Iraqi officials say a severe drought is threatening Iraq's southern marshes, the traditional site of the Biblical Garden of Eden, just as the region was recovering from Saddam Hussein's draining of its lakes and swamps to punish a political rebellion in that region several years ago. This marsh Arab culture has existed for thousands of years in the 8,000 square miles of wetlands fed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where hundreds of species of birds fish have lived in these fertile farmlands.
This vast expanse of cracked earth has been coming back to life with the help of the United Nations but the debilitating drought has ravaged much of southern Iraq and neighboring countries in the last two years and thus reeked havoc in this traditional site for the Biblical Garden of Eden.
Jimmy's Prophetic Prospective on the News
Iraq's claim to the traditional site of the Garden of Eden is wrong but the true site is significant in the end times Bible prophecy scenario for this Biblical site.
For years, the people of Iraq have claimed that in the southern marsh lands of their country could be found the Biblical Garden of Eden. This claim was based upon the location of the two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates that flow together in this region. Iraqi officials made the claim based upon the mention of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Biblical account of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2. A closer look at the passage will reveal that these two rivers were not in the Garden of Eden but somewhere outside of the garden.
One must remember that the Garden of Eden existed prior to the worldwide Flood of Genesis 6-8, at which time the total topography was changed. The Biblical text says that there was only one river in the Garden of Eden. That was the Gihon river (Genesis 2:10) and that river today is located in Jerusalem. Bible prophecy says that enemies of Israel will try to take the Garden of Eden for the headquarters of its caliphate or worldwide kingdom in the last days (Isaiah 51:3, Ezekiel 36:35, and Joel 2:3).
Bible prophecy will indeed be fulfilled at the true Garden of Eden in Jerusalem.
