View source for Question: If the Garden of Eden was in Missouri, how did Abraham, Moses and other prophets end up in the Old World?

{{FairMormon}}
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==Question: If the Garden of Eden was in Missouri, how did Abraham, Moses and other prophets end up in the Old World?==
===A variety of approaches have been suggested for this issue===

Members and others sometimes ask how Abraham, Moses and other near eastern Bible prophets ended up in the Old World if Adam and Eden were in the Americas.  A variety of approaches have been suggested for this issue:<ref>Kevin Barney, [http://www.bycommonconsent.com/2007/07/was-the-garden-of-eden-really-in-missouri Was the Garden of Eden Really in Missouri?] (blog entry), ''By Common Consent'' (4 July 2007).</ref>

# Some have conceptualized the earth as having only one land mass (e.g., Pangaea) even into historical time, which was only separated in the days of Peleg ({{s||Genesis|10|25}}).
# Those who accept a universal Noachian flood simply see Noah floating from a New World site to Ararat in the Old.
# Those who accept a "limited flood" theory see a similar process occurring whereby Noah traveled down rivers or from sea coasts with the flood's arrival.  (This would, in effect, be a reversal of the Book of Mormon's Old World to New World migrations).
# Since there is evidence for human migration over the Siberia-Alaska land bridge from Old to New World, some have postulated travel in the opposite direction.
# It has been suggested that the Lord gave a ''second'' site the name of Adam-ondi-Ahman in the Americas, while the original site was located elsewhere, in the Old World (see discussion [[Garden_of_Eden_in_Missouri%3F#An_alternate_reading:_two_sites.3F|above]]).  In this model, early Church leaders assumed that there was only one Adam-ondi-Ahman, when there were (in fact) two.
# Some have seen the concept of Eden as a symbolic idea which acted to "sacralize" the Americas for a new gospel dispensation, without having reference to actual geographic realities.  Early members then made this concept more literal than intended.
# Some see Eden as a place which was always "separate" from the fallen world around it, and so regard questions about the present "location" of Eden as non-sensical.
# Many, perhaps most, members consider the matter of relatively little importance, and have no strong feelings about the issue at all.

===It must be noted that there is little, if any, scriptural or scientific evidence to support any of the above hypotheses===

The solution chosen by an individual member will probably depend mostly on their attitudes to other issues about which there is no official Church position and a variety of positions espoused by members.  These issues include matters such as the issue of [[Death before the Fall]], [[Evolution]], [[Pre-Adamites]], the nature of Noah's [[Global_or_local_Flood|Flood]], the extent to which scripture ought to be interpreted literally, and related topics.
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{{endnotes sources}}
[[Category:Mormon America]]
[[Category:No Man Knows My History]]
[[fi:Kysymys: Jos Eedenin puutarha oli Missorissa, miten Abraham, Moses ja muut profeetat joutuivat vanhalle mantereelle?]]
[[es:Pregunta: Si el Jardín del Edén estaba en Missouri, ¿cómo vivían Abraham, Moisés y otros profetas en el Viejo Mundo?]]