Location of the garden of Eden

Most Bible commentaries state that the site of the Garden of Eden was in the Middle East, situated somewhere near where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are today. This is based on the description given in Genesis 2:8–14


"The LORD God planted a garden eastward in
Eden. . . . Now a river went out of Eden to water
the garden, and from there it parted and became
four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon. . . .
The name of the second river is Gihon. . . . The
name of the third river is Hiddekel [Tigris]. . . . The
fourth river is the Euphrates.

Even the great theologian John Calvin struggled over the
exact location of the Garden of Eden. Calvin recognized that the description given in Genesis 2
concerning the location of the Garden of Eden does not fit with what is observed regarding the present Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. God’s Word makes it clear that the Garden of Eden was located where there were four rivers coming from one head. No matter how one tries to fit this location in the Middle East today, it just can’t be done.

Interestingly, Calvin goes on to say:

From this difficulty, some would free themselves by saying that the surface of the globe may have been changed as a result of the flood in the days of Noah.

This is a major consideration that needs to be taken into
account. The earth’s surface totally changed as a result of the Flood.
Not only this, but underneath the region where the present Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are located, there exists hundreds of feet of sedimentary strata—a significant amount of which is fossiliferous. Such fossil-bearing strata had to be laid down at the time of the Flood.

The perfect Garden of Eden can’t be sitting on
billions of dead things before sin entered the world!

This being the case, the question then is why are there
rivers named Tigris and Euphrates in the Middle East
today?

In Australia, one will recognize many names that are also used in England (e.g., Newcastle).
The reason is that when the settlers came out from
England to Australia, they used names they were familiar
with in England to name new places/towns in Australia.

Another example is the names given to many rivers in the United States. There is the Thames River in Connecticut, the Severn River in Maryland, and the Trent River in North Carolina—all named for prominent rivers in the UK.
In a similar way, when Noah and his family came out of
the ark after it landed in the area we today call the Middle East (the region of the Mountains of Ararat), it would not have been surprising for them to use names they were familiar with from the pre-Flood world (e.g., Tigris and Euphrates), to name places and rivers, etc., in the world after the Flood.
Ultimately, we don’t know where the Garden of Eden was
located. To insist that the Garden was located in the area around the present Tigris and Euphrates Rivers is to deny the catastrophic effects of the global Flood of Noah’s day, and to allow for death before sin.