Exactly how would they “know”? This is pre-written history. And what happened to taking it literally, present tense and all?
Abraham came from Ur in Iraq and there was a flow of people throughout the area through trade and war. At the time it was written it would have been known that the Tigris and Euphrates did not originate with the Pishon and Gihon in Eden; and this is true whether you accept authorship by Moses or by a Babylonian exile. The Toledoth Colophons in Genesis suggest that the author used prior written records.
Taking the Bible literally does not mean taking it literalistically, rather it means employing historical-grammatical exegesis. This method presupposes that human beings are and were rational creatures capable of linguistic communication, and that linguistic communication is meaningful and objective. The Bible itself is evidence that the Bible writers were just as intelligent and linguistically sophisticated as we are today; perhaps more so in my case.
Interesting stuff, but it appears little support for that position is present among most scholars. It would be interesting if one of the original tablets showed up. Or if they were documented to exist somewhere.
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Nimrod was a Kushite kingdom builder and a “sent-away” son. Eden was a vast well-watered region that extended from the source of the Nile in the Ethiopian Highlands where the waters form a V (Ha’vilah) to the Tigris and Euphrates. The gold of Kush is also referenced.
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The Gihon and Pishon were in Africa.