Garden of Eden in Turkey, says Bible scholar
 Studied satellite photos

 Peter Goodspeed

 A California-based Biblical scholar, who recently found what may be the
 remains of Sodom and Gomorrah at the bottom of the Dead Sea, claims to have
 used satellite photographs from the U.S. space agency to locate the Garden of
 Eden -- in eastern Turkey.

 Michael Sanders, director of expeditions for the Mysteries of the Bible
 Research Foundation in Irvine, Calif., said careful study of satellite
 photographs taken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration proves
 the Bible's description of the Garden of Eden is completely, and literally,
 accurate.

 The Book of Genesis in the Bible says: "A river went out of Eden to water the
 garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads." It goes on
 to identify the four rivers as the Pison, the Gihon, the Hiddekel and the
 Euphrates.

 For years, Biblical scholars have debated the exact location and even the
 existence of Eden, a garden paradise from which Adam and Eve were expelled for
 eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

 Eden is variously said to have been located in the Horn of Africa, on the
 Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, on the edge of the Sinai Desert and,
 according to the revelations of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, in
 western Missouri.

 More recently, many Biblical scholars have suggested the Garden of Eden lay at
 the head of the Persian Gulf, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers run into
 the sea.

 Under that theory, the Tigris would match up with the Bible's Hiddekel River,
 the Karun River in Iran would correspond to the Pison and the Gihon River
 would be the Wadi al-Batin river system that once drained the central part of
 the Arabian peninsula.

 Some theorists have gone so far as to suggest the serpent mentioned in the
 Bible's creation story may have been an allegory for the sinuous Shat al-Arab
 waterway at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates.

 But Mr. Sanders now argues the Garden of Eden can be discovered through a
 simple and literal interpretation of the Bible story.

 "It is obvious from the Biblical account, when you read about a river rising
 out of Eden, that rivers don't rise in the desert," he said.

 "With the satellite image, it is just remarkable that there are actually four
 rivers in this region in Turkey."

 By his reckoning, they are the Murat River, which runs through Samsun on the
 coast of the Black Sea, the Tigris, the Euphrates and the north fork of the
 Euphrates.

 He said his discovery dovetails with other recent Biblical studies that
 suggest many Biblical events, from the Garden of Eden to the Great Flood and
 the construction of the Tower of Babel, took place in Turkey, rather than in
 Mesopotamia, which today is part of Iraq.

Oryginal:
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