Eden, Sinai and Iraq

I’m abandoning some of my past speculation about the locations of Kadesh-Barnea and Mt Sinai.  I still think Sinai was in Arabia not the traditional Sinai Peninsula.  But it’s a broad definition of Arabia that includes all of the Arabian Peninsula and everything between the Jordan and Euphrates Rivers.  I now think the Kadesh of the wilderness (or one at least if there were two) was Petra, a theory Josephus expressed and is supported by some today, including many who still support Jabal El-Lawz.

Ezekiel 28:13-14 associates the Garden of Eden with the Holy Mountain of God.  Many use this to support making Eden a location in Judea, like Moriah or Zion.  But the first Holy Mountain of God in The Bible was Mt Sinai.  Perhaps this location was consistently God’s main earthly dwelling place until the construction of the portable Tabernacle in the days of Moses.  The exact phrase "Mountain of God" or "Mount of God" (both the same in the Hebrew) is used outside Ezekiel only of Sinai/Horeb.

This is a good place to remind people that the Garden was probably gone in the Post-Flood world.

Eden was in Mesopotamia.  Search every appearance of the name Eden in The Bible, you’ll find many references ignored in the Garden debate because they are clearly about a Mesopotamian location during the Neo-Assyrian period.  I’ve already addressed those who are confused by thinking Cush only refers to Africa.  The Cush of Mesopotamia was probably Kish and/or the core cities of Nimrod’s Empire, the “Land of Nimrod” of Micah.  Though some have also suggested connecting it with the Kassites.

The Gihon Spring in the City of David is not a river.  Plenty of names are used of more than one location in The Bible, that Gihon has nothing to do with Eden.

Locating where the Sumerian mythology counterpart of the Garden was is complicated by it coming to share a name with a civilization Sumer traded with, Dilmun, possibly located in Bahrain.  What I can gather of it independent of that, seemingly implies a place close to Eridu, where the Abzu Temple was.  Dilmun is called a Mountain at least once.

Another name for Mt Sinai was Horeb.  The spelling in the Hebrew is the same as the word for Sword used in Genesis 3:24 in reference to the Flaming Sword.  Part of the word play of that verse is that word being a bit of a homophone for Cherub, a word also used in Ezekiel 28’s discussion of the Molech of Tyre.

The name of Sinai itself is possibly etymologically related to the name of the connected Wilderness of Sin.  Which may come from the Sinite tribe of Canaan, possibly the same as the Sinim of Isaiah 49:12.  The Sinites aren’t one of the Canaanites who show up again in Joshua and Judges.  Genesis 10:18 says the Canaanites did spread beyond what we properly call Canaan.  So some could easily have gone to modern Iraq, Sinim is defined as a land Israel is returning from.

Sin was the Akkadian (a Semitic language) name for the Mesopotamian Moon god, named Nanna by the Sumerians.  In the past I’ve desired to question the traditional identification of the Ur of Genesis 12 with the Ur of Sumer.  But given how Terah, the name of Abraham’s father, could be interpreted as a variation on the Hebrew word for the moon, Yerah.  Him moving from Ur to Harran is interesting, the older and later centers of Mesopotamian moon worship.  Acts 7 clarified that God first spoke to Abraham before they left for Harran.  Did even Abraham also first encounter Yahuah at Mt Sinai?

Yahuah is obviously not a Moon god, he forbids moon worship.  But it’s possible His preference for a Lunar calendar in His worship may have caused some polytheists to presume Him to be one.  Pagans who encountered the Israelites never denied the existence of their God, just His Superiority.  I’ve discussed before an apparent phonetic similarity between the name Yah and the name of a moon god worshiped in Kemet.  So it may be Sin became a name for a moon god from being linked to the Mountain of Yahuah.  Or that mountain and wilderness was named after Sin because people erroneously thought the God dwelling there was a moon god.

The Sinai is Yemen theory draws a lot on Teman being a name for Yemen, and Habakkuk 3:3 seemingly using Teman as a synonym for Sinai.  But Biblically other uses of Teman are usually about Edom.  The location of Kadesh may be more what that verse had in mind.  And Edom could have controlled more than we usually think.  Something worth keeping in mind when I bring up Bozrah later.  As well as considering how Seir fits into Sinai’s location.

Shiite Muslims seem to view Mesopotamia as equally or even more holy than Arabia.  It has a lot to do with Ali’s association with the region, but they have justifications for making it older.  Karbala, Kufa and Samarra are among particular cities they revere.  Basra is mainly a Shiite city as well.  

Sunni Muslims typically say that Mecca doesn’t just go back to Abraham and Ishmael, but all the way back to being the first Holy Mosque built by Adam.  But the fourth Shiite Imam Zayn al-Abidin said.

 “God chose the land of Karbalā’ as a safe and blessed sanctuary twenty-four thousand years before He created the land of the Ka'bah and chose it as a sanctuary. Verily it (Karbala) will shine among the gardens of Paradise like a shining star shines among the stars for the people of Earth.”. 

If there was more than one Kadesh of the wandering, and one needs to be made much closer to Sinai than Petra.  There are a lot of places in Jordan, Iraq and northern Saudi Arabia to choose from.  Maybe Tema, which was an Ishmaelite settlement, and later become another Holy Place of the Akkadian moon god Sin.  However I think most scholars underestimate how far they could travel in 11 days.

One proposed location for the Garden of Eden is Basra.  A city I have argued could be Eschatological Babylon.

I have argued that The Woman’s hiding place in the Wilderness is the same Wilderness as Exodus and Numbers, and possibly a return to Sinai.  

Later however I argued that the Woman of Revelation 12 and the Woman of Revelation 13 could be the same.  In that the main thing holding me back was that this would make my Sinai being where the Woman returns and the Babylon being in Iraq position probably not compatible anymore.  But did suggest they could be reconciled by expanding the scale of the wandering.  And even suggested that the Bozrah of Micah could be a by name prophecy of the Basra of Iraq.  Either way the Hebrew name Bozrah seems to refer to more than just one location.

Paul is speaking mostly symbolically not Literally when he calls Torah based religion mount Sinai in Galatians 4.  But perhaps it does have a literal application Eschatologically?

This view can be compatible with a traditional identification of Misraim with Kemet (modern Egypt), including maybe Ron Wyatt and Bob Cornuke’s Red Sea crossing site.  Israel had over a month to get to Sinai.  But I should mention I have been considering the alternate Misraim in Arabia view, and will post on it in the future.

Likewise with the traditional location for Midian, many think Sinai wasn’t as close to where Jethro lived as is commonly assumed.  At the same time expanding Midian is viable, they had five Kings after all.

The only thing is I don’t have is a specific mountain to identify with Sinai/Horeb.  I think it’s modern Iraq, probably to the south.  West of the Euphrates, or at least west of where the Euphrates was at the time.  But maybe a bit too far from the rivers to fit what many consider Mesopotamia proper.  Looking at the modern maps, maybe a location in Kuwait could fit?