{"id":16256,"date":"2013-08-01T10:12:38","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T14:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=16256"},"modified":"2013-08-01T10:12:38","modified_gmt":"2013-08-01T14:12:38","slug":"garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html","title":{"rendered":"Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>\u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg21929285.000-garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html?cmpid=RSS%7CNSNS%7C2012-GLOBAL%7Conline-news#.Ufpik9Iqh1E\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0That\u2019s the headline in\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg21929285.000-garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html?cmpid=RSS%7CNSNS%7C2012-GLOBAL%7Conline-news#.Ufpik9Iqh1E\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">New Scientist<\/a><\/em>. The article is about the preservation of a part of the southern marshlands of Iraq, the region where the\u00a0Ma\u2019dan Marsh Arabs have historically lived, and a traditional homeland of the Mandaeans. Local lore also claims it was the site of the Garden of Eden.<\/p>\n<p>There is a movie <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gwendocates.com\/IraqMovie.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Gwendolen Cates<\/a> is working on, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.atour.com\/news\/assyria\/20110326a.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Mourning in the Garden of Eden<\/a>,\u201d which looks at religious minorities in that region, including Mandaeans and Christians.<\/p>\n<p>When an article in a science magazine I read intersects with my interest in both the Bible and the Mandaeans, it deserves a mention.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-16260\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2013\/08\/iraq-marshlands-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"614\" height=\"461\"><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cGarden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park.\u201d\u00a0That\u2019s the headline in\u00a0New Scientist. The article is about the preservation of a part of the southern marshlands of Iraq, the region where the\u00a0Ma\u2019dan Marsh Arabs have historically lived, and a traditional homeland of the Mandaeans. Local lore also claims it was the site of the Garden of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":16260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28,57],"tags":[1848,2774,3761,4299,5376,5378,6930,7491,7755,8731],"class_list":["post-16256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-genesis-bible","category-mandaeans","tag-christians","tag-documentary","tag-garden-of-eden","tag-gwendolen-cates","tag-iraq","tag-iraqi","tag-mandaeans","tag-minorities","tag-movie","tag-park"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&quot;Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park.&quot;\u00a0That&#039;s the headline in\u00a0New Scientist. The article is about the preservation of a part of the southern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&quot;Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park.&quot;\u00a0That&#039;s the headline in\u00a0New Scientist. The article is about the preservation of a part of the southern\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-08-01T14:12:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ReligionProf\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html\",\"name\":\"Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-08-01T14:12:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-08-01T14:12:38+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\"},\"description\":\"\\\"Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park.\\\"\u00a0That's the headline in\u00a0New Scientist. The article is about the preservation of a part of the southern\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/\",\"name\":\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\",\"description\":\"The Blog of Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\",\"name\":\"James F. McGrath\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"James F. McGrath\"},\"description\":\"Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. BD University of London, PhD Durham University. Author of John's Apologetic Christology, The Only True God, Theology and Science Fiction, and The Burial of Jesus, as well as (with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University) the two-volume Mandaean Book of John critical edition, translation, and commentary. Also author of numerous articles (and a few science fiction short stories) and the editor or co-editor of several volumes.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ge8ul5\",\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jamesfmcgrath\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jfmcgrat\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReligionProf\",\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/religionprof\",\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/religionprof\",\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_F._McGrath\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/author\/james-f-mcgrath\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park","description":"\"Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park.\"\u00a0That's the headline in\u00a0New Scientist. The article is about the preservation of a part of the southern","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park","og_description":"\"Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park.\"\u00a0That's the headline in\u00a0New Scientist. The article is about the preservation of a part of the southern","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html","og_site_name":"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath","article_author":"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/","article_published_time":"2013-08-01T14:12:38+00:00","author":"James F. McGrath","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ReligionProf","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"James F. McGrath","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html","name":"Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-08-01T14:12:38+00:00","dateModified":"2013-08-01T14:12:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf"},"description":"\"Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park.\"\u00a0That's the headline in\u00a0New Scientist. The article is about the preservation of a part of the southern","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/garden-of-eden-to-become-iraqi-national-park.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/","name":"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath","description":"The Blog of Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf","name":"James F. McGrath","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"James F. McGrath"},"description":"Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. BD University of London, PhD Durham University. Author of John's Apologetic Christology, The Only True God, Theology and Science Fiction, and The Burial of Jesus, as well as (with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University) the two-volume Mandaean Book of John critical edition, translation, and commentary. Also author of numerous articles (and a few science fiction short stories) and the editor or co-editor of several volumes.","sameAs":["https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ge8ul5","http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jamesfmcgrath\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jfmcgrat\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReligionProf","http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_F._McGrath"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/author\/james-f-mcgrath"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}