Bellow the text that was used in the video including parts that didn’t made it into the video and a selection of maps of terrestrial Paradise:
The Biblical account of the garden of Eden has for long preoccupied the minds and imaginations of theologians, believers and countless adventurers of the past.Β Many have attempted to identify the location of the garden and put forward theories ranging from the underground, the north pole and even the surface of the moon. However if the location of the terrestrial paradise is to be understood according to scriptures, there is only one place that fits the description. That place is historic Armenia.
The Bible mentions a spring in the Garden which parts into four major rivers, including Tigris and the Euphrates. Tigris and Euphrates both have their headwaters in the area surrounding Mt. Ararat in historic Armenia. Many Biblical scholars have therefore placed the garden of Eden in Armenia. They have argued that posterity of Seth and Noahβs ark have remained close to Eden. Thus the birthplace of mankind is also the place of rebirth. These accounts are supported by ancient believes of the people of Mesopotamia, who often considered the Armenian Highlands to be the dwellings of the Gods (CyclopΓ¦dia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, 1894).
In his memoirs Lord Byron writes:
βIf the Scriptures are rightly understood, it was in Armenia that Paradise was placed. β Armenia, which has paid as dearly as the descendants of Adam for that fleeting participation of its soil in the happiness of him who was created from its dust. It was in Armenia that the flood first abated, and the dove alighted. But with the disappearance of Paradise itself may be dated almost the unhappiness of the country ; for though long a powerful kingdom, it was scarcely ever an independent one, and the satraps of Persia and the pachas of Turkey have alike desolated the region where God created man in his own image.βΒ – Armenian exercises and poetry, 1886
- Lord Byron (1886)Β Armenian exercises and poetry
That Armenia was once considered the location of terrestrial Paradise can be attested from old maps and theological records. See blow for the maps.
Alessandro Scafi (2007) in his work “Finishing the unfinished: Paradise in Fausto da Longianoβs vernacular translation of Piccolominiβs Cosmographia (1544), describesΒ Fausto and his thoughts on the location of terrestrial Eden. He writes:
“As a possible location, Fausto (1544) proposed Armenia, aΒ region which in the sixteenth century included the area between the upperΒ Euphrates and Lake Urmia, the Black Sea and the Syrian desert. The identityΒ of two of the four rivers named in Genesis, the Tigris and the Euphrates, wasΒ uncontroversial, and both rivers were known to rise in Armenia. The moreΒ problematic Gihon and Pishon could be identified amongst the local riversΒ (for Fausto, the Araxes and the Cyrus).”
- Alessandro Scafi (2007),Β Finishing the unfinished: Paradise in Fausto da Longianoβs vernacular translation of Piccolominiβs Cosmographia (1544)
Joseph E. Duncan (1972) likewise recounts:
“Both Pererius and Lapide had suggested Armenia as logical location for Eden and paradise. Johann Vorstius, maintaining that Scripture clearly stated that the great river arose in Eden itself, also contended that Eden and paradise must be in Armenia.
One of the most complete of the earlier arguments for an Armenian paradise was offered by Carver in a tract publication in 1666β¦ He found the site of Eden in Armenia Major, on the south side of Mount Taurus. He speculated that paradise might have been transformed into a nitrous lake which Pliny had said was located in this area.”
- Joseph E. Duncan (1972) Milton’s Earthly Paradise: A Historical Study of Eden,Β Univ Of Minnesota Press; Minnesota Archive Editions edition (July 6, 1972)
17th century French scholar Joseph Pitton de Tournefort writes:
“And if we may suppose the Terrestrial Paradise to have been a place of considerable extent, and to have retained some of its beauties, notwithstanding the alterations made in the Earth at the Flood, and since that time; I donβt know a finer spot to which to assign this wonderful place, than the Country of the Three-Churches (Echmiadzin-Armenia), about twenty French leagues distant from the Heads of Euphrates and Araxes, and near as many from the Phasis.β – A Voyage Into the Levant (1741)
In their Encyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical literature (1894), John McClintock and James Strong recount nine principal theories of the proposed location of earthly paradise. Armenia is considered the most likely location of Eden.
“The opinion which fixes Eden in Armenia weΒ have placed first, because it is that which has obtainedΒ most general support, and seems nearest the truth.Β (See No. vi.) For if we may suppose that, while CainΒ moved to the East (Gen. iv, IG), the posterity of SethΒ remained in the neighborhood of the primeval seat ofΒ mankind, and that Noah’s ark rested not very far fromΒ the place of his former abode, then Mount Ararat inΒ Armenia becomes a connecting point between the antediluvianΒ and post-diluvian worlds (Gen. viii, 4)”
Eden is shortly described as follows:
“Eden was a tract of country, and that in the mostΒ eligible part of it was the Paradise, the garden of allΒ delights, in which the Creator was pleased to place hisΒ new and pre-eminent creature, with the inferior beingsΒ for his sustenance and solace.”
- John McClintock & James Strong (1894) Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.
“As nearly as we can gather from the Scriptural description,Β Eden was a tract of country, the finest imaginable,Β laying probably between the 35th and the 40thΒ degree of N. latitude, of such moderate elevation, andΒ 80 adjusted, with respect to mountain ranges, and watersheds,Β and forests, as to preserve the most agreeableΒ and salubrious conditions of temperature and all atmosphericΒ changes. Its surface must therefore have beenΒ constantly diversified by hill and plain. In the finestΒ part of this land of Eden, the Creator had formed anΒ enclosure, probably by rocks, and forests, and rivers,Β and had filled it with every product of nature conduciveΒ to use and happiness. Due moisture, of both theΒ ground and the air, was preserved by the streamletsΒ from the nearest hills, and the rivulets from the moreΒ distant; and such streamlets and rivulets, collectedΒ according to the levels of the surrounding countryΒ (“it proceeded from Eden”) flowed off afterwards inΒ four larger streams, each of which thus became theΒ source of a great river.
Here, then, in the south of Armenia, after the explicationΒ we have given, it may seem the most suitableΒ to look for the object of our exploration, the site ofΒ Paradise.”
- John McClintock & James Strong (1894) Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.
That the Biblical rivers cannot be identified with Nile (as some would claim) is described as follows:
“That the Hiddekel (this name is said to be still inΒ use among the tribes who live upon its banksβCol.Chesney, Erp. to Tigris and Euphrates, i, 13) is theΒ Tigris, and the Phrath the Euphrates, has never beenΒ denied, except by those who assume that the wholeΒ narrative is a myth which originated elsewhere, andΒ was adapted by the Hebrews to their own geographicalΒ notions. As the former is the name of the great riverΒ by which Daniel sat (Dan. x, 4), and the latter is theΒ term uniformly applied to the Euphrates in the OldΒ Testament, there seems no reason to suppose that theΒ appellations in Gen. ii, 14 are to be understood in anyΒ other than the ordinary sense. One circumstance inΒ the description is worthy of observation. Of the fourΒ rivers, one, the Euphrates, is mentioned by name only, as if that were sufficient to identify it. The otherΒ three are defined according to their geographical positions,Β and it is fair to conclude that they were thereforeΒ rivers with which the Hebrews were less intimatelyΒ acquainted. If this be the case, it is scarcely possibleΒ to imagine that the Gihon, or, as some say, the Pison,Β is the Nile, for that must have been even more familiarΒ to the Israelites than the Euphrates, and haveΒ stood as little in need of a definition.”
- John McClintock & James Strong (1894) Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.
That Eden is described in a post-deluvian manner as opposed to the Lutherian idea of geography being altered due to the flood is explained as follows:
“Nor will it do toΒ suppose that in former ages great changes had takenΒ place, which have so disguised the rivers in questionΒ that their course, connection, and identity are not nowΒ traceable ; for two of the rivers, at least, remain toΒ this day essentially the same as in all historic times,Β and the whole narrative of Moses is evidently adapted to the geography as it existed in his own day, being constantly couched in the present tense, and in terms of well-known reference as landmarks.
Luther, rejectingΒ the forced interpretations on which the theories ofΒ his time were based, gave it as his opinion that theΒ garden remained under the guardianship of angels tillΒ the time of the Deluge, and that its site was known toΒ the descendants of Adam ; but that by the flood allΒ traces of it were obliterated. But, as before remarked,Β the narrative is so worded as to convey the ideaΒ that the countries and rivers spoken of were still existingΒ in the time of the historian. It has been suggestedΒ that the description of the garden of Eden isΒ part of an inspired antediluvian document (Morren,Β Rosenmiiller’s Geogr. i, 92). The conjecture is beyondΒ criticism ; it is equally incapable of proof or disproof,Β and has not much probability to recommend it. TheΒ effects of the flood in changing the face of countries,Β and altering the relations of land and water, are tooΒ little known at present to allow any inferences to beΒ drawn from them.”
- John McClintock & James Strong (1894) Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.
In his memoirs βArmenia, travels and studiesβ famous Brit Β H. F. B. Lynch writes:
βWhat attracted me to Armenia? One inducement was curiosity : what lay beyond those mountains, drawn in a wide half-circle along the margin of the Mesopotamian plains? The sources of the great rivers which carried me southwards, a lake with the dimensions of an inland sea, the mountain of the Ark, the fabled seat of Paradise.β
- Armenia, travels and studies H. F. B. Lynch (1901)
During her travels in Armenia, missionary Maria A. West wrote:
“This is the Christian Crusade of the nineteenth century ; far exceeding in moral sublimity that of the olden time, when the kings of the earth banded themselves together to rescue the Holy Land from the hand of the Turk ! How wonderful that the Great Commission, the Master s last Command, uttered in this very land, more than eighteen hundred years ago, should have been caught up, and re-echoed in the New World, by a nation not yet a century old ! That scores of its sons and daughters should carry the β glad tidingsβ from the Caspian and Black Seas on the north, beyond the Mediterranean on the south : In the country of Eden, and Ararat, the cradle of the human race.”
- Maria a. West (1875), Romance of Missions: or, Inside Views of Life and Labor, Land of Ararat.
“A lovely lake, like that of Galilee, sleeps within their embrace; a branch of the Euphrates curves its gleaming arm around this wondrous mosaic of emerald and agate, carnelian and onyx, with the golden sunlight resting upon embowered villages, of which we count twenty-five without, and fifty with the aid of a glass, their beaten paths crossing and recrossing the plain, in every direction.
It may indeed have been, as the people say, βthe very Garden of EdenβΒ where Adam and Eve together watched the opening of blushing flowers and the ripening of luscious fruits, after the marriage ceremony β the crowningβΒ as the Orientals call it had been performed ; for, βin the day that God created man male and female created He them, and BLESSED THEM, and CALLED THEIR NAME ADAM.βΒ Here, perhaps, they plucked and ate the forbidden fruit, whose prolific seeds have borne bitter harvest all over the face of the wide, wide world !”
- Maria a. West (1875), Romance of Missions: or, Inside Views of Life and Labor, Land of Ararat.
And this lost Paradise, so long trodden under foot by the Destroyer, βher hedges broken down, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her, wasted by the boar out of the wood, and devoured by the wild beast of the field:β -This vineyard, planted βeastwardβ -by God s βright handβ -at the opening of manβs history – (βa river went out to water it;β and from thence it was parted and became four heads ; and the fourth river is βEuphrates:β) -This long-deserted Garden is to be βregainedβ for the βsecond Adam,β and made to βblossom as the rose;β to β blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing ; the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon ; and the REDEEMED shall walk there.β
- Maria a. West (1875), Romance of Missions: or, Inside Views of Life and Labor, Land of Ararat.
Our national birthday of freedom finds us on these distant heights in the land which was the cradle of the human race the land of Ararat, the country, if not the Garden of Eden, where we may suppose our first parents wandered after their expulsion from Paradise, and obtained their bread by the sweat of their brow. And we, their self-exiled children, are striving to undo the mischief which their disobedience brought on these fair plains, and among these smiling valleys and rugged mountains.
- Maria a. West (1875), Romance of Missions: or, Inside Views of Life and Labor, Land of Ararat.
The Armenian language belongs to the Indo-Germanic family, enriched with many Sanscrit words, but having no affinity to the Semitic, or any of the more modern tongues. The people claim that it was the language of paradise, and will be the language of the heavenly world.
- Maria a. West (1875), Romance of Missions: or, Inside Views of Life and Labor, Land of Ararat.
Selection of antique maps of terrestrial Paradise:


Philippe Buache was one of the most active proponents of the so-called “school of theoretical cartography” active in mid-18th century France. Published by Dezauche and engraved by Marie F. Duval.













The Manchester (a.k.a. Altamira) Beatus mappamundi, ca. 1175, John Rylands Library, MS. Lat. 8, fols. 43v-44, Manchester, England









Good article and presentation. However, a number of maps have been repeated and it is best to remove them.
No need to remove anything, it is a collection of maps. All maps are from different sources. Some look similar because they are based on the same author or have been printed from the same source, but were published in different books and even countries (language is different). It shows that this belief (Eden in Armenia) was widespread and printed and recreated in many different books and countries. It was thought through encyclopedia’s, atlas and Bibles. I want to collect as many maps as I can find even if they depict the same, as long as they have different sources… Read more »
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Dear PeopleOfAr, I can exactly show the replacement of the garden of paradise on the map of Armenia. It is the Basen rigion, on the river Arax-Yeraskh, which at that part was named Pison in the old ages, and this name was derived from Basen, which means ”basin,, as the basin of the main three rivers, and the base where the first man was placed after being crreated on the Sermants (the seeds) or Buragn mountains….
Thank you for the reference to my work on Fausto da Longiano. I take the liberty to draw your attention to my general survey on the cartographies of the Garden of Eden, where I mention the Armenian location of paradise: ‘Return to the Sources: Paradise in Armenia’ in Mapping Paradise: A History of Heaven on Earth (London-Chicago: British Library-University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 317-322. In the book you may also find indications for a more precise description of your maps.
Best wishes,
AS
That’s great, thank you very much for the tip, I will certainly examine it. And thank you for your wonderful work!
Excellent presentation!
It makes sense how the Aethiopians had relocated their peoples by the time of Herodotus. I believe that this has impeded many in properly estimating the location of Paradise.
Another thought, many think that Paradise is heaven, but no where in the Greek Septuagint or Latin Vulgate do I find this to be intimated at all. There are too many clues in the text that prohibit this connection, and I think it would be too much to divulge here so I beg leave.
Anyways, I enjoyed the cartography.
Before the flood, the River would have originated atop Mt. Eden and flowed the other direction. It would have split into four at βThe Lord Planted,β and created a maple leaf pattern. The βDβ shape of the Garden is preserved in stone at Joshuaβs Gilgal in Israel. Enoch saw it from the sky and wrote about what he saw in his book. These are some of the βsigns on the earthβ Jesus spoke of. He is coming soon. Are you ready?
I love this! This is the best! Is there any way to get access to Armenian maps? It would be best coming from the Armenian sources to give credence to Eden and Noah’s ark. I know that the Armenians were thrust out of Western Armenia, but there must be older Armenians, or Armenian sources that could show us these maps in their own language.
I absolutely absolutely absolutely love your website and am on a mission to find the Garden of Eden….I can show you some more maps….there is one which places Eden around Lake Van….I can share it with you if you like.