Genesis 2 · a question people ask
Where was the garden of Eden?
No one knows. The text names four rivers. Two are known today: the Euphrates, and Hiddekel, which is the Tigris. Pishon and Gihon have never been identified with certainty.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Southern Mesopotamia
Near the head of the Persian Gulf, where the Tigris and Euphrates come together, in modern Iraq.
Genesis 2:14
The highlands where the rivers rise
In the mountains of eastern Turkey and Armenia, where the Tigris and Euphrates begin. The text says one river flowed out of Eden and split into four.
Genesis 2:10
Beyond finding
On this view the land has changed beyond recognition since, and the text's point is that Eden was a real place in a real world, not a map to find it. After the people are sent out, cherubim guard the way to the tree of life (3:24).
Genesis 2:10-14 · Genesis 3:23-24
The verses
“A river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was parted, and became the source of four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon: it flows through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and onyx stone are also there. The name of the second river is Gihon. It is the same river that flows through the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel. This is the one which flows in front of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.”
“In the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel,”