page_title: Garden of Eden
section_title: Proposed locations
hierarchical_section_title: Garden of Eden / Proposed locations
caption_attribution_description: This is a map of the Tigris - Euphrates Watershed. I, Karl Musser, created it based on USGS data.
context_page_description: The Garden of Eden, also called the Terrestrial Paradise, or simply Paradise, is the biblical "Garden of God" described in the Book of Genesis and the Book of Ezekiel. Genesis 13:10 refers to the "garden of God", and the "trees of the garden" are mentioned in Ezekiel 31:9. The Book of Zechariah and the Book of Psalms also refer to trees and water, without explicitly mentioning Eden.
  The name derives from the Akkadian edinnu, from a Sumerian word edin meaning "plain" or "steppe", closely related to an Aramaic root word meaning "fruitful, well-watered". Another interpretation associates the name with a Hebrew word for "pleasure"; thus the Douay-Rheims Bible in Genesis 2:8 has the wording
  "And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure", rather than "a garden in Eden". The Hebrew term is translated "pleasure" in Sarah's secret saying in Genesis 18:12.
  The location of Eden is described in the Book of Genesis as the source of four tributaries. Among scholars who consider it to have been real, there have been various suggestions for its location: at the head of the Persian Gulf, in southern Mesopotamia where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers run into the sea; and in Armenia.
context_section_description: Suggestions for the location of the Garden of Eden include: at its source of the rivers, while others have looked at the head of the Persian Gulf, in southern Mesopotamia (now Iraq) where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers run into the sea;  and in the Armenian Highlands or Armenian Plateau. British archaeologist David Rohl locates it in Iran, and in the vicinity of Tabriz, but this suggestion has not caught on with scholarly sources.
  The location of Eden is described in Genesis 2:10–14:
  ″And a river departed from Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided and became four tributaries.
  The name of the first is Pishon, which is the circumnavigator of the land of Havilah where there is gold.
  And the gold of this land is good; there are bdellium and cornelian stone.
  And the name of the second river is Gihon, which is the circumnavigator of the land of Cush.
  
  And the name of the third is Chidekel, which is that which goes to the east of Ashur; and the fourth river is Phirath.″
  The Garden of Eden is considered to be mythological by most scholars.
caption: Map showing the rivers in the Middle East known in English as the Tigris and Euphrates
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