<< If Havilah were the same place as mentioned later, where is the Pishon
River? This river remains unknown.
If Cush were the same place as mentioned later, where is the Gihon? This
river remains unknown.
The post flood Tigris runs through the heart of ancient Asshur, not to the
east of Asshur.
The Euphrates is not associated with any region, yet in the post flood
world, it is the river of mighty Nimrod's Babylon.>>
The first, second and fourth arguments are from silence. The argument about
the course of the Tigris is not too bad; but, the river is still assciated
with Asshur; so the earth couldn't have changed too much.
More importantly, these verses would be pointless if they referred to areas
unknown to the reader. Gen 2:11, for example, "The name of the first is
Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where
there is gold;" would mean Moses is saying, "The name of the first river was
called Pishon, but it no longer exists today. It flowed all around the whole
land of Havilah, which had gold; but, neither the land nor the gold exists
there today. We have a river today of the same name that flows around a land
of the same name which also has gold; but, there is no geographical identity
between the river and land I am talking about and the ones you (the reader)
know about."
Surely, this is not a straight-forward interpretation of Gen 2:11ff.
Paul