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Until
recently, there were few scientific tools which could shed light on this
question
or the related issue of the historicity of Adam and Eve, the first
couple always included
in the ancient myths of Paradise. Then, in the late
1980's, Dr. Rebecca Cann and a team
of paleo-geneticists observed that all
human beings carry around genetic markers inherited
from our ancient
ancestors that might provide clues to when and where we originated. So
Cann
took genetic samples from all over the world to reconstruct our genetic family
tree.
The results shook the foundations of science. Cann's team
discovered that all females
carry a particular genetic marker that must have
come from a single woman who was the
sole ancestor of all women now living.
Moreover, they found that the time-frame for the
"genetic Eve" to have lived
was relatively recent: Between 180,000 and 22,000 years ago.
Paleontologists had previously toyed with estimates as far back as 4,000,000
years for
our common ancestor. So even the 180,000-year age was far too
recent for some of them.
But even more disturbing was how the 22,000-year
estimate was derived. Cann's team
had argued that, if only two
individuals were involved, then the couple must have lived in
even more
recent times; the 180,000-year estimate assumed an initial group of
thousands
of people among whom the "genetic Eve" had distributed her genes by
having sex with a
large number of men However, if only a single couple had
started the process, the date of
the pair could have been only about 22,000
years ago.
What upset many scientists was that this time-frame was
uncomfortably close to the
chronologies of Genesis and other ancient
traditons. They had good reason to be worried.
Other studies began to
confirm this recent date. It was found, moreover, that roughly
23,000 years
ago mankind had been located somewhere between Egypt and Mesopotamia
--in
other words, in the region of Israel, at the time of the emergeance of modern
genes.
Studies of domesticated animals were showing similar results,
as were various human
migration studies. Again and again, the era around
25,000 years ago was found to be the
starting point for human civilization.
Ironically, a book had been written back in the
1980's, before all the new
genetic discoveries, which had noted the peculiar fact that all
the first
evidences of human inventiveness and true artistic expression emerged rather
suddenly about 25,000 years ago; the title: The Creative Explosion.
The pieces were coming together rapidly in the late 1990's. By
1996, evidence showed
that the world's males had likewise descended from a
single "genetic Adam" whose date
was uncertain, but compatible with the
22,000-year age. Further confirmation came in
1997 that all males derive
from a single "Adam" and that mankind had not come together
from multiple
simultaneous parallel populations developing in different areas, but from
a
single population--and apparently a single couple--in one specific area:
Near Israel.
According to both Islamic and Jewish tradition, the
Garden of Eden was located in the
viciinity of Jerusalem. Although the
Greeks spoke of Atlantis as a kind of Paradise, it
was not their Garden of
Eden, which they had located in the land of "Cohchis" where the
Grove of
fruit trees was guarded by a Dragon or winged serpent-god. Cholchis was to
be
found by sailing south and east of Greece, but its exact location was
uncertain.
The Nazis searched for Paradise in Tibet because they
believed Helena Blavatsky's
claim that she had seen an ancient book in India
which said survivors of the Deluge had
landed atop mountains north of India
around 9,549 BC. The Nazis assumed these were
the Himalayas, but they could
just as easily have been the mountains of eastern Turkey.
The Nazis forgot
that the myths of India come from a people who had migrated into the
Indus
valley from the north after the Mohenjo-Daro civilization collapsed c. 1,500
BC.
But Blavatsky wrote about survivors of the Deluge, not of the original
Paradise.
Much confusion exists between the paradise-like Atlantis
and the original Paradise of
the Garden of the first couple. Francis Bacon,
the famous occultist said to have edited the
King James Bible, was writing a
book when he died called The New Atlantis, in which he
argued for
America being the remnant of Atlantis and a pre-flood Paradise.
In
the Middle East there is no uncertainty. The Garden was located in the region
of
Jerusalem. Genesis implies that Abraham and Lot had seen it during their
travels:
"And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of
Jordan, that it was well-
watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed
Sodom and Gomorrah, even as
THE GARDEN OF THE LORD, like the land of
Egypt, as you come to Zoar."
[Gen. 13:10]
Notice how casually the comparison
to the Garden is inserted along with an ordinary
geographic reference to a
place in Egypt, apparently the area near the Nile Delta from
which Abraham
and Lot had recently come. The obvious implication of the passage is
that
Abraham and Lot had also recently passed through "the Garden of the Lord"
along
their journeys. And it was seemingly prior to their going into Egypt
because Egypt is
mentioned after the Garden. Of course, the scribes knew
that Abraham had passed by
the mountains of Moriah around Jerusalem before
going on to Egypt. Abraham knew of
these mountains because he was able to
recognize them from afar off when he later would
bring Isaac there.
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