SUMMARY: There is trouble in the southern marshes of Iraq, where many Bible experts feel the Garden of Eden was located. A severe drought is gripping the area just as it appeared to be recovering from abuse afflicted on it by Saddam Hussein."I have no work. Our livestock have died, our children have left school because we don't have money to buy them clothes," a fisherman and a Marsh Arab complained as he stood in front of his wooden boat which sat on a dried-up lake bed.
For 5,000 years the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (picture: Euphrates) fed a rich marshland here of some 8,000 square miles. Hundreds of birds and fish species could be found in the marshes, and periodic flooding created fertile farm lands. That ended after 1991 when Saddam, a Sunni Muslim, decided to punish rival Shiite Muslims who were hiding among the reeds, lakes, and Marsh Arabs in the area. He considered the Shiites to be disloyal.
Saddam had a massive network of dams and earthen walls built in order to divert water and dry up the marshes. It worked. By the time Saddam was overthrown in 2003, the marshes had shrunk by 90 percent, and many experts predicted they would be entirely gone by 2008. But then the United Nations stepped in with an $11 million project to restore the marshes, a project that included removing some of Saddam's barriers. By 2006, more than half the original marshlands had successfully again flooded.
The recent drought though has lowed the levels of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers which feed the marshes, and Iraq's winter saw inadequate amounts of rainfall. The U.N. has announced a new $47 million program to again restore the marshes, but even its director is doubtful it will succeed unless the drought breaks.
To read the entire article click on this CBS NEWS link.
COMMENT: First of all we need to make clear that knowing where the original Garden of Eden was located is impossible. Noah's Flood completely destroyed the surface of the planet, and if the Garden somehow still existed before the Flood, it certainly didn't afterwards. We shouldn't be fooled by the names of the rivers in Iraq, the Tigris and the Euphrates. It is true that these were the names of two of the four rivers mentioned in Genesis 2:14 as being in the Garden of Eden. But where are the other two rivers--the Pishon and the Gihon? The truth is that all four rivers must have been obliterated by the great Flood. Likely Noah or his immediate descendants named the current Tigris and Euphrates by using names that were familiar to them.
It is sad how sin affected the original Garden of Eden and how it today continues to affect beautiful land that some consider the site of the Garden. First, Adam and Eve's sin forced God to eject them from the Garden which thus lost its most prized inhabitants. Next we're told in Gen. 3:24 that God put an angel in Eden to block its entrance, thus apparently preventing humans from ever again entering it and enjoying its beauty. Then, of course, the terrible sins of mankind caused God to send the Flood which destroyed anything that was left of the Garden of Eden. Finally in modern times Saddam Hussein's vindictiveness caused him to lay waste to a beautiful part of the world even if it isn't the site of the original Garden of Eden.
There is good news though. If Eden was the original paradise, a second paradise awaits all believers in Jesus. Heaven is the supreme paradise, a gift from God given to all who accept the forgiveness earned for them by Jesus on the cross. And this second paradise will never be destroyed nor will there be any talking snake there trying to deceive us.
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QUESTION OF THE DAY
Why was 1998 a significant year in the Midwest for cicadas?
There are two main types of the flying insects called cicadas. 17-year cicadas live underground as larvae for 17 years before emerging for only one month as adults to mate. 13-year cicadas are underground for only 13 years. In 1998 the largest brood of the 17-year variety and the largest brood of the 13-year version both emerged in the Midwest at the same time. Working together, they made a deafening sound and littered the ground beneath trees with discarded husks left by growing adults. Such a conjunction will not happen again in the Midwest for 221 years (17 x 13=221).Source: Exploring the World of Biology by John Hudson Tiner
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B032 - FROZEN IN TIME
by Michael Oard
A detailed look at the Ice Age from the creationist viewpoint with a special emphasis on mammoths. A bit technical at times. 2004. 217 pages.
Join LSI and rent this book for $3.
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