Path Jesus may have walked to his crucifixion unearthed after 2,000 years

• READ MORE: True tomb of Jesus discovered after 2,000 years as hidden location that aligns with Bible account is found

By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

A church in Jerusalem stands over the sites where Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried - and a discovery beneath it may shed new light on his final journey to the cross. 

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre dates back to the fourth century, when Roman Emperor Constantine ordered a church built around the burial place believed to be Jesus' tomb.

Archaeologists have uncovered plant remains suggesting parts of the site were once cultivated, echoing the Gospel of John's description of a garden containing a new tomb near the place of crucifixion.

A newly published archaeological report details another intriguing discovery: a stone-paved road with a broad, shallow step edged with larger stones.

The surviving section measures roughly 10 by 12 feet and lies beneath a Crusader-era walkway inside the church. Its original edges no longer survive, but its curve and pronounced slope suggest it climbed toward the southwest.

Professor Francesca Romana Stasolla, who leads the excavation, wrote: 'One possibility – at present no more than a hypothesis – is that this was a suburban road ascending toward the area of the Calvary, assuming that the site functioned as a place of public executions.' The Bible says Jesus was crucified on Calvary.

Stasolla considered whether it served Roman construction crews, but the step would have hindered carts hauling heavy building materials. Its construction and dimensions also made it unlikely to have been merely a small path leading to nearby tombs.

Roman executions were public spectacles, and an approach road needed to accommodate spectators whose presence added to the humiliation of the condemned.

Archaeologists uncovered an ancient road under the church, which could have been taken by Jesus to the cross nearly 2,000 years ago

'What is certain is that the place of execution must have been public and accessible,' Stasolla of Sapienza University of Rome in Italy wrote.

Although ancient accounts describe mass crucifixions around Jerusalem, archaeologists have yet to securely identify a designated execution ground.

The road was found in an early Roman phase predating Emperor Hadrian's second-century redevelopment of Jerusalem, leaving open the possibility that it was in use during Jesus' lifetime. 

Researchers also considered whether the road served construction crews during Emperor Hadrian's redevelopment, when the area was incorporated into the city. 

Such service routes, known as 'strade di lizza,' were used to transport building materials.

However, the road's step makes that explanation unlikely, as it would have obstructed carts and made hauling large architectural pieces either uphill or downhill difficult.

The stretch of road was abandoned during the construction of Constantine's church complex in the fourth century. 

Christians were already visiting places associated with Jesus' suffering and death, but those pilgrimages did not yet follow a defined route.

Israel has closed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre indefinitely due to escalating security concerns as the war in Iran intensifies

Read More

Bible proven to be 'true' as ancient discoveries shed new light on Jesus' life

It was during the Middle Ages, particularly the Crusader period, that the Via Dolorosa became established as a sequence of streets commemorating Jesus' journey from the Roman governor's headquarters to Calvary.

Stasolla led the excavation from May 2022 to October 2025, but the broader project began in 2019, and her team continues studying the finds and documentation after the digging ended. 

In April 2025, she and her team announced they had uncovered remnants of an ancient garden beneath the foundation of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The analysis dated the remains to the pre-Christian era, around the time of Jesus' crucifixion and burial. Historians generally date his death to around 33 AD.

The discovery adds new detail to the longstanding debate over the location of Jesus’ burial.

Archeologists were excavating the floor of the church (pictured) when the uncovered signs of an ancient garden that is mentioned in the Bible as where Jesus was laid to rest

There is a long-held debate over where Jesus was laid to rest. Some say the church while others believe he was put inside an ancient rock-cut tomb, known as the Garden Tomb (pictured), which aligns with Biblical text

Many scholars favor the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, citing evidence that the surrounding area contained rock-cut tombs during the period in which Jesus lived. The Garden Tomb, another ancient burial site in Jerusalem, remains an alternative location favored by some Christians.

The original Holy Sepulchre church was commissioned by Roman Emperor Constantine I and inaugurated in AD 335, roughly 300 years after Jesus’ death.

Ancient accounts describe Roman religious structures associated with the worship of Venus being cleared from the site, exposing a tomb identified by Christians as Jesus’ burial place.

Stasolla suggested that knowledge of the tomb’s location may have passed down through generations of the early Christian community. Constantine’s builders cut away the surrounding rock, preserving the burial chamber and making it a focal point of the new sanctuary.

The team also uncovered part of a circular base made from reused marble beneath the shrine enclosing the revered tomb. Measuring approximately 20 feet in diameter, the base may belong partly or entirely to a later rebuilding rather than Constantine’s original construction.

Analyses of the mortar joining its slabs are underway to help establish the sequence in which the structure was built and altered.

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It is the most printed book of all time, and it's also the most debated. For some, the Bible is a collection of parables: a series of deeply resonant stories, designed to guide you throughout your life. Yet for others it is a historical document, whose power is only enhanced by its factual accuracy.

Jeremiah J Johnston, a New Testament scholar, pastor and writer, has no doubt in his mind as to where the book belongs on his shelves. It is historical fact, he insists.

'For too long, skeptics have claimed that the Gospels are pious legends, faith-based fiction or the mythologized memoirs of early communities,' he writes in The Jesus Discoveries, published earlier this year. 'But nothing could be further from the truth.'

'The Christian faith is grounded in events that occurred in real places, involving real people and leaving real evidence. And with striking clarity, archaeology, textual discoveries and historical records are beginning to tell the story again.'

Johnston, a 45-year-old theologian and author, is a pillar of one of America's largest megachurches – the Prestonwood Baptist Church, in Plano, Texas, which regularly attracts 17,000 people a week.

A lifetime spent investigating Biblical texts has convinced Johnston of the historical accuracy of the book, he told the Daily Mail. And he has set out to explain why.

'The Bible is the most enduring and influential collection of ancient writings known to humanity,' he writes. 'Yet what makes it distinct is not simply its literary value, but the historical claims it makes. It doesn't present itself as myth, fable or detached philosophy.'

And in his 20-plus years of studies, he has since come to find that one relic many believe to be forged is in fact proof of 'the living God in the course of real history.'

An unabashed enthusiast, he peppers his speech with gleeful yelps, telling the Daily Mail that a Roman coin was 'the coolest thing in the world,' and calling the Dead Sea Scrolls 'the most astounding Biblical discovery of all time.'

There remain, of course, many Biblical mysteries yet to be solved.

Chief among them is perhaps the existence or otherwise of Noah's Ark. Johnston is dismissive of claims that the remains of the Ark have been found.

Andrew Jones, who runs Noah’s Ark Scans, caused a stir earlier this year when he discussed his team's work investigating a site in Turkey which for 60 years has been rumored to be the resting place of the Ark.

Jones and his team claimed they have '100 percent confirmed' that the mound is not a natural geological feature but a 'man-made object' below the surface.

'I firmly believe the Durupınar Formation represents the buried remains of Noah's Ark,' Jones told the Daily Mail.

Geologists argue that the boat-shaped mound near Mount Ararat, in eastern Turkey, is natural. But Jones and his supporters claim it could be the remnants of the Biblical boat.

Johnston has been vocal in disavowing Jones's research, saying there was rare unanimity among Bible scholars that the Turkish site was incorrect.

'The one thing all of us get along about is 100 percent certainty this geological formation in eastern Turkey is not the spot of Noah's Ark.'

He said that the scientific techniques Jones was using were inaccurate in a mountainous area, and insisted the Turkish formations were natural.

'The scientific consensus is not even close,' he said in a YouTube video in April. 'I'm talking about conservative, moderate – but even liberal, atheist, agnostic archaeologists all know that this is just to sell books. This is sensationalism that catches fire because Christians want it to be true.'

Yet he remained adamant that the discoveries he documented were, indeed, proof of the Bible's accuracy. 

'Stones are still speaking. Inscriptions are still uncovered,' he writes. 'Manuscripts, ossuaries, graffiti and government records - all are emerging from the dust of time and converging with the Gospels' witness.

'These findings don't replace Scripture, but they do reinforce and illuminate it. And they help us see the figure of Jesus in sharper historical focus.'

The Shroud of Turin

Johnston arrived in Britain to study the New Testament at Middlesex University. The PhD student started out as a Turin Shroud skeptic, believing it was a medieval forgery as others had told him.

But he has since changed his mind and become one of the foremost advocates for the authenticity of the cloth – convinced it is the very shroud which covered the body of Jesus when he was taken down from the cross.

Johnston dismisses claims that the cloth is a forgery, arguing that the analyzed samples of the material, which were not taken from the center of the fabric but rather plucked from the edges, where it had been patched up, put its authenticity into question.

Certainly, there is no debate that the shroud has been altered.

It first emerged in France in around 1355, when it was put on display in a church in the village of Lirey, 120 miles southeast of Paris. The cloth was moved to the city of Chambery in 1502 and was damaged in a fire 30 years later. Nuns of the Poor Clares of Chambéry did their best to salvage the cloth over a two-week period that included much mending – and prayer.

Ultimately, in 1578, the relic was moved to a cathedral in the northern Italian city of Turin, where it remains to this day.

In 1988, scientists from three countries – teams from the British Museum, the University of Arizona and the Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule in Zurich – carbon dated postage stamp-sized segments of the cloth.

The scientific methods measuring the remaining radioactive carbon inside the material all concluded the pieces date back to medieval times.

The scientists insisted that the samples came from the main part of the cloth.

But Johnston does not accept this as fact.

He further argues in the book that the marks on the cloth are AB-type blood stains – a blood type common to at least 11 percent of Middle Eastern Jews, of which Jesus was one.

He claims there are high levels of bilirubin in the marks, the yellow pigment in bile, which he suggests shows trauma at the time of death, noting that anyone attempting a medieval forgery, even if they did paint in blood, would not be aware of the significance.

To bolster his case that the fabric came from the Middle East, Johnston notes that an Eidgenoessische criminologist and botanist, Max Frei-Sulzer, concluded in the 1970s that the shroud bore traces of 58 different species, many of which exist in the area around Jerusalem -including gundelia tournefortii – a thistle from the daisy family, and anthemis, or chamomile.

Frei-Sulzer's methods have been questioned, but the scientist, who died in 1983, has not been discredited.

Johnston claims the shroud shows signs of an intense explosion of light, which he claims is 'proof' of the resurrection.

He calls it 'a supernatural eruption that left evidence scorched into the very fabric of his burial shroud.'

Johnston writes: 'The shroud may be the photographic negative of the single most explosive event in the history of creation: the moment when death itself lost its sting and life eternal burst forth from a dark tomb.'

Courtesy of Jeremiah J Johnston

The Sudarium of Oviedo

Johnston told the Daily Mail that the sudarium, a Latin word describing a sweat cloth, or face towel, used to wipe the face of a recently-deceased person, was 'the nail in the coffin' for the 1988 carbon dating of the Turin Shroud.

He argues that the linen cloth, moved from the Middle East to Spain in around 600AD, features corresponding marks to the Turin Shroud. And he claims that both the Turin Shroud and the sudarium have marks made by the same blood type, AB. Furthermore, he argues that the stains bear traces of lung fluid, expelled when a person is crucified.

'I love the second cloth because I feel like nobody talks about it,' he told the Daily Mail. 'I feel like this has just been lost.

'And I think it's such a huge piece of the Shroud of Turin, and I mean, it's mentioned in the Bible as well.'

Critics, however, say the evidence that it was actually placed on Jesus's face is flimsy.

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EXCLUSIVE - I was secretly poisoned by my husband and died. Then I met Jesus and made a shocking discovery in heaven

By CHRIS MELORE, US DEPUTY SCIENCE EDITOR

A wife and mother in California claims that a murder plot by her husband led to a divine encounter with the Holy Spirit that changed her perception of heaven.

Ana Christina told the Daily Mail she filed for divorce from her husband, 'Sam,' in December 2008 but had forgotten to cancel her million-dollar life insurance policy. 

Ana Christina, who changed her and her children's names to protect their identities, believed this was the motivation that drove Sam to attempt to kill her weeks later.

Before moving out of their Irvine, California home, Sam allegedly began lacing Christina's coffee with rat poison, which caused her to grow increasingly sick until she woke up paralyzed on January 9, 2009.

As she lay sick, Ana Christina, who was 49 at the time, said Jesus arrived in the bedroom to escort her spirit into the afterlife, reuniting her with her late sister Nadia in heaven. Nadia had died by suicide at the age of 35.

Seeing her sister was like a sigh of relief, as Christina had always wondered where Nadia would end up because of the church's teachings about suicide.

'Because at church, they tell you [if] you commit suicide, it's a sin, it's an unforgivable sin, and I discovered that it's not,' said Christina.

Christina claims that when she returned from the afterlife hours after the attack began, she was miraculously cured of the poisoning. This shocked Sam, she said, and motivated him to quickly flee the US after police chose not to investigate her claims.

Ana Christina told the Daily Mail she returned from what she considered the afterlife healed after she was allegedly poisoned by her ex-husband

'I believe it's a blessing in disguise that he just left the country,' Christina told the Daily Mail.

'Because if he had done time for an attempted murder... he would have gotten about 10 years. And then, he would be out in the streets, taking revenge. But him fleeing the country and being away, I don't have to live watching my back.'

Christina was the breadwinner of the family when she and Sam agreed to amicably divorce in 2008.

However, Sam was the beneficiary of the life insurance policy Christina forgot to cancel when they filed the paperwork to end their marriage.

While Sam stayed in their home for three more weeks while the divorce was finalized, Christina claimed he began to slip rat poison into her coffee, causing her to gradually become deathly ill.

'I believe he started putting it in my coffee every day. Little by little, that's how I didn't notice, and that's when my body started to break down. I started getting sick, and I had to stay at home for a long time,' Christina said.

After receiving a call in early January 2009 that her brother overseas had fallen ill, Christina booked a flight for an extended visit, but she alleged that before she could leave, Sam prepared her favorite meal and laced it with a massive dose of poison. 

Christina said she met her late sister (left) who had died by suicide in the afterlife, changing her view on what the Christian faith teaches about self-harm

By that night, Christina said the poison left her fully paralyzed in bed, comparing the pain she felt in her body to a sledgehammer breaking her bones.

That is when she said she heard a clear divine voice, telling her she was dying but this would not be the end. 

She claimed that Sam found her in the bedroom the next morning unable to move, powerless to stop him from forcing Xanax down her throat through her locked teeth. 

As Christina said she felt her body die while being suffocated, she told the Daily Mail it was like removing a heavy coat as her spirit left her body on the floor.

There was no darkness or sense of an ending, Christina continued, revealing that she then saw Jesus, who extended his hand to escort her into the afterlife.

Later she was reunited with her parents and Nadia.  

'You know, God is a very compassionate God, a very loving God that understands what we go through and does not judge us the way we judge each other. He's a very compassionate Lord, and he knew what Nadia was going through,' Christina said.

Christina (left) claimed she also encountered her mother (right) during her near-death experience

Her family urged her toward a banquet she had seen in the afterlife, but she said she would be pulled back to Earth before she could join them.

Still in shock, Christina claimed she could not speak but used hand gestures to signal to Sam that she knew what he had tried to do. 

'The look on his face was just priceless. You can just imagine. This man thought he finished me off. I'm done. I think it took him about eight hours to finish me off, and here I am, as strong as a horse in front of him,' Christina recalled. 

Christina revealed that she and her children have moved on from the incident, and Sam left the US within a year of the alleged attack and their divorce.

Although she was a Christian before her near-death experience, she said the experience completely changed her relationship with God.

'I was actually a born-again Christian before my encounter. But I was nothing like what I am now,' Christina explained.

Her experience even spurred her to set up her own ministry in Africa, with all the proceeds of the book she wrote about her encounter, My Sweet Encounter With Death, going to support that church.

Christina's claims about the incident were met with skepticism, even from her own children, leading authorities to side with Sam and call for a psychiatric evaluation for his alleged victim.

Christina said the near-death experience was a blessing. Her ex-husband fled the country, allowing her and her daughters to carry on with their lives 

However, two months after her January 2009 near-death experience, Christina said she underwent a full forensic hair analysis that found dangerously high levels of the rat poison ingredient barium in her body.

The levels were up to 2,700 times higher than the medically safe limit, she said.  Christina believed God left that amount in her body as a sign that her claims were factual.

Christina said she took the results to the Irvine Police Department, asking them to open an investigation, but was turned away.

The Irvine Police Department has told the Daily Mail it is looking into the circumstances that led detectives not to pursue the case.

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Bigfoot sightings across 14 US states reveal an eerie pattern sparking claims a creature is hiding nearby

• MORE: I attended a secret UFO meeting preparing Christians for 'the truth' and saw shape-shifting beings

By ROB WAUGH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

An eerie pattern in thousands of reported Bigfoot sightings across the US has raised the unsettling possibility that a mysterious creature is lurking close to humans.

Independent researcher and retired police officer Bruce Champagne examined 5,834 reports across 14 states before singling out 25 accounts he believes offer the clearest evidence of an unknown creature prowling near cities and towns at night for a specific purpose.

According to Champagne, witnesses most often reported seeing Bigfoot along quiet paths, roaming up to a mile into towns and cities on winter nights. 

The study described this as cautious, repeated behavior rather than random accidents on the edges of the woods.

Champagne called the alleged creature's movements: 'A pattern of rare, apparently intentional, largely solitary, nocturnal, corridor-based incursions that may be consistent with flexible decision-making.'

Bigfoot is believed to be a huge, hairy, ape-like creature, or species of creatures, that walks like a human and hides in remote forests throughout North America.

The first widely publicized modern report of Bigfoot came in 1958, when Humboldt Times journalist Andrew Genzoli published a letter from a reader describing massive, mysterious footprints found near a logging site in Bluff Creek, California.

Despite thousands of alleged sightings, eyewitness testimonies, photographs and footprint discoveries across the country, there has never been any physical evidence presented publicly that scientists have said proves the Bigfoot species exists.

The Bigfoot urban incursions were distributed across 14 US states, with the highest concentrations in Illinois, Ohio, Utah, New Jersey and Colorado

A trail of 35-45 clear, pristine footprints in Washington in 1996, shared by Jeff Meldrum, Bigfoot expert and author of Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science

Champagne focused on Bigfoot sightings that occurred at least a quarter-mile inside densely populated areas - meaning they had at least 1,600 residents per square kilometer (0.38 square miles).

The 25 accounts described large, ape-like creatures spotted at least a quarter of a mile inside towns and cities by witnesses deemed highly credible in Champagne’s analysis.

The reports spanned 14 US states, with the highest numbers coming from Illinois, Ohio, Utah, New Jersey and Colorado. Sightings peaked between 2006 and 2015, according to the research.

Champagne compared the reported behavior with that of other intelligent animals, including great apes, when they encounter humans.

He argued that the alleged creatures’ strong preference for traveling at night suggested they understood the risks of using urban walkways during the day.

'The patterning observed here suggests that urban incursions, while uncommon, are behaviorally structured events that merit further comparative and field-based investigation,' Champagne concluded.

The study found the creatures often traveled stealthily along drainage ditches and railway lines.

On average, they ventured 1.75 miles into the cities and towns they were exploring at night. However, at least one sighting found an alleged Bigfoot walked nearly eight miles into town, although the exact date and location were not revealed in the report.

Bigfoot as seen in the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin Film, which depicts a suspected Sasquatch that was spotted in Bluff Creek, California

A new study found Bigfoot sightings were more common in winter and during the night between midnight and 3am

Among other wildlife species, run-ins with humans often occur because of environmental stresses, such as animals searching for food in the winter when supplies become scarce.

Champagne suggested the same thing might be happening with Bigfoot sightings, as the creatures come out of hiding when their food sources run low during the cold, winter months.

Champagne’s research focused on accounts documented in three major databases, Oregonbigfoot.com, the Green Archive and the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO).

BFRO is the most widely cited and comprehensive public collection of Bigfoot reports in the US.

According to their records, which date back to 1904, Washington state has seen the most Bigfoot sightings, with more than 700 on record. California ranks second with nearly 500 sightings on record.

Champagne assessed reports on the basis of whether multiple witnesses were present, how credible the observers were, how close the witnesses allegedly got to the creature and how long the encounters lasted.

Champaign found that 36 percent of all Bigfoot encounters happened in winter, followed by autumn (27%), summer (23%) and spring (14%).

The creatures were described as 'massive' by 40 percent of witness accounts, however, one in five people called Bigfoot 'lightly built.'

Typical Bigfoot sightings also described a creature that stood up to 15 feet tall, with footprints measuring up to 24 inches long and eight inches wide.

They were most often seen prowling between midnight and 3am local time.

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Mysterious Race Of Underground People Lived In the Arctic Along With Nenets

By Vicky Verma

There is no doubt that thousands of years ago, the Arctic region was inhabited by the Samoyedic ethnic group known as “Nenets” who live in tents. But there is a legend that there had lived a mysterious race called “Sikhirtya” or “Sihirtia” or “Sirtia” before the arrival of Nenets.

According to a Nenets’ legend, Sihirtians had light blue eyes, blonde hairs and they were very small in size. They used to live underground in the stunning daylight and only in the dark or in mist, they came out of their caves, using dogs and mammoths instead of deers for traveling in a search for prey. Sihirtians had supernatural abilities and mastered blacksmithing, fishing, and hunting.

 Sikhirtya statue made by Nenets artist Evgeniy Salind

 Sikhirtya statue made by Nenets artist Evgeniy Salinder

It is believed that Sihirtians were not the indigenous people, they came to the North from over the sea thousands of years ago to Yamal and later spread their culture to the peninsula. They were highly skilled in comparison to Nenets. Sihirtians did not live in tents like Nenets but in dugouts that had the entrance from the top. The Nenets said that the Sihirtians had underground storerooms with strict security to the entrance.

Read also:

• Mysterious Masks & Stone Flutes Found In South America Hint Giants Lived On Earth
• Mohenjo-Daro: Ancient Indian City Destroyed By Nuclear Weapon 4000 Years Ago
• Mysterious Figurines Collection Of Humanoids With Dinosaurs & UFOs Baffled Scientists
• Ancient Egyptians Worshipped God Sobek With Reptile Head & Why Are There Crocodile Mummies?

At first, Nenets and Sihirtians had no cultural or personal clash, but the Nenets increased the number of deers they need grassy land for their herd to feed. Sihirtians might have been skilled but they lacked the fighting skills, due to which they had to abandon their earthen houses and went to dungeons to graze their mammoths.

In 2017, during an archeology expedition in the Tazovsky peninsula, a grave of the young child was discovered, he died between the age of three and seven in the late 15th or early 16th centuries. After excavating the burial, a team of researchers led by Alexander Tkachev of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography of Tyumen State University found that ‘elite’ headgear embellished with bronze decorations and iron rings on his grave. Such evidence helped the experts to confirm that the grave belonged to the indigenous Sihirtian people.

“When we dug down, we thought the grave was almost empty, but then we saw two knives and were very surprised. When we noticed the pieces of fur and woolen cloth along with the decorations – and understood it was impressive headwear – we were really shocked,” Tkachev said.

Indeed, archeologists have discovered 4000-year-old sites in the Arctic region, dating back to the bronze age. They unearthed metal pendants, carved tools, and ancient pottery that belonged to the non-Samoyed race. French explorer Pierre-Martin de la Martinierre described Nenets as the sorcerers in his “Voyage des pais septentrionaux,” publhsed in 1671. Besides, during his trip from Copenhagen to the Russian coast, he met mysterious short people who wore the white fur of polar bears and lived in homes of fishbones and moss.

Among many Nenets’ folklore, there is a story when two sisters saw an extremely small man with white hair on a fog-like cloud, floating towards them, who could communicate with fish. In another story, when one family stopped to give rest to their reindeer, they spotted a beautiful tiny girl in a shiny silver button dress who was asleep on the grass.

According to some myth, the people of Sikhirtya went underground, lived there and most probably still resting there. While others say that some Sihirtians mixed with the Nenets, others left their homes or died.

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Pastor who sparked doomsday panic claims the Rapture is just DAYS away

• MORE: Noah's Ark resting place '100% confirmed' after 4,300 years as astonishing 'man-made' structure is detected buried deep underground

By CHRIS MELORE, US DEPUTY SCIENCE EDITOR

The Christian pastor who sparked panic with a failed prediction of the Rapture has made a new claim that the end-times belief is near.

Pastor Joshua Mhlakela, a South African preacher, recently said he has calculated the exact time of the biblical event in which believers are lifted into the clouds to meet Jesus Christ, claiming that it will happen between October 12 and 13.

The Rapture is a belief held by some Christians called 'eschatology,' which is the study of end-times events, marking the Second Coming of Jesus and Judgment Day for non-believers.

Mhlakela has claimed in multiple interviews and his own videos online that both God and Jesus have appeared to him in visions, revealing when the Rapture would take place and what the fallout on Earth would look like.

The controversial pastor declared: 'God told me because there's no other date coming out, 12 to 13 October, which is the true feast of trumpets, which is when I will be meeting my savior face to face in the rapture.' 

Mhlakela has drawn widespread skepticism and criticism for his wild predictions, including incorrectly marking the date of the Rapture multiple times in 2025.

He sent social media into a frenzy when he alleged the biblical event would take place on September 23, 2025, convincing scores of believers who watched his predictions online to sell their homes and cars and even quit their jobs.

'There's no other final. I mean, there's no other rapture date. This is the final date for me,' Mhlakela claimed in an interview on September 17.

Pastor Joshua Mhlakela (Pictured) has falsely predicted the biblical event known as the Rapture. He recently said it will now start on October 12, 2026

The Rapture is considered a kind of rescue, where believers are instantly taken away from Earth to avoid a coming period of intense suffering called the Tribulation

(Stock Image)

The pastor claimed his previous false predictions were not errors, but the work of God, who was delaying the final judgement to give humanity more time to repent.

He said the delay was actually fulfilling Scripture, which says the Tribulation days will be shortened for the sake of the 'elect' - meaning the people God has chosen before Jesus returns.

This event is thought to be a kind of rescue, where believers are instantly taken up from Earth into Heaven to avoid a coming period of intense suffering called the Tribulation.

Biblical texts describe the Tribulation as a seven-year period of chaos and disasters, where evil rules on Earth before Jesus returns again to set up a peaceful kingdom.

Mhlakela has said that his first visions of Jesus came to him in 2018, when he warned that the Rapture would come on September 23, 2025, during the Jewish Feast of Trumpets, also known as Rosh Hashanah.

Some Christians have tied the annual holiday to the prophecy that Jesus will return to Earth 'with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God.'

However, Mhlakela now says the date of the Feast of Trumpets has been off by one month, pushing the actual time of the Rapture roughly 30 days past the annual celebration of Rosh Hashanah.

'Many are saying Feast of Trumpets is September when you Google [it's] September 11. [This] is not Feast of Trumpets. The true Feast of Trumpets is actually in October,' Mhlakela claimed during his interview with CettwinzTV.

Many Christians have pushed back on claims the Rapture's date has been revealed, saying that date-setting goes against the teachings of Jesus (Stock Image) 

The pastor explained that his new calculation for the Rapture was based on additional visions from Jesus which pointed him toward later days.

According to Mhlakela, a vision involving two full moons convinced him the calendar itself was off by about a month because the current celebration of Passover was taking place under the astrological sign of Pisces.

He tied that gap to the Exodus story of Israel’s departure from Egypt, saying the 'true' Passover must fall when the sun is in Aries, just as it is said to have taken place during the biblical Exodus.

The pastor then applied that same one-month shift to his new Feast of Trumpets date in mid-October.

However, the Bible did not document the sun being in Aries during the Exodus. It only said Passover falls in the first month of spring, with the Aries link coming from later writers such as Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian - not from the Exodus account itself.

Moreover, Mhlakela's end times predictions continue to receive pushback from many Christians who believe setting a definitive date for the Second Coming of Jesus goes against the teachings of the Bible.

Vladimir Savchuk, a pastor, author, and YouTube preacher, said last September: 'If someone sets the date, they are directly contradicting Jesus's word.'

He further debunked the Rapture claims by noting that Scripture says the son of perdition must be revealed first, referring to a figure often interpreted as the Antichrist.

'2 Thessalonians 2:3, it says clearly that Jesus is not returning until the Antichrist is revealed, and that has not happened yet,' Savchuk explained.

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EXCLUSIVE - I was an atheist until Satan appeared and tried to convince me that Christianity is a cult. Now I'm a pastor... there are signs everywhere that we are living in the final days

By CHRIS MELORE, US DEPUTY SCIENCE EDITOR

A Christian pastor who believed there was no God and was desperately trying to stay out of jail as a teenager has described how a terrifying encounter with Satan changed his life forever.

Bishop Alan DiDio of Revival Nation Church in North Carolina told the Daily Mail that he was 17 years old in 1998 when a demonic presence started speaking to him while he was attending a gathering for his friend's Christian youth group.

He said the voice had lingered in the back of his mind for days, but at the gathering it became as clear as someone speaking aloud, telling him not to believe in God or go near Christians.

As the voice overwhelmed him, DiDio said he instinctively responded to Satan's voice by claiming his soul belonged to Jesus, an act which he claimed miraculously filled his mind with the teachings of Christianity, despite having barely read the Bible.

'I just said, "Satan, you can't have me anymore. Jesus, I'm all yours." And it immediately stopped, and it never came back again,' he recalled, believing that he had received a 'download' of knowledge from Heaven which made it clear he was supposed to share his experience with other Christians.

DiDio said: 'If you hear the voice of Satan, all of a sudden the supernatural becomes very, very real to you. And if Satan is real, then Jesus is real.'

The shocking incident not only caused DiDio to embrace Christianity, but inspired him to take up ministry work, where he found others had experienced what they believed to be demonic encounters – something he believes is part of a spiritual battle taking place across Earth.

DiDio claimed that the demon he confronted as a teen had likely been stalking him for years as he faced arrests for petty crimes, and now theorizes that demons are 'assigned' to mortals on Earth to steer them away from the word of God in this ongoing war between good and evil.

    

Left: Alan DiDio around the time of his demonic encounter as a teen. Right: Today, Alan DiDio is the lead pastor at Revival Nation Church in North Carolina

The pastor warned that he believes even more of these dark encounters are taking place today, with signs and symbols of the biblical end times supposedly becoming more apparent in recent years.

He pointed to the dramatic scene in the last book of the Christian Bible, Revelation, which is said to depict the final showdown between good and evil.

'There's an interesting verse in Revelation 12 that says that Satan will come down in great wrath knowing his time is short,' DiDio explained.

Many believers connect the moment DiDio referenced in Revelation's 12th chapter with a future period of intense trouble on Earth often called the Tribulation.

Biblical texts describe the Tribulation as seven years of chaos and disasters, where evil rules on Earth before Jesus returns to set up a peaceful kingdom.

'So, it could be that we are living in the last days, and I believe we're seeing prophecy fulfilled all around us,' DiDio said.

'And it is absolutely biblical to say we are seeing an increase in demonic activity. You have to combine that with verses like, "when sin does abound, grace does much more abound." And we know that if the enemy has a plan, God has a plan.'

'So, if Satan is increasing his activity, we also know that God is increasing his activity,' the bishop added.

Bishop DiDio believed that demonic entities were 'assigned' to each person on Earth and that demonic activity was on the rise in recent years (stock image)

In 1998, DiDio went with his friend to a loud, Pentecostal-style church service in North Carolina to hear a specific band play but ended up near the front when the visiting pastor singled him out of the crowd and prayed over him.

He said the faith leader compared DiDio to a boy in the Bible who was brought back to life after the prophet Elisha stretched himself over the child until he breathed again.

The pastor then apparently told DiDio he would live, not die, and would become an example of what God could do with a committed young man, and then pushed him down.

'The only thing I felt in that moment was absolute rage,' said DiDio. 'I could not believe my friend had invited me to this cult. I couldn't believe he was a part of the cult. So we literally got out of there as quickly as possible.'   

However, in the days after the pastor's prayer, DiDio claimed he felt a heavy inner 'cloud' of thoughts following him, telling him faith was not for him, to stay away from believers in Christianity, and that he was not even worth saving.

Then, at the youth group's party, DiDio said he took a seat in the corner, staying away from the other teens, when his demonic experience began to affect his hearing.

DiDio explained that it was not a vision or dream, but he quickly lost the ability to hear the other people at the party, as if he was underwater, listening as their voices became muffled.

'I lifted up my head and looked around, and I could see this loud room full of kids. I can see their mouths moving, but I can't hear the words that are coming out of their mouth,' he described.

At that moment, DiDio claimed the dark entity began to speak louder, becoming a real voice he could hear with perfect clarity, telling him to leave the gathering.

'I mean, it's as audible and as real as my voice is to you right now, saying, "You don't believe in any of this, you need to get out of here, this isn't for you, you don't believe in God, stay away from these people."'

DiDio hearing what he took to be Satan's voice made the supernatural suddenly real to him – and if Satan was real, Jesus had to be real as well.  

DiDio (above), who was an atheist at the time, was so moved his own experience that he immediately moved to attend Bible college and begin ministry work

Convinced in that moment that Jesus was his only hope to stop the encounter, DiDio told the disembodied voice his soul now belonged to Jesus, causing the teen to break down crying in front of the other youths.

'I thought I was controlling my life. I was bringing up these arguments against God, and I realized in an instant, in a moment, that this was actually a nefarious demonic entity that has been controlling my life,' the pastor recalled.

DiDio claimed he then received a 'download' of knowledge from Heaven which gave him the strength to cast out the dark entity speaking to him. 

He experienced a sudden, supernatural transfer of wisdom, insight and revelation directly from God into his mind and heart.

While he became a born-again Christian at that moment, DiDio believes his encounters with demonic entities did not end there.

The experience inspired him to immediately take up ministry work, and soon after, move to Ohio to begin Bible college. 

Just months into his studies at Bible College, DiDio claimed that he used the power of Jesus to stop a woman from being possessed by a demonic force.

He described her as a thin, pale young woman who attended a prayer meeting and suddenly changed when worship began. He claimed that her eyes turned milky with no visible pupils, and that she tried to bite the people around her.

After several attendees were able to restrain her, DiDio said he told the snarling woman to stop in Jesus' name, which he claimed caused her to go instantly quiet and her eyes to clear.

DiDio claims these run-ins with demonic spirits follow the same pattern of other dark encounters – which allegedly ended immediately after someone invoked the name of Jesus or God. 

'Whenever we take the name of Jesus, it's not just simply saying the name of Jesus, although that has power and intimidation all by itself, but it's the level of trust and faith behind the declaration of the name of Jesus,' the bishop said.

'I believe the spiritual world is accessed through trust and obedience. Those are the two things that really open portals or open doors for people to access spiritual things.

'When we respond in our love for Jesus, in our trust in Jesus, by declaring his name, that will always have an impact, no matter what force you're dealing with.'

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EXCLUSIVE - Has Noah’s Ark finally been found? Researchers claim mysterious underground structure is man-made after dramatic new scans

• MORE: Noah's Ark resting place '100% confirmed' after 4,300 years as astonishing 'man-made' structure is detected buried deep underground

By CHRIS MELORE, US DEPUTY SCIENCE EDITOR

A team scanning a boat-shaped hill in eastern Turkey has announced that new radar images show a large man-made structure underground, not just natural rock. 

On Wednesday, private research group Noah’s Ark Scans released a preliminary report about their work at the Durupınar Formation in Turkey's Ağrı Province, claiming that the 515-foot boat-shaped mound contained a 'man-made object.'

The scans were conducted by Dr Khosrow Bakhtar, an engineer who spent decades building detection systems for US defense agencies, including the Air Force, Navy and NORAD.

He used a system he invented called BakhtarRadar, originally developed to find buried tunnels and hidden structures, to scan beneath the boat-shaped Durupınar mound and see whether it was solid natural rock or a man-made structure.

That process has now concluded that the object under the Durupınar mound is not a natural rock formation, but a large organized man-made object with corridors, chambers and hallways inside.

In a statement sent to the Daily Mail, Dr Bakhtar said: 'Whatever the object is beneath the surface is extraordinary.'

'In forty years of this work, I have never seen anything like it. It could be a ship. It could be a spaceship. What I can say from the radar is that it is organized, it is structural, and a solid geological mass would not have returned such a strong signature.'

According to the Bible, the massive vessel saved humanity and every kind of animal from annihilation during a catastrophic flood that some biblical chronologies place more than 4,300 years ago. 

The ship-shaped mound believed to be the rest place of Noah's Ark in Turkey

New scans of the Noah's Ark site revealed material that was determined to be something other than natural geological material such as rock 

Bakhtar said the new radar images do not look like ordinary rock, mudflow or a solid natural hill in Turkey.

Instead, they showed organized internal features, including repeating lines and angles, open passageways, corridors, chambers and hallway-like spaces running the length of the alleged vessel trapped underground.

Bakhtar told the Daily Mail in a statement that the radar is designed to hide ordinary natural features such as rock and highlight buried structures, open spaces and man-made materials.

Since those complex patterns still appeared strongly in the scans, the team concluded the object was not a natural geological formation, pointing to the belief that this is the site of the ship constructed to survive the biblical Great Flood being true.

'Natural ground does not organize itself into corridors, chambers and hallways,' Dr Bakhtar explained.

'The system was built to separate buried structure from host geology, tunnels, voids, worked materials, discontinuities. That is what it is seeing here. A solid geological mass would not have returned this signature.'

The first major radar survey in 2019 detected linear and angular anomalies the team interpreted as possible walls, passageways and separate compartments. 

Core drilling for samples of the structure began in late September 2026 under the direction of a Turkish university-led field program. 

The Durupınar Formation in Turkey, believed to be the resting place of Noah's Ark from the biblical Great Flood

New scans of the Noah's Ark site revealed what looked like passageways and other chambers similar to a ship

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• Noah's Ark resting place '100% confirmed' as astonishing 'man-made' structure is detected 

The first holes drilled struck a very hard layer about 12 to 15 feet down inside the Durupınar Formation. Those samples are being sent to outside labs for further testing.

The team previously revealed to the Daily Mail that those drilling samples of rich in organic material were being tested to determine whether it contained decayed wood. 

The full radar scan is expected to be completed by November 2026, with more lab results coming later.

The next major step in this ongoing investigation will be testing for animal DNA inside the structure. 

In the Bible’s Book of Genesis, chapter 6, verses 19-20, the flood story says God told Noah to bring male and female pairs of each kind of animal onto the ark so they could survive.

Noah’s Ark Scans revealed that they are in talks with scientists who specialize in recovering and reconstructing ancient and extinct animal DNA from pieces of deteriorating material, such as old bones, teeth or other remains that have been buried for millennia.

An international team are '100 percent confident' that the formation is a 'man-made object'

New scans of the Noah's Ark site revealed material that was determined to be something other than natural geological material such as rock

Andrew Jones, Vice President of the Noah’s Ark Research Project and founder of Noah’s Ark Scans, said in Wednesday's announcement: 'We now know we are looking at a massive, 515-foot, boat-shaped man-made structure with organized patterns and corridors in the Mountains of Ararat, where Genesis places the Ark.'

'The challenge is how we prove this is the vessel that preserved living creation through a catastrophic flood. That proof will not come from another scan. It will come from identifying and confirming ancient animal DNA inside the voids Dr Bakhtar mapped inside the structure.' 

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“I believe this is Noah’s Ark; that’s why I’m putting the Durupinar site through the most rigorous testing possible,” explained the organization’s founder, Andrew Jones.

The research team’s announcement appeared in a press release issued by Jones’s organization, and the results of their findings have not undergone scientific peer review.

The announcement includes initial observations that the drilling did not encounter any limestone bedrock, which, according to Jones’s organization, challenges the mainstream scientific explanation that the site is simply a rock formation. The core drilling effort also experienced a broken bit, which the team said suggests the potential presence of ancient petrified wood instead of comparatively softer limestone.

After future laboratory testing of the core drilling samples designed to provide further insight into the Noah’s Ark-shaped formation’s composition, the team is also planning to send a robot into the subterranean tunnels and chambers identified by previous site scans to search for more clues about its nature and origin.

Decades of Debate Surround ‘Noah’s Ark’ Site

The Durupınar formation is a 157-meter (515-foot) boat-shaped surface feature that first gained attention in 1959 when Turkish Army Capt. İlhan Durupınar spotted it.

Because of its unusual curved shape, some researchers have wondered whether the formation could potentially be the petrified remains of an ancient sea vessel. This, along with the formation’s location, which echoes beliefs about the alleged location where Noah’s Ark came to rest in the Old Testament, has led to speculations that the site could be the famed vessel built by Noah, as described in the book of Genesis.

Credit: Noah’s Ark Scans.

In 1988, an investigation to determine whether the ‘Noah’s Ark’ formation contained remains of petrified wood or limestone bedrock, as suggested by geologists, attempted to solve the faith-versus-science argument by drilling holes.

According to the Noah’s Ark Scans team, those holes extended to only “a fraction of the depth now being sampled,” offering limited value. Further, the samples in the earlier study were “corrupted” by water used to cool the drill bits, rendering tests inconclusive, according to Jones and his team.

Jones’s team, which includes U.S. Defense Scientist Dr. Khrosrow Bakthar, the inventor of the Bakthar Radar used to map much of the formation’s underground detail, has completed a months-long mapping effort at the site. The work includes the creation of three-dimensional models, collecting soil samples “inside and outside” the Noah’s Ark formation’s outline, and assembling an array of high-resolution surface imaging of the entire area. This work prepared the team for the core drilling effort.

Hints of ‘Decayed Wood’ and Organic Materials

According to a press release announcing the new work, core holes were drilled within the boat-shaped outline and in “control” locations well outside the formation’s area. These control samples offered a comparison set for future lab tests of samples collected within the outline of the Noah’s Ark site.

According to the team’s announcement, samples collected during the effort included “sequences of soil and sediment, intervals of organic-rich material, and cavities.”

“For the first time in history, we are performing an extensive, permitted deep core drilling survey inside and outside the Durupınar Noah’s Ark site, recovering samples from depths of up to 18 meters, nearly 60 feet,” Jones explained.

The researchers said the first samples include rich organic layers that could be evidence of ancient “decayed” wood. Jones, who describes himself as a believer in the historical veracity of the Noah’s Ark story, said the effort also revealed multiple hidden cavities, “including one filled with mud and water.”

One moment Jones highlighted from the work involved the ‘dry’ drilling system the team used, which does not rely on water. At one point, one of the drills suddenly stopped when the team “struck a layer so hard that the drill bit broke.” Jones said this occurred when the bit was 4-5 meters below the surface, and after the drilling system “had already penetrated the overlying material.”

“Whatever the core drill struck was harder than limestone — hard enough to break the bit,” Jones explained.

Team members said that the drill bit broke after hitting something harder than limestone.

Credit: Noah’s Ark Scans.

While lab tests will be needed to confirm the material’s composition, the researchers noted that if petrified wood from an ancient vessel caused the infamous formation, its harder-than-limestone status could explain the drill suddenly stopping.

“Petrified or highly mineralized wood [is] both a possibility we want to investigate through third-party lab testing,” Jones said.

Controversial Claims

Interpretations of the Durupınar formation as being purported physical evidence of events described in the Old Testament remain controversial. As previously reported by The Debrief, Jones and other team members of Noah’s Ark Scans have expressed views indicating that they already believe the Durupınar site represents the literal remains of the vessel ascribed to the Biblical character Noah, despite the ongoing investigations they are undertaking in an attempt to provide evidence for such beliefs.

Even some prominent young-Earth creationists have pushed back on Jones and his team’s claims. Ken Ham, the founder, CEO, and former president of the Christian apologetics organization Answers in Genesis, has criticized the group’s members for being “convinced of what this site likely was” before reviewing the results of geophysical surveys, arguing that the group’s findings fail to “objectively assess the raw geophysical data by canvassing other interpretations.”

To date, the research conducted by the Noah’s Ark Scans team has not been published in a formal scientific journal or undergone peer review, and has only been presented in press releases and on the organization’s website.

While the Noah’s Ark Scans team awaits the results of its most recent laboratory tests, the group has another exploration of the supposed Noah’s Ark site already planned. According to the team, this effort will follow up on earlier ground-penetrating radar scans that identified “linear features, right-angle intersections, layered anomalies, and elongated voids.” The researchers suggested these underground voids could be corridors to ‘chamber-like places,’ related to an ancient seagoing vessel.

Instead of more drilling, the team will deploy GOPHER, a custom-built robot named for the ‘gopher wood’ described in the book of Genesis. To explore the inner areas, GOPHER is equipped with a high-resolution camera that the team said is “designed to enter narrow borehole access points without opening large excavation trenches.”

“This is a major breakthrough in our ability to investigate what lies beneath this remarkable site,” explained Lauren Witzke, a Fundraiser for the Noah’s Ark Scans organization and self-described Christian activist, according to the group’s website.

Jones echoed those sentiments, noting that the team is “collecting physical samples for laboratory analysis, with more fieldwork planned next year.”

“These current findings challenge claims that this is simply a natural shape made of limestone or bedrock,” Jones said, adding that these first investigations have “opened an entirely new chapter in the Noah’s Ark investigation.” 

• Christopher Plain has spent the last six years as Associate News Editor and Head Science Reporter at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his novels at plainfiction.com, or email him at christopher@thedebrief.org.

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Mysterious map found inside centuries-old Bible claims to pinpoint location of Eden

• READ MORE: Noah's Ark resting place '100% confirmed' after 4,300 years as astonishing 'man-made' structure is detected buried deep underground

By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

Hidden within a 1599 Bible is a detailed map revealing where its creators believed the Garden of Eden may once have stood.

Titled The Situation of the Garden of Eden, it places the biblical paradise in Great Armenia, near mountains believed to represent Mount Ararat in present-day Turkey.

Discussing the map on her YouTube channel, Ashleys_AntiqueBibles said it appears to locate Eden near the source of the Euphrates at the mountain's base.

The map also labels Mesopotamia, Babylon, Havilah, the Arabian Desert, the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea.

Most importantly, it shows the Euphrates beginning among the mountains and flowing westward, while the Caspian Sea appears to the right, or east.

This layout places Eden near the mountainous headwaters rather than beneath the Caspian Sea, a location the host said she had proposed in earlier videos.

That interpretation draws on Genesis, which states that one river flowed out of Eden before dividing into the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris and Euphrates.

Translated into modern geography, the map points to eastern Turkey, close to the borders of Armenia and Iran.

Titled The Situation of the Garden of Eden, the map places the biblical paradise in Great Armenia, near mountains believed to represent Mount Ararat in present-day Turkey

The antique Bible, known as the Geneva Bible, was produced by English Protestant scholars who fled England and took refuge in Switzerland. 

Historians estimate that as many as 360,000 copies were printed between 1560 and 1644. 

The Situation of the Garden of Eden map is a copy of one created by Protestant reformer John Calvin, first published in his 1554 commentary on Genesis to illustrate where he believed Eden had stood.

Genesis describes a river flowing through Eden before dividing into four branches.

Scholars generally agreed that two were the Tigris and Euphrates, while the Pishon and Gihon were often identified as the Ganges and Nile.

However, that interpretation created a major geographical problem because the four rivers do not meet.

Calvin proposed that the biblical term translated as 'headwaters' could refer to either the beginning or the mouth of a river, according to a pre-print study by Justine Angelique Walden, who previously taught history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

He therefore argued that the Pishon and Gihon were not separate rivers but names for the lower sections or outlets of the Tigris and Euphrates.

The antique Bible, known as the Geneva Bible, was produced by English Protestant scholars who fled England and took refuge in Switzerland

The Garden of Eden (Pictured) was described in the Book of Genesis as a paradise where the first humans, Adam and Eve, once walked before committing the first sin

By treating all four names as parts of the same river system, Calvin believed he had reconciled the biblical description with real-world geography.

His interpretation placed Eden firmly in Mesopotamia and presented it as a genuine earthly paradise that had existed before disappearing into history.

'Oddly, the Eden map showed the general location of Eden but did not specify the walled garden’s perimeter, and so ambiguously asserted both the presence of paradise as well as its absence,' Walden shared in her report.

'Eden had once been precisely locatable; now only traces of its existence, such as the four rivers, remained.' 

People have been actively searching for and theorizing about the location of the Garden of Eden for centuries, with every single one coming up empty.

A more recent investigation into the biblical paradise was released in 2025, when Mahmood Jawaid, a chemical engineer based in Texas, argued Eden was actually in Bahir Dar, a fertile region in northwestern Ethiopia near the southern end of Lake Tana, where the Blue Nile begins.

An American engineer proposed in 2025 that the Garden of Eden was located in Ethiopia due to the landscape and the Blue Nile that runs through the area

Jawaid based his research on a careful reading of both the Bible and the Quran, analyzing descriptions of Adam and Eve, the rivers and the garden itself.

The study, which has not been peer-reviewed, noted that the Blue Nile could correspond to the Biblical Gihon, and Lake Tana's outflows divide into multiple waterways, potentially forming the four rivers described in Genesis.

Early human evolution also played a role in this theory, proposing that Adam may have evolved from Homo habilis or a late form of Australopithecus in the East African Rift Valley near Olduvai Gorge, a region considered a cradle of humanity.

From there, Adam and Eve could have been 'placed' in the highlands of Bahir Dar, a paradise at a higher elevation, before descending, what the Quran describes as 'habata,' to settle in the Rift Valley.

This is because the region sits about 6,000 feet above sea level, boasting lush vegetation, abundant wildlife and the flowing Blue Nile, features that align with both the Biblical description of Eden's rivers and the Quranic concept of a garden on Earth.

'All clues point to Bahir Dar, near Lake Tana, a region of striking beauty, abundant vegetation, and the source of the Blue Nile, which fits the ancient description of Eden's rivers,' Jawaid wrote.

The Gihon, in particular, is said to encompass the land of Cush, an ancient term widely associated with Ethiopia.

Jawaid seized on that linguistic clue, arguing that the Gihon corresponds to the Blue Nile, which begins at Lake Tana before winding northward through Sudan to join the White Nile in Khartoum.

'Lake Tana fits the description of Eden perfectly,' he writes, noting that volcanic ridges enclose the surrounding highlands and feed multiple river systems.

In his reconstruction, Lake Tana itself represents Eden, while the Garden of Eden lies immediately to the south, around Bahir Dar, 'east of Eden' in biblical phrasing, where the river emerges from the lake.

The Book of Genesis discusses a 'flaming sword,' which God placed at the entrance of the garden to prevent humans from accessing the Tree of Life after Adam and Eve were banished.

The Tree of Life was a literal tree with fruit that would grant eternal life. After Adam and Eve sinned by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they were expelled from Eden to prevent them from also eating the Tree of Life and living forever in their fallen state.

Jawaid's study suggested that the 'fiery flashing sword' could be represented by the volcanic ridges surrounding Lake Tana in the Ethiopian Highlands.

'Considering that the valley is surrounded by historically active volcanoes, it is very much possible that the active volcanoes formed the flaming sword mentioned in the Bible,' he shared. 

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