8 October 2008 by Ronald.

I titled my last post “Eden is a post-flood land, according to the Bible.” This title is wrong, and I apologize for any confusion it may have caused. I want to be clear about exactly what I mean to say. It is my position that Eden is not only a pre-flood land, but that the Bible is fairly clear that it can also be located on a post-flood landscape, despite whatever changes it may have undergone during the flood. This means that the flood of Noah could not have been nearly as devastating as AiG says it was, whether it was global in extent or not, and it also could not have been responsible for the deposition of most of the fossiliferous rock around the world, since if it was it would have covered Eden over, or completely destroyed it. In either case, Eden would not be locatable on a post-flood landscape and would contradict what Genesis 2:8-14 says.

On the other hand, the author of the passage in question (who very likely was also the author of the flood account) could have been mistaken about Eden being locatable on the post-flood globe. But either road you take, AiG is in a real dilemma here. If they deny that the flood was utterly devastating as they presently claim it to have been, then they essentially give up the central tenet of their scenario and their whole system will crumble – much of what they’ve written (and indeed have made a lot of money on) would be useless. If instead they go with the option that that the account in Genesis 2:8-14 is mistaken, then they will give up their theological position that the Bible is inerrant. If the Bible is not inerrant, then perhaps it is also mistaken about the flood account.

AiG holds strongly to the idea that they have interpreted the flood account correctly, and that it says, with little room for doubt, that the flood was global in its extent, and was a catastrophe so devastating that the surface of the earth was forever changed – and to a great extent. Indeed it deposited most of the sedimentary, fossil-bearing rock that can be found the world over, which is miles-thick in places. But whether this interpretation is true of the world we live in ultimately rests on the principle of biblical infallibility. This principle is more fundamental than that particular interpretation of the flood account, so in order to preserve it (by not denying Genesis 2:8-14 is mistaken), then the only way out is to admit that the flood account cannot bear that interpretation. But this, as I said before, will basically dash most of what AiG teaches to pieces.

At this point, I would like to turn back to some of Dr. Walker’s remarks about research programs that try to locate the area of Eden – in particular Dr. Juris Zarins’s account. We saw that he dismissed any such attempts without paying much attention to them because he believes that it is an impossible task. But we also saw that this is not the case, according to the Bible itself. Dr. Walker says that these attempts are based on a superficial reading of Genesis 2:8-14 – someone skims the text and sees that it barely mentions the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and immediately assumes that these must be the same Tigris and Euphrates Rivers we know today. However, a more careful reading of this passage will show that indeed the post-flood author believed Eden to be locatable on a post-flood landscape. It would appear then that it is Dr. Walker who is doing the superficial reading and assuming. I say superficial because if he read it more carefully he would see what I’ve been arguing, and that it conflicts with his interpretation of the flood account. I say assuming because he assumes that Dr. Zarins and others had not actually read it as close as they should – or perhaps failed to interpret the flood account “correctly.” He doesn’t show that their readings and interpretations are inadequate – he just says they are.

It’s also very clear that Zarins’s conclusions were not at all based on a couple of place names. Rather, “Tigris” and “Euphrates” were his starting points, and from that he showed that the other two rivers, the Pishon and Gihon, could be accounted for. Moreover, he drew on the fact that the characteristics of Havilah (there being gold, bdellium, and onyx stone there) match what we know about the area today. He argued that “Cush” was misinterpreted as being Ethiopia and should instead be identified with Iran. The point is there is much more to Zarins’s account and it is not at all superficial.

Dr. Walker also says, “Note also that the Bible speaks of one river breaking into four, only two of which are called the Tigris and Euphrates. This is not what is found in the Middle East today at either of the sites proposed.” Reading this one wonders whether he even read Zarins’s account at all, because Zarins argues that he has good reason to believe that the other two rivers correspond to features that we do find in the Middle East today. That is his whole argument! Besides, Dr. Walker, being someone who writes on geological topics for AiG, ought to know that a lot could change in the thousands of years between now and when Genesis 2:8-14 was written. But reading that account anyways shows that only two of the four rivers were flowing at the time this passage was written. So, in this way, the information the passage gives us is a lot more like what we do find in the Middle East today than he thinks.

Dr. Walker is wrong. Not only is he wrong, but the response he gives to Zarins and others is completely inadequate to protect against what AiG should recognize as the biggest thorn in the side of their system. Now there is a biblical account that, interpreted plainly, is in direct conflict with the way they interpret other parts of the Bible, in particular the flood account which is of utmost importance to them. AiG owes us an explanation – something more than a half-hearted attempt to deflect people’s attention. I don’t believe they are doing that on purpose, it’s just the effect that this article by Walker happens to have. However, I do not believe that this is an obstacle AiG can overcome, if they hope to keep their interpretation of the flood of Noah intact. A plain reading of Genesis 2:8-14 shows, without a doubt, that the author of it believed that Eden could be located, if one desired, on a post-flood landscape. Coupled with the principle of biblical infallibility, for the sake of argument, Eden can be located on a post-flood landscape. Since that is so, the flood of Noah was not at all as devastating as AiG lets on. Indeed, it must not have been very devastating at all.

How did AiG go wrong, then? I think that Dr. Walker himself gives us a good answer. He says, “This shows how carefully we must read all Scripture. We must never re-interpret Scripture just to make some outside evidence support an event of the Bible.” Exactly, Dr. Walker. AiG went wrong because it did not follow this advice. They did not read Genesis 2:8-14 carefully enough. Rather, they re-interpreted the flood account to say that the flood was global and absolutely devastating, just to make the outside evidence of the existence of fossil-bearing rock support the flood event itself. The flood of Noah cannot explain the existence of the fossil-bearing rock, so this is something that Christianity still must grapple with.

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7 October 2008 by Ronald.

Since my last post I’ve been trying to structure the progression of my arguments in a congenial way, but it’s proved to not be as easy as I thought. Therefore, I will present what I have over the next couple of posts and hope for the best.

To begin establishing my conclusions, I first need to consider the passage of Genesis chapter 2 that concerns the location of the garden of Eden. There are definite indicators as to its whereabouts, but the question is, “Is it a pre-flood or post-flood location?” As we saw, Dr. Walker believes it is a pre-flood location, but I aim to show that a good interpretation of the passage proves that the author of that passage intended to convey that Eden was able to be located on a landscape contemporaneous to the writing – that is, on a post-flood landscape.

Most scholars attribute authorship of the book of Genesis to Moses. If you are not one to agree with that, then perhaps at least you would concede that whoever wrote the book was closely associated with Moses. I will not go into details, as I think they are pretty irrelevant to what I want to show here, but generally speaking, whoever wrote the passage in Genesis about the location of Eden was a post-Eden, post-flood descendant of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Furthermore, the account was most likely written by an Israelite during captivity in Egypt, during the wandering in the deserts of Arabia, or shortly after the occupation of Canaan. This gives us two aspects of the point of view of the author, which we will use to help us interpret the passage. The first aspect is temporal – the account was written at a time much later than Eden and the flood of Noah, making these events past events relative to the passage. The second aspect is spatial – the location of the author of the passage was somewhere in Egypt, Arabia, or Canaan.

Now that we understand that the author had a particular point of view with respect to time and location (as indeed all authors do), we should also understand that if the text was meant to convey statements of truth about the past, the present, and geographical features to its audience, rather than just allegorical explanations, then the author would give indicators relative to his and his audience’s point of view (here I take it that the author’s audience was the nation of Israel who lived at the same time or later, and in roughly the same place as, the author). There should be two types of indicators, temporal and spatial, which correspond to the author’s temporal and spatial points of view.

For instance, let’s assume that I live in New York City and I am writing a description of my old hometown to an audience of, say, 50 people who live on my block, and I intend for them to read it almost immediately after I finish it. Furthermore, let’s assume that I want to give them some glimmer of where my home town is located, and it just so happens that my hometown is in rural Ohio. But let’s say these people have never heard of Ohio and have no clue what the word “rural” means. I could explain to them the meaning of the word, but suppose that I want my account to be short and that they probably would not grasp the concept even if I took the time to explain it. In order to convey what I wanted to, I might say, “My hometown is in Ohio, in the West.” When I indicate the direction of my hometown, I indicate it relative to my audience’s location. It would make no sense if I indicated the direction relative to California because then it would be in the East, and when my audience reads the account of my hometown they would interpret it as being east of them, in the Atlantic Ocean. But, of course, this is not what I mean.

Similarly, if I want to convey things that took place in my hometown at a certain time, I would use time indicators that are relative to when my audience will read my account. If my hometown still exists, then I will say that it is there, rather than was there. If there are horses there still today, I would tell them that there are horses there. Conversely, if there were horses there in the past (relative to now), but something happened and all of the horses either died out or were moved away so that there were no more horses left in my hometown, I would tell them that horses were there. Now if a long time passes after I have written my account and horses, let’s say, have been moved back in, my account would say, “horses were there,” but it would be the case that horses now are there. Of course, this is because things change over time, but it would be true that at the time of my writing, there were no horses there, but it was the case that horses were there in the past relative to the time I wrote my account.

This is all pretty straightforward and should be easy, but I mention it because I think it will enable us to interpret the Genesis passage better. I think that because, firstly, people today do not read or write very well, and if I were to say something like, “Horses were there,” that could also be taken to mean something like “Horses were there when I was there,” and that would not discount that horses might still be there today. But your English teacher will try to get you to write correctly, and only say “Horses were there” only if that is not the case now. I also think that it will aid interpretation because, secondly, even if people can read and write well, they tend to forget common rules of grammar and logic when they read the Bible, favoring traditional interpretations instead, or the interpretation that their Church tells them is the right one.

Looking at the passage, then, we will see that temporal and spatial indicators relative to the author’s and the audience’s point of view are very telling. I will reproduce the passage here for ease of access, and I will underline the important temporal and spatial indicators.

And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. (Genesis 2:8-14)

It is worth noting initially that the events of this part of Genesis are supposed to have taken place in the author’s past. The second part of the passage above, however, stands out from the rest of the text and does not seem to be relating any narrative story. Rather, it is saying something about the landscape surrounding Eden. The first part of the passage is part of the narrative, however, but it is curious that the author needed to mention that Eden is “in the East.” This detail is not important to the events of the story, since they would make perfect sense if the detail is omitted. If it was omitted, however, the audience might not know what Eden means, except that maybe it is the name of some distant land. But the author also says that it is “in the East.” East of what? Apparently the only interpretation that makes sense is that Eden is in the East relative to where the audience that the author intended to write to was located at the time of reading. This is perhaps the most important indicator of the whole passage, since it locates Eden in a definite direction on the post-flood landscape.

Verse 10 (beginning, “A river flowed…”) presents some difficulties in interpretation, but they are not at all important to what I want to show (unless someone could show that they are). I did however want to point out that there are indicators present in this verse, and that it says that one river flowed out of Eden (somewhere) and at the garden separated into four other rivers.

The first river is called the Pishon. Notice that there is a temporal indicator that says that the flowing of this river was in the past (it flowed, but it does no longer). Furthermore, when it flowed, it did so around the whole land of Havilah. The indicators we get about the land of Havilah is that its gold is good (not was good), and that bdellium and onyx stone are (not were) there. So, it appears that while the river may no longer flow around that land, relative to the time of writing, the land itself is still there, and still bears those natural resources. The absence of a spatial indicator about this land means that perhaps the author’s audience was at least somewhat familiar with it, if having only heard about it.

The second river is called the Gihon, and here we find a similar situation concerning its flow. It flowed (not flows) around the whole land of Cush. No spatial indicators about the land are given, meaning once again that perhaps this land was in some way familiar to the audience. If it was a pre-flood land, we would expect them to somehow know about it, perhaps having heard stories. There are reasons, however, which I will mention shortly, why this should not be interpreted as a pre-flood land.

The third river is called the Tigris, and it appears that this river still flows at the time of writing, since the past tense flowed is not used as it was to describe the previous two rivers. Moreover, this river flows east of Assyria, which is another spatial indicator. I will come back to this, but for now realize that the author switched from using flowed to using flows. This in itself is very telling, since if this was a pre-flood river, it must somehow still be flowing!

The fourth river is called the Euphrates, and this is all that is mentioned. There are no temporal or spatial indicators, meaning that probably the author assumed that his audience was somehow familiar with this river – perhaps even more familiar with it than any of the others. Another thing to notice about this river is that it is the Euphrates, not was. It is the same for all the other rivers, even the ones that no longer flow, indicating that perhaps the audience was familiar with these names already.

There is nothing here like high-order hermeneutics that I use to interpret this passage. It should be plain to anyone who knows how to read, and to read carefully, that the author at least believed that he was speaking of Eden as a post-flood landscape. I will here give more credence to the principle of biblical infallibility and conclude that the land the author is describing, the land of Eden, is in fact a post-flood land, and so could be located on a post-flood landscape.

There are some other important features about the passage that I think need to be elucidated, as they will provide more confirmation. Assyria is mentioned in the passage. This could be a reference to the whole Assyrian Empire, but the empire did not flourish until much later than the time the account was likely written. It more probably refers to the city-state of Ashur (or Assur) since this is what the Hebrew of the word is. There is no reason to suppose it refers to a pre-flood Ashur, however, except by utilizing the very interpretation I wish to refute. It is also very interesting to note that the passage says that the Tigris river flows (again present tense) east of Ashur. If this Ashur does indeed refer to the post-flood city state of Ashur, as I claim it does, then it is highly coincidental that the (post-flood?) Tigris River also flows on the east side of it. This is confirmed by looking up maps of the Middle East, a research project that can be done completely on the internet. In fact, I grabbed this shot off of Google Earth:

Havilah and Cush were also names of post-flood descendants of Noah, and the lands of the same names were probably named after them. If you would like to find this same view on Google Earth, search for “Assur.” It is located at 35°27’21.63”N Latitude, 43°15’40.66”E Longitude. You might have to zoom out and scroll around a bit to confirm that the river right next to it is indeed the Tigris River. I assure (no pun intended) you that it is. A good map showing Ashur and the Tigris is located here: http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/sarasvati/html/Iraq_Site_150dpi.gif

This has been quite a long post, and I still have a little more to talk about. Next time I will say a little more about the dilemma this puts Answers in Genesis in. I will also look at some more of Dr. Tas Walker’s remarks about Zarins’s research, asking whether they are fair or not. I will do this because I believe that this location is, indeed, the area of Eden.

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29 September 2008 by Ronald.

Dr. Tas Walker, a representative of Answers in Genesis, wrote a brief rebuttal in 2001 to claims that the garden of Eden has been found. In it he addresses the two main candidates, the northern location, and the southern location. I very shortly outlined a little about the southern location in my last post, as it is the most compelling. The northern location has some connection to another topic I want to write on this blog about - the homeland of Abraham, but I do not find it a very viable location for the much earlier and (supposedly) pre-flood land of Eden.

Dr. Walker asks, “What are we to think of such claims?” That is, how can one committed to AiG’s position on the natural history of the earth reason with and provide an answer to claims that the biblical garden of Eden (or at least its geographical location) have been found? He points out that “[b]ecause the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are clearly named in Genesis, it has been thought to be in the Middle East.” Presumably this is because there are two rivers of the same name in the middle east today, so it is only natural to be drawn to them. Speaking of Zarins, he says,

some scholars have claimed that the Garden of Eden was situated at the head of the Persian Gulf, where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers run into the sea. The site is now under water. Archaeologist Juris Zarins researched this area using information from many different sources including LANDSAT images from space. Under this theory, the Bible’s GihonRiver would correspond with the Karun River in Iran, and the Pishon River would correspond to the Wadi Batin river system that once drained the central part of the Arabian Peninsula.

This is a very fair treatment of Zarins theory, according to the article I mentioned in my last post. Dr. Walker understands what Zarins is saying, and can not be faulted for misunderstanding. Dr. Walker does not discuss this theory in particular any more, nor does he discuss the northern site in any further detail. Rather, he considers them both as being the same kind of thing (that is, a claim to the location of the garden of Eden on the surface of the modern globe) and seeks to dismiss the kind, and thus with it all the species of that kind (northern and southern sites). He asks,

So, we are faced with two competing sites for the Garden of Eden—one is in the mountains of eastern Turkey and the other submerged beneath the waters of the Persian Gulf. It would be hard to find a greater contrast, geographically, in elevation, or in environment. Yet, both sites are said to confirm the accuracy of the Bible. What are we to believe?

He mentions that they both confirm the accuracy of the Bible since the proponents of each theory claim to have found the respective sites by guidance of the Bible. In this sense such claims would seem very attractive to Bible believers. But, Dr. Walker goes on to answer the question he asks:

What are we to believe? Neither! It is clear that neither site corresponds with the Biblical Garden of Eden. Each site only matches some of the details, and these are only superficial. Both sites conflict with other important information from the Bible.

I would disagree that the detail-matches of Zarin’s theory are only superficial, and I will give reasons for this later, but for now I want to explore what exactly Dr. Walker’s objections are. I do agree, however, that the details given for the northern site ARE only superficial. Another quote from Walker:

The answer is obvious once we understand that the Bible describes a global cataclysm—Noah’s Flood—which destroyed the entire world, including the Garden of Eden. Everything that existed before the Flood was ‘deluged and destroyed’ (2 Peter 3:5–6). The Flood waters covered the highest mountains of the day (Genesis 7:19–20). We see the evidence of this cataclysm in the billions of fossils buried in sedimentary rock layers deposited from water all over the earth. This evidence is apparent in the rocks in Turkey and the Middle East where large areas of fossil-filled, sedimentary rock cover the land. Indeed, the pre-Flood vegetation buried deep underground in the Middle East now provides much of our global oil requirements. It is obvious that the present Tigris and Euphrates Rivers formed after the Flood, and on top of sediment laid down by the Flood. Thus, the Garden of Eden can’t be located in the Middle East (either in Turkey or the Persian Gulf) on top of rocks laid down by the Flood.

Without being deflected into discussions of interpretation regarding 2 Peter 3:5-6 and Genesis 7:19-20, from this quote we see that Dr. Walker is committed to the early-earth scenario of AiG that I had outlined in my first and second posts on this topic. It is because of this commitment that he rejects the possibility that the garden can be located today. The garden that the Bible mentions was completely and utterly destroyed, and subsequently buried under vast amounts of (fossil-bearing) sedimentary rock. Since both locations posited for the location of the garden are replete with such sedimentation, this should confirm for us that the garden is beyond locatablity. The most we can say is that its location is somewhere under all that stuff.

What are we to make, however, of the fact that the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are indeed in the Middle East, aside from the “fact” that those rivers we all know formed during post-flood processes? Well, as Dr. Walker says,

If we were to base our conclusions simply on geographical names, then we could hardly find a better match than the delightful, seaside town of Eden, 400 km south of Sydney in Australia. Yet, it is clear that this town cannot be the Biblical Garden of Eden. Obviously, the original settlers thought ‘Eden’ would be a nice name for their town. In the same way, the present Tigris and Euphrates Rivers have nothing to do with the rivers described in Genesis 2, except for their names.

He suggests that the descendants of Noah, who did not perish in the same flood that destroyed the garden, Eden, and its surrounding landscape, settled in the area of ancient Mesopotamia, found the two rivers there, and re-named them after rivers they heard about, or even possibly knew, from the pre-flood days.

I will save my objections for next time, as this post was only meant to outline how AiG, or at least one representative from that organization, has answered the claim that the garden of Eden has, or even can be, found.

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29 September 2008 by Ronald.

It has happened to me enough times to slightly anger me that when I am discussing something with someone, they don’t seem to grasp basic concepts of logic. For instance, someone was discussing politics with me and advanced an argument. I countered the argument by using the same logical structure with a different subject and predicate, and deduced a conclusion that the person would not accept. In logic, this is known as a logical comparison, and can be used to effect a reductio ad absurdum. If the same logical structure of one argument used to draw a conclusion favorably is used draw another conclusion unfavorably, then something has gone wrong. There is something wrong with the logical structure of the argument. I use this tactic to show precisely this, that the conclusion drawn does not necessarily follow from the premises given, and therefore a logical fallacy has been committed.

Yet when I do this, people commonly object and say, “now you’re talking about something completely different.” Well, yes, in a sense I am, but the logic is the same, and that ought to concern this person more than it does me. The logical structure of an argument is independent of its content, and this is a very basic point in the study of logic.

What annoys and even slightly angers me is that some people I have discussions with are very opinionated and pretend to be “in the know” about matters of politics, science, philosophy, and theology. However, they do nothing more than repeat arguments that they’ve heard other people say. Now perhaps the arguments are good (I find most of the time they aren’t), but what really gets me is that it seems that these people don’t even understand the arguments that they are forwarding. The just repeat what they’ve heard others say. They just feel, passionately, about some topic or other, and they reason according to feeling rather than logic. And then, when I try to reason with them, they color me highly suspect, and think I am just avoiding their conclusions and dodging the issues.

Seriously, one day I walked into a used book store, and it so happened that the owner of the store was running for city council. I asked him for a book on logic, and he didn’t even know what logic was. Needless to say, he didn’t get my vote.

It is not difficult to do a search on logic and find thousands of results. I have a logic textbook by Irving Copi and Carl Cohen that cost me almost $100.00. It’s a very good book to have, but I am fairly sure that one can find everything that’s in that book on the internet somewhere. And even if one can’t, one can find enough that can get him reasoning correctly.

Start out with studying informal fallacies. Learn what they are, why they are fallacies, and how to apply them to your own reasoning and to others’ arguments. Include also the formal fallacies “affirming the consequent” and “denying the antecedent,” and learn how to “hear” them. If you have a firm grasp of these concepts, you can “hear” that something isn’t quite right about an argument that commits one of these fallacies. When you get good, you can “hear” the fallacy and call it out by name even when the argument is not stated clearly and straightforward.

If you want to discuss things about religion, philosophy, etc… or, in fact, if you want to discuss anything intelligently at all, then learn to reason correctly. Learn what an argument is and how to make correct ones. Otherwise, you are merely expressing opinion, and spouting words that really don’t mean anything at all. You can neither expect to make a convincing argument to someone who does understand logic,  nor protect yourself from someone else’s bad arguments unless you undrerstand logic.

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29 September 2008 by Ronald.

Some people are interested in the location of the garden of Eden of the Bible, and some have actively searched for it. Perhaps the garden, if it exists, would not be as it was at the time described in the Bible (that is, paradise), but at least we might be able to pin down the location on the surface of the globe, and study its archaeology.

In my last post on this topic, I said that this post would highlight one objection against the AiG scenario of primordial earth, but that’s not quite accurate. The article I am talking about is not offered as an objection per se, but one might take the findings of that article and cite them as support for an objection against the AiG scenario. I know it’s been quite a while since I last posted on this topic, so you may need to go back and re-read my previous posts to recall what I am talking about here.

There have been mainly two modern locations suggested for the garden of Eden - one in Turkey, at the heads of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (the northern loacation) and the other in southern Mesopotamia, under what is now the northern part of the Persian Gulf (the southern location). In this post I want to outline why some people think the garden was located in what is now the southern location, since it is the most compelling account. And, as we shall see, the rebuttal from a prominent AiG representative dismisses all supposed locations for the garden on the face of the earth today, and insists that want of knowledge of such location arises from a failure to apprehend what the Bible says. This, I will argue, puts the AiG position in a terrible dilemma.

The article that posits the southern location can be read here: http://ldolphin.org/eden/. The article was written by Dora Jane Hamblin, who relates to us the findings of archaeologist Juris Zarins. The article assumes that we can follow the language of Moses, who supposedly wrote the book of Genesis, and use it as a guide to help us pinpoint the location. As it goes, the Tigris and the Euphrates, referred to in the book of Genesis, are the same Tigris and Euphrates we know today. But what about the other two rivers mentioned? For the Pishon, this is what the article says:

The Pison can be identified from the Biblical reference to the land of Havilah, which is easily located in the Biblical Table of Nations (Genesis 10:7, 25:18) as relating to localities and people within a Mesopotamian-Arabian framework. Supporting the Biblical evidence of Havilah are geological evidence on the ground and LANDSAT images from space. These images clearly show a “fossil river,” that once flowed through northern Arabia and through the now dry beds, which modern Saudis and Kuwaitis know as the Wadi Riniah and the Wadi Batin. Furthermore, as the Bible says, this region was rich in bdellium, an aromatic gum resin that can still be found in north Arabia, and gold, which was still mined in the general area in the 1950s.

So, the general testimony of the Bible concerning this river fits the evidence of what is found in this area today. Since it fits quite well, it is quite compelling indeed, and this would put one closer to pin-pointing the location of the garden, and would approve of the general historical reliability of the Bible. The Gihon river, the last river mentioned in the Biblical account, is much more elusive.

Drawing on the fact that “Ethiopia” may be a mistranslation of the word “Kush”, and further LANDSAT imaging,

Zarins now believes the Gihon is the Karun River, which rises in Iran and flows southwesterly toward the present Gulf. The Karun … was a perennial river which, until it was dammed, contributed most of the sediment forming the delta at the head of the Persian Gulf.

It is concluded, then, that

[T]he Garden of Eden, on the geographical evidence, must have been somewhere at the head of the Gulf at a time when all four rivers joined and flowed through an area that was then above the level of the Gulf.

If the reader is interested in following this topic more, let him or her do further research on his or her own. My purpose here is to outline that some people believe that the garden can be located on earth’s surface today. That is, even if it is not nearly as it was then (according to this account, it is under water!), at least we can know where abouts it was. I furthermore wanted to outline this article because it in part evoked a response from Answers in Genesis, which I will be outlining in my next post. It was important for AiG to respond, because if this article is right, then it stands in direct conflict with what AiG teaches about Noah’s flood.

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7 September 2008 by Ronald.

Since I am able to get parts printed for relatively cheap where I work, I decided to have more Y Wing parts printed. While I wait for those parts, I furthermore decided to glue some detail onto the fuselage halves I already have. I originally wasn’t going to glue anything on to them, but if enough people are interested, I want to make this into a garage kit. Even if they aren’t, I want to be able to make more than one for myself. So, I sanded the halves down and started gluing. Here are some pictures of where I am at as of right now.

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19 August 2008 by Ronald.

 I started cutting my 5″ Plastruct hemispheres for the Studio Scale TIE Fighter. Things were going good, but I ended up messing them both up. It’s alright though, because I will order a couple more, and I learned much about how to cut them correctly and avoid some pitfalls. The cross-tube is a 1 1/4″ butyrate tube, not PVC. The final model will have an aluminum tube to prevent bending over time under the weight of the solar panels.

While I wait to be able to get some more hemispheres, I created another 1:48 TIE Fighter solar panel. This one I was much more careful with and took my time to get everything right. I am uploading the full-size photo so you can see that the scribed lines match up perfectly:

newtiepanel.jpg

I still need to make the wing “star.” That will be cut out of 0.040″ PVC Foam. I will attach all the details to it, adhere it to the panel, then make a mold. This is only a one-sided panel, but when I make the mold, I will use the same side two times, so that the castings will come out 2-sided.

If anyone would want to do the same thing I am doing here, or  if someone is just curious, I am providing PDFs of my Solar Panel patterns. I printed these out on a laser printer at max resolution and set the scaling to zero (this is very important). Then, I sprayed a low-tack 3M adhesive to the back of the sheet and stuck it on the sheet to be cut. I used a straightedge to cut right along the lines. I will be making more of these as the build moves along.

1-48-tie-wing.pdf

wing-frame.pdf

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15 August 2008 by Ronald.

I screwed up my TIE Bomber (the center box is out of square with the body tubes a whole 1/16″!) so one night while I was bored, I threw together a TIE Fighter Solar Panel using some plastic sheet. It is half the size of the studio model, putting it at 1:48 scale, and twice the size of the Fine Molds TIE. The Fine Molds kit is supposed to be 1:72, but it is actually 1:96. This is because they went off the measurements of the supposed “real” TIE, and scaled accordingly. However, the Studio X Wings are certainly 1:24 (because of the size of the pilot figure and the R2 unit) and the Studio TIEs are in-scale with them.

Here is the beginning (a 0.010″ sheet of styrene) of my panel next to the AMT/Ertl TIE Fighter panel. This kit is supposed to be “close to” 1:48, but see how much smaller it is? Here are some more shots:

I plan on turning this into a full-fledged 1:48 TIE Fighter, after I get some 2.5″ hemispheres and 1.5″ dished domes from Plastruct. The cross-tube diameter needs to be 5/8″. I have some PVCA pipe for that, which is better than the butyrate pipe from Plastruct because 1/4″-20 hex nuts fit snugly inside the PVCA (for mounting points), with little or no need for glue after tapping them in with a mallet. There are some things I don’t like about this panel though, so I will probably make a new one. I’ve thought of some techniques to use to iron out all the little imperfections, so we’ll see how it turns out.

P.S. Sorry about the dark and slightly blurry photos. I will adjust the lighting and take steadier pictures next time.

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30 July 2008 by Ronald.

Some things are changing, and I am going to be devoting more time to model building projects, as well as my writing and editing projects. Here are some updates about the models I am building.

Above is a shot that I was finally able to get of the 1:48 Y Wing body halves I had printed on a 3D printer.  The left piece is the top portion of the body, and the right piece the bottom. You might not be able to make it out in the shot above, but the bottom piece has a nylon hex nut in that hole that will serve as a mounting point. Here is a shot from the inside:

The red stuff is polymer clay that I used in the molding process. It stains and is very difficult to clean off, so I am going to switch to white clay of the same brand. The brown stuff is support material that the printer lays down. It was supposed to be dissolved away in a solution, but I got the job done for free and it was getting late. I didn’t press the issue with the lab tech, and dug most of it out myself.

I am picking my TIE Bomber back up, and here I am test-fitting some 3mm red LEDs. I am going to have to do some manipulating to get them to fit in there right, and to light up. There is another piece like this on the ship, so there will be 4 LEDs altogether. They are supposed to be the “ion” engines.

I am waiting on a few things - a Tamiya 1:700 Battleship Prince of Whales and hopefully some more 3D printouts, and I will be finishing this model first. At the same time, I will be finishing up my Fine Molds 1:72 Y Wing. After I finish that and the TIE Bomber, I am going to build a Jedi Training Remote, which should be fairly simple. The 6″ Plastruct hemispheres for it are being shipped as I type this post. I already have all the kit parts I need for it. After that, I am not sure what I will do. I have ideas of accurizing the AMT Ertl X Wing kit, building a Studio Scale X Wing, building a Studio Scale TIE Fighter/Interceptor, or building a 3′ Star Destroyer (A New Hope style). I am not getting ahead of myself, just cutting my work out for myself. Like I said, I am going to devote time out of the week for it.

Meanwhile, my 1:48 Y Wing is on hold until I finish designing the head section and get it printed out. Also, my Studio Scale Y Wing is on hold until I can make 3D drawings of it, build a test mock-up, and get it cut out on a CNC router. I may later choose to just build it.

I will post progress here. Check back. Until next time…

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14 July 2008 by Ronald.

The title page, dedication, table of contents, and Book 1 of William Whewell’s Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1846) are finished. There are 10 books altogether, and I intend on completing one book a week until it is finished. I will then make it available for purchase in my Lulu store as a glossy hardcover. The finished product should be roughly 600-700 pages. The preview, which will be made available at the same time as the book, will show the effort I put into this. It will not merely be a reprint of facsimiles, but copied into a word processor from raw text and edited and reformatted word for word, using images of the original as reference. This would be a valuable addition to the bookshelf of anyone interested in the topic.

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