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What do you think about the historicity of Jesus? Some claim that Jesus is a fictional character created by the early Christian community and therefore never existed. The person of Jesus would be the result of a later theological elaboration, with the aim of building a tangible foundation to ensure the spread of a new religion. The most important material supporting the existence of Jesus comes from posthumous Christian sources and not from independent or neutral sources, in cases where there is traces of the character in the writings of non-Christian authors, some suspect alterations or tampering by the copyists who helped pass on the texts. What is your opinion on this?Although the Bible gives a fairly concrete description of where the garden is, where these four rivers (Pishon, Gihon, Chidekel, Phirath) actually are has been a matter of debate ever since the fall of man.
I'm not sure the precise location matters all that much anyway. Do we need to know exactly where Noah's Ark landed? Or how many animals he carried? Or where the Tower of Babel really was? It's like disputes over what exact geographical location the Hebrews crossed over the Red Sea.
Ancient commentators identify them as the Nile, the Blue Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates respectively. But this is utter hydrologic nonsense and it just implies mankind originated in Mesopotamia and Northeast Africa, in the Tigris/Euphrates watersheds and in the Nile watersheds.
In the middle of the 14th century a European monk called Giovanni de' Marignolli visited the Adam's peak in Sri Lanka (which supposedly bears the footprint of Adam and marks the spot he stepped out of Paradise) and declared the Garden of Eden could be seen from the summit.
According to Eustace Mullins' research in The Curse of Canaan, the true location of the Garden of Eden is supposed on the Pamir Plateau and that Noah lived in the Tarim Basin.
Lucifer's palace and kingdom is in Astana/Nur-Sultan. Tarim Basin/Udun is the land of the first Adamite civilisation (Tocharian mummies, pyramids) and the true location of the localised Noah's flood. Tse Tsan-tai, a Chinese Christian and revolutionary, however managed to pinpoint Eden in the middle of the Taklamakan Desert.
If you go to Serpent Mound State Memorial in Ohio you will find a prehistoric effigy of a snake trying to swallow a fruit, but modern archaeological study has yet to identify who built the monument with any certainty but most scholars resist identifying Ohio as the Garden of Eden.
According to the Mormons, Missouri is the true holy land, location of the Garden of Eden, they wished to build a temple there, their neighbours wanted to drive them away. A series of battles between the groups, known as the 1838 Mormon War, saw the Mormons fleeing from the area. Paradise remains without a temple on it.
Assyriologist George Smith stunned Victorian Britain when he revealed the discovery of a cylinder seal (and this one showed a man and a woman beside a tree, both reaching for fruit. And behind them was a snake) that he claimed proved Iraq was the location of Eden. Dating from the 22nd century BC it is now thought to show a banquet scene.
When British General Charles Gordon visited the Seychelles in 1881, he was convinced that the Seychelles were the site of Eden because of an unusual nut that grows only there (Coco de Mer). He thought the Coco de Mer was obviously the fruit that led to the downfall of Adam and Eve.
According to archaeologist Jodi Magness, there is a physical link between Adam and Jesus that reveals the location of Eden. Under the site where Jesus is said to have been crucified (Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem) and buried is also a shrine to Adam. According to her theory the blood Jesus shed during his death fell on the burial site of Adam and cleansed him of his sins.
There's a book called The Urantia Book that claims to be a revelation. It describes two gardens of Eden. The Eden in this book was no paradise though, simply the birthplace of civilised people, those who were organised to rise above mere animal existence. The book describes it as "a long narrow peninsula — almost an island — projecting westward from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea". It claims the peninsula started to sink and was abandoned for another location and after some time the original site was completely submerged. Sounds Atlantis-esque to me. Just one theory.
William F. Warren, long-time president of Boston University, wrote a book called "Paradise Found: The Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole." He was in no doubt that Eden was there. He also thought it might be home to Atlantis, Avalon, and a whole host of other holy sites from a host of world religions.
Anyway, scrutiny of details is a fool's errand when the whole goddamn thing is made up. It's a trap.
Technically, the Tigris and Euphrates pretty much parallel each other and there was no evidence of the other two, until recently. Satellite photography revealed two fossil rivers heading towards the Tigris and Euphrates - one from the East, one from the West. Ostensibly, these are the Gihon and Pishon.
When they existed - at the end of the last Ice Age - where all four came together must have been a veritable paradise to those living in the area. The "expulsion" from Eden was obviously the Ice Age coming to an end due to a celestial impact on Canada's ice sheet and two of the rivers drying up as a result - they had to have a reason why they were forced to leave. The four rivers could have possibly converged somewhere that is currently underwater in the Persian Gulf.
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