Monday, May 24, 2021

PARADISE LOST; PARADISE FOUND

   Where is Paradise? Whatever happened to the Garden of Eden? Why can no one rediscover Paradise? Is Paradise Lost? What land is it in? Is it between the Tigress and Euphrates Rivers in the land of Shinar where Noah embarked? There are many clues in the Bible, but perhaps Abraham’s “inheritance” is the Garden Paradise! How could that be; there is a Dead Sea within that area.

The Promised Land, from God to Abraham is shown in figure #1. It is Abraham’s inheritance and what the fighting is about to this day. Along with that is always, Whose god is stronger? If that territory is given up, then to the Muslims, their god is the One True God. If Judeo-Christians win out, then Jehovah God, called “The Lord God” in Genesis, is the One True God.

“Eden” is the greater land. It may have been the land mass in the beginning, or Eden could be the extents of the Promised Land. Regardless, Israel, and Jerusalem proper, are in the “midst of the Garden.” [i] Some maps show all of Saudi Arabia as the Promised Land as well as portions of Egypt up to the Nile. At the southern tip of Saudi Arabia is the small country of Yemen which was once Called “Adan” — another spelling of Eden.

  Also, west of Jerusalem in what was the land of Dan, is ancient Eden. It appears that the whole of the Promised Land includes Eden, but the area called Shinar, was perhaps once Eden as well, and became too evil to be included in the Promised Land. Much of the “fertile crescent” was within the Promised Land because its properties were very much like Paradise.

 

Figure 1:mi yodeya; "The Borders of the Promised Land"

  Abram and Lot separated so as to share the Promised Land. Lot chose the plain of Jordan:

And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. (Gen 13:10)

  Zoar is on the plain of Jordan, what is now the Dead Sea, as shown in figure #2.



 

Figure 2: Wikipedia; "Zoara"

  The inference in that verse is that the “Dead Sea” was not dead at time. It was, “even as the Garden of the Lord.” The extent of the Garden of the Lord is not known, but what is known from that verse is that the Garden of the Lord was on the plain of the Jordan River.

  In Hebrew, Naral Ha Yarden is what the Jordan River is called. In the Hebrew that means, “River of the Garden.” One of the four rivers of the Garden of Eden would have been the Jordan. God lists the rivers of the Garden:

9 And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. 11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. (Gen 2:9-14)

  First off, modern geography needs to be ignored because the flood changed the one land into seven continents. The lands adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea rotated about the “navel of the world.” That “navel” is the Foundation Stone now beneath the Dome of the Rock. “Mediterranean” means “center of the Earth.” It is the sea at the Navel of the Earth.

  Taking the easy one first, the Euphrates (The fourth river) is well known. Except for its direction of flow because of continental drift, it can be accepted as intended. That is river number “4” in those passages.

  The next easiest is the river “Hiddekel,” the third river. Although it too is questioned (See Abararim Publications) most assign it to be the Tigress River which indeed goes East of what is now believed to be Assyria (Shinar).  

  Note that there were not four rivers but four “heads” from one river. So, there were five rivers in all!

  The boundaries of Ethiopia have changed over time, but the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden (Aden is Yemen) encompass what would have been the eastern side. On the other hand, the Sudan is described as such: “The Kingdom of Kush and was an ancient Nubian state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile and White Nile, and the Atbarah River and the Nile River” (Wikipedia; “Sudan”). The boundaries of Ethiopia in the beginning are unknown, but this area is encompassed by the Nile River, true to the Word.

  That the Gulf of Aden is there means much, as well. It would have been the “Gulf of Eden.” It does appear that the Gihon (river “2”) is the present-day Nile River and its branches. That accounts for three rivers: the Gihon, the Hiddekel, and the Euphrates.

  There is one problem with the Gihon River. There remains to this day, the Gihon Spring;

(It) is a spring in the Kidron Valley. It was the main source of water for the Pool of Siloam in Jebus and the later City of David, the original site of Jerusalem. One of the world's major intermittent springs – and a reliable water source that made human settlement possible in ancient Jerusalem – the spring was not only used for drinking water, but also initially for irrigation of gardens in the adjacent Kidron Valley, which provided a food source for the ancient settlement. (Wikipedia; “Gihon Spring”).

  That spring is to the Jews as the Nile is to the Egyptians and Ethiopians. “The Nile used to run much more westerly through what is now Wadi Hamim and Wadi al Maqar in Libya and flow into the Gulf of Sidra’ (Wikipedia; “Nile River”).  The Nile was thought to be the boundary between life and death:

  The Nile was also an important part of ancient Egyptian spiritual life. Hapi was the god of the annual floods, and both he and the pharaoh were thought to control the flooding. The Nile was considered to be a causeway from life to death and the afterlife. The east was thought of as a place of birth and growth, and the west was considered the place of death, as the god Ra, the Sun, underwent birth, death, and resurrection each day as he crossed the sky. Thus, all tombs were west of the Nile, because the Egyptians believed that in order to enter the afterlife, they had to be buried on the side that symbolized death. (ibid)

  That is important in Judaism as well. The Promised Land was to the East of the Nile. It was, indeed, the place of birth and growth. Not only did Eden extend from there, but outside Eden, to the West, was death. The flow from the Spring is ambiguous since it has been channeled to provide water for the city of Jerusalem and for the Siloam Pool. However, like the Nile, its flow is intermittent. The Nile River is the smallest river in existence, according to flow rate. It is and always been the source of life in Jerusalem, even preserving them in Hezekiah’s time from destruction.

  There is a “spiritual” connection between the Gihon Spring and the Nile. Perhaps there was a physical relationship as well since the Nile flows Northward into the “Center of the Earth” and all the other rivers flow southward into the sea at the Center of the Earth.

  No one knows about the Pishon River, nor the exact location of Havilah. The person, Havilah, was the son of Joktan, the son of Eber from which the word, “Hebrew” comes, and means “across the river.” The first usage of the word, “Hebrew,” is referencing “Abram the Hebrew” [ii] Abram was descended from Eber who was the seed of Shem, the son of Noah. The question is: What waters did Abram cross? He concluded his journey by crossing a river, the Naral Ha Yarden — the Jordan River, so named because it is the River of the Garden of Eden.

  Biblically, the Jordan River had to be the first of the four rivers. Scripture as much as says that: “Lot beheld the plain of the Jordan… that it was well watered every where… even as the Garden of the Lord.”

  Mentioned as well is that previously before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, those two cities were “well watered every where.”

  The location of those two cities were on the Jordan. Because of sins of the flesh, Sodom and Gomorrah were burned with fire and brimstone from God. [iii] Because Lot’s wife looked back at the pleasures of sin there, she was turned into a pillar of salt. [iv] It seems that the Dead Sea is the consequence of sin. It turned the River of the Garden Paradise into a fiery furnace wherein there is only death!

  Four Rivers of the Garden have been identified, but where is the headwater river? The only clue of the fifth River is that “a river went out of Eden to water the Garden.” “Eden” is the Garden and the land outside the Garden. Its extent is not known but Eden is likely what geologists call, “Pangea.” (See my commentary on Pangea at https://kentuckyherrin.blogspot.com/2016/10/eden-pangea.html).

  Known quite well is how “Pangea” (Eden) was formed:

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. (Gen 1:9-10)

  The land was one mass. There were no continents because until then there had been no rain and no flood. Sometime between that time and Peleg’s time, the continents drifted apart, and from maps of Pangea, the drifting spiraled around the “Navel of the World” (The Foundation Stone in Jerusalem) and “The Center of the Earth” (The Mediterranean Sea).

  God “gathered the waters.” I did not rain, but the waters were “gathered.” Those waters came from the belly of the Earth just as with Noah: “All the fountains of the great deep were broken up” in the Second Creation.

  The “river going out of Eden” was the same fountain of the deep. It was the same as the mist that made the earth of Adam into clay. Adam was created, as many believe on the Foundation Stone, and the “mist” would have come from the abyss beneath that Stone.

  The River of the Eden was the “fountain of the deep.” The River of God is the water from beneath the Earth’s surface. The River of God is the water from which springs are fed. The Greatest River of God is the vast oceans 400 miles beneath the surface of the Earth that is the storehouse of the waters of the Deluge. Jewish theologians credit the abyss beneath the Foundation Stone as the access for waters from the deep, and the journey to death as well of those who missed the Ark.

  Each of the four rivers are spring fed. The Tigress and the Euphrates are fed from the underground waters of the Taurus Mountains where Noah’s Ark rested (see my commentary at https://kentuckyherrin.blogspot.com/2021/05/in-search-of-noahs-ark-part-2-of-2.html).

  The Jordan comes from the anti-Lebanon Mountains, and the Nile comes from Lake Victoria, high in the mountains of Africa. The middle of the Garden of Eden (Jerusalem) has no river. The “river” that supported the Tree of Life is the Gihon Spring. That spring has always kept Hebrews safe from harm, and from where does it flow? From the River of God beneath the surface of the Earth!

  Jerusalem is not only the “Center of the Earth,” the “Celestial Axis,” and the “Navel of the World,” but is also the “Spiritual Magnet” that draws mankind to that great City of God. Even in death, people are drawn to Jerusalem as the access to Paradise, and the Mount Olivet Cemetery is full of the dead who want to rise first when the trumpet of Jesus is sounded. It attracts so many that wars are still fought there for access to the heaven… the access to Paradise in the Third Heaven.

 


[i] Gen 2:9

[ii] Gen 14:13

[iii] Gen 19:24

[iv] Gen 19:26

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