Re: Four rivers revisieted
Thu, 15 Apr 1999 08:51:08 -0500

A reply:

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?


The issue: on 04/15/99 04:05:52 AM

Please respond to


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.
river remains unknown.
east of Asshur.
world, it is the river of mighty Nimrod's Babylon.>>

The first, second and fourth arguments are from silence. The argument
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
land of Havilah, which had gold; but, neither the land nor the gold exists
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.