Cush" and
"Asshur" (Assyria), and thirdly, also ignore the fact that the first
river, "Pishon" is said to wind through a land where there "IS gold," and,
"the gold of that land IS good," not "WAS gold," and "WAS good"):
Genesis 2:13-14 "The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through
the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is
good; aromatic resin [or, "good; pearls," according to a note in the NIV]
and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it
winds through the entire land of Cush. ["Possibly southwest Mesopotamia,"
according to a note in the NIV] The name of the third river is the
Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur [Assyria]. And the fourth
river is the Euphrates [a river so big and widely known in the author's
day that he probably didn't feel the need to say what land it wound
through or ran alongside]."
Seems like a lot of river names (and accompanying place names they "ran
through") that one would have to ignore as mere "settler"-inspired
coincidences with later rivers and place names of Mesopotamia. Or, maybe
God inspired such duplicate naming of rivers and places just to confuse
matters in the minds of later day intelligent question-asking Christians,
including today's local Flood creationists?

SECOND ANSWER:
Besides the YEC answer, above, a second possible explanation also comes to
mind: The names of the "rivers of Eden" and/or the names of the lands they
"wound through" or "ran along" were added by a later editor, who was not
inspired by God, but assumed that the rivers and countries and their gold,
were the same yesterday as they were in his own day. (That seems a
reasonable assumption, since such an ancient author probably knew nothing
about "Flood geology's" presumptions concerning how the six miles of
sedimentary rock got beneath those rivers and those lands and beneath the
gold in that land.)

THIRD ANSWER:
A third answer is that the entire creation account in Genesis was a
derivative of ancient Near Eastern creation-myth traditions, though the
Genesis stories were edited together later than most other ancient Near
Eastern myths and with greater sophistication, and in response to the
polytheism of those other myths, i.e., during the captivity in Babylon.
Yet the Genesis stories were still composed by a prescientific people who
used the same basic "popping into existence" creation motifs, who also
used the same basic flat earth motif with it being the foundation of
creation with the stars later spread out above it to light and earth and
for signs and seasons on earth, as well as using the names of rivers and
places they already knew about. Keep in mind that the Hebrews spoke in
terms of appearances, in terms of the activity of one's vibrant beating
heart, and bowels and even the moral directing of one's kidneys, rather
than of one's brain, and they spoke in terms of animals being created "as
they appeared," and of the sun moving and being commanded not to move, and
spoke of the constellations being moved by God seasonally across the sky,
since they appeared so to move. So the Hebrews likewise imagined that the
rivers and lands and the gold in them also existed from time immemorial
just as they presently appeared to exist. Neither did they know about
"Flood Geology" nor recognize the modern necessity for YECs to believe
that sedimentary rock layers had to have been formed by Noah's Flood.
They simply assumed like the Sumerian myths had before them, that "a land
of paradise" existed in that very part of the world long long ago.

Cheers,
Ed
Received on Tue Oct 26 22:52:27 2004