What is the location of the Garden of Eden?

The only thing the Bible tells us concerning the Garden of Eden’s location is found in Genesis 2:10-14, “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold…The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.” The exact identities of the Pishon and Gihon Rivers is unknown, but the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are well known.

If the Tigris and Euphrates mentioned are the same rivers by those names today, that would put the Garden of Eden somewhere in the Middle East, likely in Iraq. It cannot be mere coincidence that the Middle East region is where the planet was most lush—the place where the Garden of Eden was. If oil is, as most scientists believe, primarily decayed vegetation and animal matter, then this is the area where we might expect to find the greatest deposits of oil. Since the Garden was the epitome of perfection, it stands to reason that the decomposition of the earth’s most perfect and lush organic materials would produce vast stores of the earth’s best oil.

People have searched for the Garden of Eden for centuries to no avail. There are various locations that people claim as the original location of the Garden of Eden, but we cannot be sure. What happened to the Garden of Eden? The Bible does not specifically say. It is likely that the Garden of Eden was completely destroyed in the Flood or that it lies decomposing into oil buried beneath centuries of sand deposits.