Email Validation

[Soukoru]

I while back I got an email in my email (har har redundancy). It was about the war in Iraq and someone had gone through the time to write down some facts about the bible. While this was on forums everywhere on the internet (at least when I did a Google search), I wanted to bring this email onto here to see if Christian people could prove the facts right.

Here's the email:

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IRAQ - VERY INTERESTING - DID YOU KNOW?
1. The garden of Eden was in Iraq.
2. Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq, was the cradle of civilization!
3. Noah built the ark in Iraq.
4. The Tower of Babel was in Iraq.
5. Abraham was from Ur, which is in Southern Iraq!
6. Isaac's wife Rebekah is from Nahor, which is in Iraq.
7. Jacob met Rachel in Iraq.
8. Jonah preached in Nineveh - which is in Iraq.
9. Assyria, which is in Iraq, conquered the ten tribes of Israel.
10. Amos cried out in Iraq!
11. Babylon, which is in Iraq, destroyed Jerusalem.
12. Daniel was in the lion's den in Iraq!
13. The three Hebrew children were in the fire in Iraq (Jesus had been in Iraq) also as the fourth person in the fiery furnace!)
14. Belshazzar, the King of Babylon saw the "writing on the wall" in Iraq.
15. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, carried the Jews captive into Iraq.
16. Ezekiel preached in Iraq.
17. The wise men were from Iraq.
18. Peter preached in Iraq.
19. The "Empire of Man" described in Revelation is called Babylon, which was a city in Iraq!

And you have probably seen this one. Israel is the nation most often mentioned in the Bible. But do you know which nation is second? It is Iraq!
However, that is not the name that is used in the Bible. The names used in the Bible are Babylon, Land of Shinar, and Mesopotamia. The word Mesopotamia means between the two rivers, more exactly between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
The name Iraq, means country with deep roots.
Indeed Iraq is a country with deep roots and is a very significant country in the Bible.
No other nation, except Israel, has more history and prophecy associated it than Iraq.
And also... This is something to think about! Since America is typically represented by an eagle. Saddam should have read up on his Muslim passages...
The following verse is from the Koran, (the Islamic Bible)
Koran (9:11) - For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout the lands of Allah and lo, while some of the people trembled in despair still more rejoiced; for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah; and there was peace.
(Note the verse number!) Hmmmmmmm?! God Bless you all Amen!
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Now before you freak out about this last verse, it's fake. I looked. An online Koran Bible from a university told me so. (Also, it's stated on every forum that the verse is false.)

However, this is the only "hoax email" that holds a lot of replys on the forums. I checked to see the discussion and it was huge arguments about the 19 so called facts stated above the "9:11" verse. Many people who claimed to be Christian did research on it and believed those facts to be true. On the other hand, many people ragged on it saying the bible was a hoax in and of itself, or Christianity is dumb, the usual comments.

Point: I brought this here so I could have input from people who I know are Christians. Also, since I am one person with very little time (and also very lazy) I wanted some help with researching this and seeing if these facts are true or false.
My rant is done. Thanks for your time.

P.S.: To the moderators, I wasn't sure if this could be posted here or in a different location. If this is a bad place to put this post, <gomen no sai> and please direct it to correct location. Thanks!

[Scribs]

It is a good and interesting list, however I have slight objection to four of the points.

1. The garden of Eden was in Iraq.

I question anyone who claims that Eden was by the modern day Tigris and Euphrates. You must remember that there was a rather large flood that would have changed all the rivers in the area a bit, and how would Noah, after 40 days and nights adrift, have known where on earth he was when he landed? I suspect that somone just made a guess about where the garden was and named the newly discovered rivers accordingly (remember there were 4 rivers in the garden not just the two.)

3. Noah built the ark in Iraq

My above objecton applies here too.

17. The wise men were from Iraq.

They were from "The East" which may or may not be Iraq.

19. The "Empire of Man" described in Revelation is called Babylon, which was a city in Iraq!

It could be argued that that language is figurative, and not referring to the city itself as much as the ideas it stood for. I will go no further on this point as it would encroach on Theological turf.

The Rest of the facts are quite interesting and to the best of my knowlege correct (with the obvious exception of the verse).

[Soukoru]

Thanks Scribs. I must admit the usage of Iraq was a little bit overtly used (although it was supposed to be an IRAQ email...).
In any case, I have a follow up question.
Some of my friends at church say that Noah's Ark has been found. But it just happens to be in a place where no one can get to it (a "shoot-on-site-and-ask-questions-after-they-are-dead" type of country). It seems to be a little fishy but I was wondering if you had any input on that at all (or if anyone else had an opinion on that).

[EricTheFred]

Noah's ark has been "found" multiple times in multiple locations, mostly around the modern Mount Ararat. None have been accepted by all believers or faiths, but they all have plenty of believers. The favorite one in TV shows on the subject is an "anomaly" appearing to be a squarish feature found in a U.S. spy plane photograph. Subsequent photography of the area has suggested it was actually a rock outcrop, but of course that analysis has as many detractors as the "ark has been found" claim, does.
It's a fascinating read, if you get into it, but be warned, it starts resembling Holy Grail research after a while.
My personal opinion is that a wood structure of that size wouldn't be a wood structure of that size anymore, if it still exists at all after this many years in the weather. If we ever find it, it will be hard to recognize as a boat. But if you don't need to see the stone tablets to believe in the Ten Commandments, you don't need to see the boat to believe in Noah. Just my .02.

[termyt]

Modern day Iraq takes up most of the territory that made up the ancient empires of Assyria and Babylon. So that makes most of the geographical statements at least close to true, if not indeed factual. The territories of both empires extended well beyond the present borders and led to the Iraqi assertion that Kuwait and other territories rightfully belonged to Iraq.

I’m not 100% sure about the exact location of the ancient cities in relationship to modern borders. Present day Syria is a better location for ancient Assyria to be “centeredâ€

[meboeck]

19. The "Empire of Man" described in Revelation is called Babylon, which was a city in Iraq!

Babylon was a BIG empire. It probably did origate out of where Iraq is now, but that doesn't mean much considering the sheer size of the empire. It covered most of the middle east along with much of southern and eastern Europe.

[Arnobius]

It's not suprising that much of ancient Middle East civilization was in Iraq. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers were the "Fertile Cresent" where most of the agriculture of the region came. It would have been the cultural center of that part of the world. No suprise for Abraham to come from there or other Biblical stories to be centered there), or the fact that the land exchanged hands so many times.

The people who want to draw a connection to modern Iraq though are making too much out of coincidences

Babylon was a BIG empire. It probably did origate out of where Iraq is now, but that doesn't mean much considering the sheer size of the empire. It covered most of the middle east along with much of southern and eastern Europe.

Well the original Babylon would have been in what is now Iraq. At the time Revelations was written (during the Roman empire who ruled all of Europe except Germania, ruled Asia and the Middle East through Syria and Turkey), much of the territory east of what is now Turkey was ruled by the Parthians and then the Perisans (after AD200). Some scholars think the author was speaking symbolically of pagan Rome, as it was to their generation what Babylon was to their ancestors. Others say it was referring to a event to the future.

[Puritan]

I second the feeling that people are making too much out of coincidences here. The modern Iraq was a territory put together by the British for administrative purposes and it contains several different ethnic groups. While one can technically say that modern day Iraq contained the sites of many past events, to say that Daniel was in the lion's den in Iraq is silly as the events involved happened around two and a half to three thousand years ago in an entirely different country. It would be like taking the history of the area now called Italy and saying "Paul was killed in Italy. Christians were executed for not worshiping the Emperor in Italy. The people who destoyed the Temple came from Italy. Peter preached in Italy. The Romans, who came from Italy, conquered the twelve tribes of Israel." Come on, playing that game is silly. Iraq is in a very historically rich area, but Iraq is not Babylon, nor is it any other past country. These facts are nothing more significant than my saying (if these things were true) that freed slaves were smuggled through the house I live in during the Civil War or that I am distantly related to Ghengis Kahn. Interesting, but it doesn't really mean anything.

[Soukoru]

Well, if anything, I think that the places talked about are either in Iraq, close to it, or somewhere around the area (but probably within a 50,000 square mile radius). In short, it is kinda too specific to place all these places within Iraq however, they hover around the general area.

(I feel like I'm trying to support the email... sigh)

[mitsuki lover]

I would like to point out that in fact of the matter there were TWO Urs.One in the North and the more famous one,Ur of Sumeria in the South.Genesis clearly states that Abraham was from Northern and not Southern Ur.In fact Genesis 11:28 talking of the death of Abraham's brother Haran clearly states their homeland was Ur of
the CHALDEANS and not Ur of the SUMERIANS.A Northern origin for Abraham and his family also makes more sense since their first stop over to the Promised Land was Haran,a rather odd place if they came from the South since if you look on a map it is clearly out of the way of a more direct migration,which they were clearly following.
Notice also the names of Abraham's supposed ancestors imply he may have been of Chaldean ancestry as well.

[Slater]

Err... I read the first 2 points and I skipped the rest just because... well... there's a 99.99% chance that it's wrong. These ideas of the garden of Eden being in that reigon are based on someone realizing that the Tigris and Euprhates rivers are there. But, the reason why those two rivers are there is the same reason why we have a state named Utah in the US. Those rivers were named by someone who read Genesis, there is no evidence that they bound the garden.

We don't know where exactly anything was pre-flood. We know where civilization restarted post-flood, but that's as far back as we can go.