Primeval History (Genesis 1-11): The Garden of Eden

    The “primeval history” in the Old Testament (Gen. 1-11) is the source of a lot of debate and contention among Christians. Many Christians understand these chapters to be entirely allegorical because of their apparent discordance with the findings of modern science, and their similarity to other ancient myths. Some take the primeval history to be a mixture of allegory and true history. Others try to fit together a literal understanding of this history with the findings of modern science. Finally, a minority of Christians – who, like the first group, see a discordance between the Bible and science – simply reject the findings of modern science altogether in favor of a hyper-literalistic reading of Genesis 1-11, arguing that the universe is only 6,000 years old, and there was a global flood about 4,500 years ago.

    Although I agree that the scientific data are inconsistent with the hyper-literalistic reading of Genesis 1-11 supported by young-earth creationists, I don’t abandon either modern science or the Biblical account. In this series of posts, I will argue for a concordist interpretation of the primeval history which agrees with both God’s word and the evidence we find in God’s creation, beginning with identifying the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2-3) with a real, historical location that existed about 12,000 years ago. [We’ll skip over the creation account in Genesis 1 for now because there are so many interpretations of this chapter; maybe we’ll come back to it later.]

    Biblical Description of the Garden of Eden

The garden of Eden is described in the primeval history as follows:

When no plant of the field was yet in the land, and no vegetation of the field had sprung up – for Yahweh God had not yet caused it to rain upon the land, and there was no one to till the ground, but a spring would come up from the land and water the whole face of the ground – then Yahweh God formed the man [ha-Adam] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul. And Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He put the man whom He had formed. Out of the ground Yahweh God made 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 the knowledge of good and evil.

A river rises in Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four headwaters. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Kush. The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. (Genesis 2:6-14)

    Based on the very detailed description of the rivers in vv. 10-14, the author wants his audience to be able to identify the garden of Eden at a specific location. The problem with this, however, is one that most residents of the ancient Near East should have been aware of. The Tigris and Euphrates don’t come from the same river, but instead diverge north of the Assyrian heartland and originate at two different places in modern-day eastern Turkey, contrary to what verse 14 says! There are thus two possibilities: the author of Genesis 2-3 purposely referenced a geographic impossibility to indicate to his audience that the garden of Eden was a mythical location, or the direction of the rivers has been reversed for thematic purposes (as the Tigris and Euphrates do meet downstream in the south).

    If the second possibility is correct, the rivers are being described as though the reader is standing in Eden and looking upstream toward the sources of the four rivers, as a thematic device. This interpretation is supported by E. A. Speiser, a Jewish commentator and scholar of the ancient Near East. [1] Under the assumption that the garden of Eden wasn’t a mythical place, what other details can we determine from the biblical account?

1. The garden was east of Israel (Gen. 2:8)
2. The garden existed at the confluence of four rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates (Gen. 2:10)
   
3. The first river encircled Havilah, a land rich with gold, bdellium, and onyx stone (Gen. 2:11f)
4. The second river encircled the land of Kush (Gen 2:13)
   
5. The land of Eden had no rain, but was well-watered by a spring (Gen 2:5f)
6. No people lived there to till the ground (Gen 2:5)
7. This account took place just before, or concurrent with, the beginning of agriculture and gender hierarchies as part of Adam and Eve’s curse (Gen 3:16-19)
   
8. The garden is no longer accessible to humans (Gen 3:22-24)

If the biblical account of the garden of Eden describes a real and not just mythical location, then we should be able to find a place that satisfies all these criteria. Finding out that Genesis 2-3 accurately describes something this far in the past would also be a boost to the literal interpretation of the primeval history, and the accuracy of the Bible in general. So what do we see?

    The Persian Gulf Oasis

In fact, there is a location that perfectly matches the biblical description of the garden of Eden! At the confluence of the Tigris, Euphrates, and Karun rivers, as well as another river which has since dried up (Wadi al-Batin), there was once an oasis. These four rivers came together to form another river, the Ur-Schatt, in what is now the Persian Gulf. Wadi al-Batin can be identified with the Pishon, as it encircles Havilah (recognized by most commentators to be a location in Arabia), and its location of origin was a gold mine in ancient times (the Mahd adh Dhahab). Some commentators and translators also identify “Kush” in Genesis 2:13 with the homeland of the Kassites in modern-day Iran, which would make it possible to identify the Karun River with the Gihon. [2]

Figure 1. Adapted from Fig. 2 of [3]. The four rivers (Wadi Batin, Karun, Tigris, Euphrates) which drain into the Ur-Schatt River, proposed to be the river that watered the garden of Eden, are highlighted in blue.

    This region, now covered by the Persian Gulf, was exposed land during the last ice age when sea levels were much lower. Although it went through a hyper-arid period with a severe lack of rain from about 24,000 to 12,000 years ago, the Ur-Schatt River continued to flow, and the oasis was well-watered by freshwater springs known as khawakb. [3] During this period, archeological sites around the Gulf disappear, indicating that humans no longer lived there. [3] The oasis was covered by the Persian Gulf from 12,000 to 11,000 years ago as the ice age ended and sea levels rose, making it inaccessible to humans. [3,4] Archeological evidence places the origin of agriculture in the ancient Near East around the same time, and this is speculated to be accompanied by the loss of gender equality associated with hunter-gatherer bands. [5]

    Thus, every single aspect of the account in Genesis 2-3 seems to be corroborated by the archeological evidence from the Persian Gulf:

1. The oasis was east of Israel (cf. Gen. 2:8)
2. The oasis existed at the confluence of four rivers, the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun, and Wadi Batin (cf. Gen. 2:10-14)
3. The Wadi Batin [Pishon] encircled Arabia [Havilah], a land rich with gold, bdellium, and onyx stone (cf. Gen. 2:11f)
4. The Karun [Gihon] encircled the Kassite homeland [Kush] (cf. Gen. 2:13)
5. The oasis was hyper-arid [had no rain], but was well-watered by freshwater springs [khawakb] (cf. Gen. 2:5f)
6. No people lived there at the time because it had been abandoned (cf. Gen. 2:5)
7. This all took place just before the introduction of agriculture and gender hierarchies in the ancient Near East [part of Adam and Eve’s curse] (cf. Gen. 3:16-19)
8. The oasis is no longer accessible as it is under the Persian Gulf (cf. Gen. 3:22-24)

This is a remarkable confirmation of the biblical description of the garden of Eden and the story of Adam and Eve!

    Other Ancient Descriptions of Eden

Genesis 2-3 isn’t the only account of a legendary garden in the Persian Gulf. The same motif can actually be found in several Mesopotamian creation myths, where it’s called “Dilmun.” In the Sumerian creation myth (Eridu Genesis), Dilmun is the land of immortality, called “the place where the sun rises” and “the land of the living.” In the Sumerian myth Enki and Ninhursag, Dilmun is called “the pure clean and bright land of the living, the garden of the great gods and earthly paradise.” Enki, the creation god, promises to the earth god Ninhursag,

For Dilmun, the land of my lady's heart, I will create long waterways, rivers and canals, whereby water will flow to quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all that lives.

In the Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish, the location of creation is said to be where the saltwater and freshwater “were mingled together.” Dilmun, the legendary land of creation, is now known to have been a real kingdom located on the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, where freshwater springs mix with the saltwater of the gulf.

    Both the Genesis account and Mesopotamian myths record the existence of an oasis in the Persian Gulf in the legendary past. They include similar details as well, for example, both describing the oasis as being “in the east” (or “where the sun rises”) and the existence of the freshwater springs (khawakb). However, the Genesis account contains far more detail and is also more accurate, describing the existence of the Ur-Schatt River and the lack of rain and human occupation. This means that Genesis 2-3 didn’t merely borrow from Mesopotamian myths; it must have had its own source for these details, which weren’t preserved in any other account. I see this as strong evidence for the divine inspiration of the primeval history.

    Implications

The fact that the biblical description of the garden of Eden matches the Persian Gulf oasis so well isn’t just good evidence for the accuracy of the Bible, it also has other implications for the interpretation of the primeval history. For one, underneath the present Persian Gulf, there is a full geologic column stretching back to the Cambrian age. [6] All of this must have been laid down long before the garden of Eden and Adam and Eve were created. Therefore, the young-earth creationist belief that Noah’s Flood laid down the sedimentary rock record must be false.

    Furthermore, multiple dating methods were used to pinpoint the date of the Persian Gulf oasis, including radiocarbon dating, varve counting, and using stone artifacts for relative dating. [3] All these methods, along with the methods of paleoclimatology, corroborate one another and the biblical account, placing all the elements of the story of Adam and Eve some 12,000 years ago. For the account of the garden of Eden to be correct, all these dating methods must also be correct – indeed, the biblical account (if accurate) almost demands it. The earth and human civilization must be older than 6,000 years old, further refuting both the young-earth and gap-theory interpretations of the primeval history. [7]

    Finally, this has intriguing implications for the existence of humans outside of the garden of Eden. Humans existed long before 12,000 years ago (anatomically modern Homo sapiens date back to >200 kya), and there were even humans in the Persian Gulf before it was abandoned around 24,000 years ago. This means that there were other humans who populated the earth before Adam and Eve were created. The Genesis account is silent on the issue of whether humans existed outside of the garden, although there are some hints that they did (Gen. 4:13-17), which I’ll discuss more in the next post. [8]

    Conclusion

The biblical account of the garden of Eden (Gen. 2-3) includes eight specific details that can be used to pinpoint its location in history. If we examine the archeological record with this in mind, we find that all the details are exactly corroborated by the evidence for a Persian Gulf oasis that was lost to the sea about 12,000 years ago (10,000 BC). This is strong evidence for the accuracy of a literal interpretation of the primeval history (Gen. 1-11). We find that the biblical account and modern science corroborate each other, which refutes anti-scientific, hyper-literalistic readings of Genesis. In the next post, we’ll take a look at the biblical account of the antediluvian world (Gen. 4-6) to see whether this is also corroborated by the scientific data.

Part 2: The Antediluvian World

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[1] E. A. Speiser, The Anchor Bible Genesis: Introduction, translation and notes (New York: Doubleday, 1964), 16-17.

[2] See for example Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 429; this is supported by the use of “Kush” in Gen. 10:8 and 1 Chron. 1:10, which most commentators and ANE scholars understand to refer to the Kassites, as the other “Kush” (modern-day Ethiopia) is far from Mesopotamia.

[3] Jeffrey I. Rose, “New Light on Human Prehistory in the Arabo-Persian Gulf Oasis,” Current Anthropology 51, no. 6 (2010): 862-3.

[4] Kurt Lambeck, “Shoreline reconstructions for the Persian Gulf since the last glacial maximum,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 142 (1996): 43-57; Gholamreza Hosseinyar et al., “Holocene sea-level changes of the Persian Gulf,” Quaternary International 571 (2021): 26-45.

[5] Dorian Q. Fuller, “Contrasting Patterns in Crop Domestication and Domestication Rates: Recent Archaeobotanical Insights from the Old World,” Annals of Botany 100, no. 5 (2007): 903-924; M. Dyble et al., “Sex equality can explain the unique social structure of hunter-gatherer bands,” Science 348, no. 6236 (2015): 796-798.

[6] Fereydoun Ghazban, Petroleum Geology of the Persian Gulf (University of Tehran, 2007).

[7] The gap-theory interpretation is more in line with modern science, but it still requires a clean break in the archeological record of human civilization about 6,000 years ago when God supposedly ‘reset’ creation. If our dating methods aren’t somehow severely distorted, we simply don’t find any such break going back hundreds of thousands of years.

[8] Note that the Bible never claims Adam and Eve were the first or only humans that existed at the time, contrary to popular belief. All it claims is that Eve was the (genealogical) “mother of all living” at the time Genesis 3:20 was written, without precluding the existence of other ancestors. Paul refers to Adam as the “first man,” but in the same passage refers to Jesus as the “second man,” indicating that he is speaking of the first and second archetypal “man,” not the literal first and second humans (Jesus wasn’t the second human to exist!). For further discussion see Joshua Swamidass, The Genealogical Adam and Eve (Westmont, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2019).