Where Is The Garden Of Eden Mormon

Question

Dear Gramps,

Is it true that the Garden of Eden was located in Jackson County, Missouri? Moses chapter 3, verse 10 states And I, the Lord God, caused a river to go out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

Two of the three rivers flow into Ethiopia (verse 13), east toward Assyria (verse 14), and the fourth is the Euphrates (verse 14). How can I reconcile these two locations today, one in North America and the other in the Middle East?

Phil

Answer

Dear Phil,

Yes, it's true that the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri. Orson F. Whitney writes,

America, according to Joseph Smith, is the Old World–not the New. The primeval Garden was in that part of Missouri now called Jackson County. Our First Parents, after their expulsion from Eden, dwelt in the place where stood this altar. The Lord named it Adam-ondi-Ahman, 'because it is the place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of Days shall sit, as spoken of by Daniel the Prophet'" (Orson F. Whitney, Saturday Night Thoughts, p.38).

The apparent conflict of location is easily resolved when one considers the cataclysmic changes that have taken place on the earth since the advent of Adam. When Adam lived in the Garden of Eden, all the land masses of the earth were together; there was only one land and one sea. It wasn't until the days of Peleg that the continents were separated. Peleg was born in 2247 B.C., 101 years after the Flood, and lived for 239 years.

And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided (Genesis 10:25).

If one follows the contours of the eastern coast of North and South America and the west coast of Europe and Africa, and the matching contour of the abysmal trench in the Atlantic Ocean, it appears to be one very logical place where such a division could have taken place. And of course that was not the only global cataclysm that has occurred since the advent of Adam. Published in Time Magazine, as I recall, in about 1948, was an article describing a most unusual and little-known major cataclysm. As materials settle to the bottom of the ocean, some of them are ferromagnetic, and align themselves with the magnetic field of the earth. Time Magazine reported that a core had been taken from the material at one point along the abysmal trench, and the magnetic orientation of the material was measured. It was reported that they were able to deduce from measurements on that core that the north and south poles had changed place 167 times, and that the last change took place within historic time! Magnetic evidence of polar reversal has also been found in overlying layers of lava rock.

This change of the poles of the earth has also been amply reported in ancient literature. The Greek historian, Herodotus, b. 484 B.C., reported after a visit to Egypt that the priests there asserted that since the founding of Egypt "four times in this period (so they told me) the sun rose contrary to his wont; twice he rose where he now sets, and twice he set where he now rises" (Herodotus, Book 2, p.142).

Plato wrote in his "Politicus,"

"I mean the change in the rising and setting of the sun and the other heavenly bodies, how in those times they used to set in the quarter where they now rise, and used to rise where they now set . . ." (Plato, Politicus)

The depiction of the earth changing axis is recorded on the ceiling of the tomb of Senmut, who was the architect for Queen Hatshepsut, and is described in several papyri, including the Magical Papyrus Harris and the Papyrus Ipuwer.

So we should have no trouble rationalizing the present location of the four rivers that at an earlier time were described to be near the Garden of Eden.