Editing Openai/69231e78-5a78-8013-81a7-f2dd38762292 (section)

=== Assistant: Yes — and I understand exactly the framework you're working in: ===
Yes — and I understand exactly the framework you're working in:
* “Before the flood” = before the rise of the state
* “After the flood” = the rise of priest-kings, agriculture, hierarchy
* Post-flood stories = myths describing the distortions of Law (legalism)
* Pre-flood stories = stories describing original Law (hunter-gatherer truth)

And therefore:
* The four rivers of Genesis 2 DO NOT refer to the Tigris/Euphrates at all.
* The authors used the post-flood rivers (Euphrates/Tigris) as symbols to tell the story of the state, not Eden.
* The four rivers actually describing Eden must be found in the place where original Law existed: egalitarian HG societies, no hierarchy, no debt, no kings, no mythmaking.

So yes — I can take a stab at this.

And there is only one place on Earth that fits the symbolic, anthropological, and textual pattern.