Where was Eden, and does it matter?

[eprom]

I’ve recently launched a web site that puts forward an Israeli location for Eden and I’m looking for critical feedback. The proposition may seem trite, but I believe it has implications in a number of areas that affect Biblical studies including, Soteriology, Pneumatology, Eschatology, and Hermeneutics. The site is far from finished, and does need a bit of editing, but there’s already a lot of information here to review, drawing from Biblical, Historical, and Scientific evidence to support this proposition. You can review the site at:

http://www.faith-friends.com/Eden

So . . . is this very ground which saw the first sin & fall, be the very place of redemption and restoration? Any feedback is welcome!

 

[michel]

Er, excuse me, but Eden IS in England. I saw it in the papers, so it must be true!

 

[robtex]

Good job Eprom welcome to the forums.

 

[michel]

Good job Eprom welcome to the forums.

Wow, I didn't notice! Apologies,
Hi Eprom, Namaste.

Well, you've already made a start Eprom, if I remember corectly stands for erasable programmable only memory ? - is that a discription of yourself ?

 

[michel]

and, while we're here, in answer to your original question, I don't know, and no, I don't think it matters.

 

[eprom]

Wow, I didn't notice! Apologies, Hi Eprom, Namaste. Well, you've already made a start Eprom, if I remember corectly stands for erasable programmable only memory ? - is that a discription of yourself ?

You are right, and it is a description of myself. Eprom is the base functioning code of a computer, and can only be changed by the designer. The code can be re-booted with light, symbolic of God, and then given new instructions. I'm a sinner, and only my maker has been able to change my base nature! Regarding the significance of Eden, here are a few of the reasons I think it’s relevant.

Anthropology

It’s interesting that in the supposed millions of years of human evolution, civilized cultures have only appeared in the geologic and archaeological records for the past 5 to 6 thousand years. There seems to have been some kind of awakening that occurred on a global level, from the Mayans, to the Chinese, to the Sumerians and the Egyptians. In our own modern pop culture’s mythology, we can think of Sky Net in the Terminator movies, or the conscious awakening of the machines in the Matrix trilogy. In the same way, humans started to work together, communicate, record history and invent new technology in ways they had never done before. We’d like to suggest the possibility that this awakening of the human consciousness started in one place, and that one place could be called Eden. To discover the center by which the seed of the civilized human consciousness disseminated around the world, would be no small find!

Genetics / Biology

As scientists continue to fill in missing pieces of what’s known as the Human Genome Project, it’s becoming more abundantly clear that finding genetic variants that underlie various characteristics, like the effect of specific diseases on different people groups, depends on how those genetic differences are distributed within a racial group’s ancestral lineage.

So, this field of study inspires further research to finding earth's earliest inhabitants, as various studies have proven disease susceptibility and environmental responses vary by race, determining the focal point of our genetic origin will be a kind of Holy Grail for the medical industry. For the prize is great, resulting in the effective treatment of a whole variety of diseases, as we gain a greater understanding of our own genetic profile.

Archetypes in Religion & Mythology

As CS Lewis contends in his book "Mere Christianity", for a transcendent moral law that's engrained in the mind of every human being and we all define as our conscience, it would seem apparent that the collective psyche of the world’s cultures gravitate to far more than simply defining moral certitude. The common themes in religion & mythology around the world, or “Archetypes” as the early 20th century psychologist Carl Gustav Jung defines them, are far too pervasive to be dismissed as the products of environment, and man’s earliest efforts at developing some kind of proto-science. Scholars like Joseph Campbell have invested their entire careers in uncovering and defining this kind of unified field theory of the world’s religious beliefs. Though many scholars’ conclusions may differ as to the source of these archetypes, most would agree that the story of Eden is engraved deeply within the human soul.

Have remnants of Eden’s narrative survived to be incorporated into the themes of so many different culture’s mythology, or as Jung would contend, does the source of these re-occurring ideas come from within our own psyche? Possibly both and defining this issue is without question a worthy endeavor! One matter emerges as evident; most of the world’s belief systems are an attempt to move people, individually and corporately, metaphorically back into this garden. Determining where the garden they're looking for was originally would be quite enlightening, don't you think?

For the significance of Eden in biblical studies, go here:
http://faith-friends.com/Eden/modules.php?op=modload&name=PagEd&file=index&page_id=18

 

[Dr. Khan]

Denmark!


Welcome.
Just a wild and crazy guess.



Again welcome to the forums.

 

[jt1970]

EDEN was where the OIL is, do the math people!!

 

[Druidus]

Wild guess? If it ever existed, I'd say somewhere in Kenya.

 

[jt1970]

Do they have oil in Kenya? LOL