Where in the world is Biblical Eden...

When looking at the map comparing biblical geography to archeologist geography based on intense research, there are major discrepancies. Those theorizing that the Hebrew Bible, where this geography came from, could have discrepancies since they were trying to piece together a history that happened 1,000 years before they had a written record of the Hebrew Bible. Now that being said, one major commonality between the two is the Axis Mundi that is Jerusalem. An Axis Mundi is a theory proposed by Mircea Eliade stating how there are some places on Earth where the connection between mortals and the spiritual world is widely felt. This theory sets the tone for our whole class, given that there must be a reason for thousands of years people have fought for, claimed, and reclaimed Jerusalem as a sacred place. 

The current geographical history around Jerusalem shows that before it became the Jerusalem we know today, it was still a place of worship for early pagan religions. Why might we ask that Jerusalem is so attractive of a location? This again goes back to the idea of the Axis Mundi. As Karen Armstrong put it so eloquently, "Even today, our scientific rationalism has not been able to replace the old sacred geography entirely. Ancient conceptions of holy topography still affect the history of Jerusalem and have been espoused by people who would not normally consider themselves religious." (Armstrong, p.26). We can only theorize why the ancient people were attracted to the land that started as Cannan that later became Jerusalem. Armstrong explains how mountains have always been considered sacred because their height was considered to be a representation of touching the heavens. People found these mountainous regions to be places of worship, so it makes sense that Jerusalem being protected inland and having Mount Zion would attract people to seek a higher power there. 

Today even people who aren't religious find themselves having spiritual experiences on mountain tops and in nature. Now the geography of all the holy sites might get a little jumbled as some of them, like Eden, make no logical sense today of where you can find them. However, as Armstrong explains, the stories passed down about these locations are less about accuracy and more about getting a message across. For Eden, that message would be that humanity lost God's trust and therefore could not re-enter the garden of Eden, so maybe that's a reason the geographical explanation of Eden in the Hebrew bible does not make sense. This idea is embodied in the message that Mircea Eliade tries to explain. An Axis Mundi is something felt, an unexplainable gut feeling.