Historicity of the Garden of Eden: Exploring Lake Van, Qurnah, and Pushkar

Abstract

We compare the descriptions of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1-3 with the geographical, archaeological and etymological evidences and textual parallels from Lake Van in Turkey, Qurnah in Iraq, and Pushkar in India. We develop a method of simultaneously considering the information from above four parameters to arrive at an overall level of parallel with the Biblical descriptions. We find that the descriptions find 15 percent parallels with Lake Van, 53 percent parallels with Qurnah and 72 percent parallels with Pushkar. This leads us to suggest that a strong case exists for the location of the Garden at Pushkar in India. In particular, we find four rivers coming out of Pushkar as described in the Bible. The historicity of the Bible would be strengthened if the suggestion is found acceptable by the scholars.