Garden of Eden
From The Book of THoTH (Leaves of Wisdom)
The Garden of Eden (from Hebrew Gan Ēden, "גַּן עֵדֶן") is described by the Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man - Adam - and woman - Eve - lived after they were created by God. The past physical existence of this garden forms part of the creation belief of the Abrahamic religions.
The Genesis account (specifically, the Jahwist version of the creation story) supplies the geographical location of Eden in relation to four major rivers. However, because the identification of these rivers has been the subject of much controversy and speculation, a substantial consensus now exists that the knowledge of the location of Eden has been lost. There is no indication of its existence beyond its record in Genesis.
There are some religious groups who have a genesis story containing similar subject elements, but who ascribe different locations to the place of first habitation. (See origin belief.)
In the Garden of Eden story, God molds Adam from the dust of the ground, then forms Eve from one of Adam's ribs and places them both in the garden. God charges both Adam and Eve to tend the garden in which they live, and specifically commands Adam not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, a tree peculiarly pleasing to the eye. Eve is tempted by a serpent to eat of this fruit, and after eating she then gives some fruit to Adam, who also eats. They both suddenly become aware of evil and feeling ashamed of their "nakedness" hide from God. God finds them, confronts them, and judges them with a sentence of "death", beginning with the serpent first, then Eve, then Adam. God then expels them from the garden because they have disobeyed Him by eating the forbidden fruit. In order to guarantee the punishment of death and to keep Adam and Eve from partaking of the Tree of Life, (which would give them perpetual life), God places cherubim to guard against any entrance into the garden with an omnidirectional "flaming" sword, preventing Adam and Eve from returning in the future.
Christianity and Judaism associate the serpent with Satan, based on a common interpretation of Old Testament texts. The serpent is given a natural desire to eat "dust", which was previously described as the original stuff from which Mankind was made and the stuff to which they would return. Other passages of the Hebrew Scripture tests describe Satan as the perpetual prosecutor of mankind, devouring them whenever he gets the chance. So in this interpretation God's words to the serpent, that he would "eat dust", was an analogy to his evil nature after the curse. In Christianity there is also a correspondence between Genesis and the Revelation. However, an early Gnostic Christian sect, known as the Ophites, turned this on its head, worshipping the serpent as the hero trying to impart gnosis, and casting God as the evil villain trying to imprison them in the creation of the demiurge.
In the account the garden is planted "eastward, in Eden", and accordingly "Eden" properly denotes the larger territory which contains the garden rather than being the name of the garden itself: it is, thus, the garden located in Eden. The Talmud also states (Brachos 34b) that the Garden is distinct from Eden.
For the association of the Garden of Eden with Paradise, see below.
Contents |
Geography
The Book of Genesis contains little information on the garden itself. It was home to both the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, as well as an abundance of other vegetation that could feed Adam and Eve.
- "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.".
-Genesis 2:10
The Garden of Eden Possible Locations
For years people have been trying to locate the Garden of Eden. The problem with locating the "land" of the Garden of Eden is that many people believe the "Garden" was in the "Land of Eden" (which it appears it was not). The land of Eden is described as encompassing the area of the Pishon River in the land of Havilah, the Gihon River in the land of Cush, the Tigris River, and the Euphrates River. It does not state that the Garden of Eden was surrounded by, or bordered by these four rivers. Many people believe the Garden of Eden was located in Mesopotamia, in what is now central Iraq. But, this may not be true, because many people have failed to correctly identify the Pishon and the Havilah rivers.
In order to correctly identify these rivers we need to realize is that the names we read in the Bible are often English translations of Greek translations of Aramaic. Then we need to look for rivers or geographical areas with names that are similar to the words Pishon and Havilah. During my research of the Arab descendants of Abraham (trying to support my belief that the Arabs are the "kings of the East" mentioned in Revelations) my studies led me to the passage in Genesis 25 about Abraham's descendants from his concubine Hagar, and his wife Keturah. The passage states that the Arab descendants of Ishmael were scattered across the country from "Havilah-by Shur, which is near Egypt, all the way to Asshur", which is from northern Egypt to eastern Iraq.
Havilah is one of the areas mentioned as being near the Garden of Eden. Many people have been taught that the Garden was located in central Iraq or Mesopotomia, somewhere near Baghdad between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Genesis 2:10 states, "A river from the land of Eden flowed through the garden to water it; afterwards the river divided into four branches (here some Bibles use the term "into four river heads" but there is no support for the use of this term). One of these was named the Pishon; it winds across the length of the land of Havilah ... v. 13 the second branch is called the Gihon, crossing the entire length of the land of Cush. The third branch is the Tigris (Hiddekel), which flows east to the city of Asher. And the fourth is the Perat (Euphrates)."
The mention of the Euphrates flowing "east to the city of Asher" creates a problem, because the city of Asshur is traditionally located north of Babylon, and it is on the Tigris River. The use of the term "river heads" in this passage may have led to the misconception that the Garden of Eden was in an area where four rivers began. But, as we will see this may not be the case.
An alternative reading states, "A river watering the garden flowed from Eden, and from there it divided. It had four headstreams. The name of the first is the Pishon. It winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there. The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."
We can see that the interpretations from the two Bibles quoted above are significantly different. Both of them imply that Eden was upstream of the garden and that the river ran through the garden. But, the first quote uses the term "afterwards the river divided into four branches" implying that "after-wards" (outside) of the garden the river divided. The second quote states that the river flowed "from" Eden (not began in it). The second quote also states "it (the river) divided" and "It had four head-streams", simply meaning that the river that started or ran through Eden, and then ran through the garden, had four head-streams.
These differences are very significant. The second quote could imply that the river eventually broke up into four parts, or four other rivers. Since rivers generally break up into several other rivers or streams upstream on larger rivers, it seems to imply that these four head streams were upstream from Eden. We also have to note that one of these rivers ran through the land of "Cush" and another through the land of "Havilah".
If the four head-streams are upriver from Eden, and we know that two of the rivers are the Tigris and the Euphrates, we have to assume that the large river (that they are part of) is the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates in the delta region north of the Persian Gulf. Then, if we understand that the rivers are listed in order of occurrence; and know that the Tigris is the third river we can expect to find on a map; and know that the Euphrates is the fourth river we expect to find; and understand that we are listing these rivers in a counter-clockwise succession (remember, the Israelites wrote and looked at writings and maps from left to right); and we understand that the two rivers we know about (the Tigris and the Euphrates) are on the west side of the Tigris/Euphrates delta; then we realize we have to look for the first two rivers either north or east of the Tigris River. So, we can probably begin looking for the "Pishon in the land of Havilah" north and east of the delta, and we can look for the "Gihon crossing the land of Cush" to the north of the Pishon, but north and east of the Tigris.
Rashi thought the Pishon River was the Nile. Josephus thought it was the Ganges or the Indus. Rabbi Aaron Marcus thought it was the Karun which flows through Iran into the Persian Gulf.
There is a town named Havilah just north of the Dead Sea, on the east side of the Jordan River, but this is probably not the Havilah spoken of in the Dead Sea fragment. There is one other area associated with the name Havilah, which is the area referred to as Havelian, Susiana, Susis or Susa, which is on the Rud-e-Karun River, east of the Tigris River, in what is now Iran. This area is given credence as the Havilah of Abraham's survey by the observance of Josephus of a city named Havelian on the upper Indus River in nearby Pakistan. Genesis 10:29 states that Havilah and other tribes, "occupied a stretch of country from Mesha (Meshech) to Sephar, the eastern mountain range". This eastern mountain range must be the mountains of Iran, because there are no other mountains between Canaan and Iran.
One reason why Rashi may have believed the Pishon River was the Nile River, was because of the use of the term "land of Cush" (often interpreted as Ethiopia), which is used in conjunction with the next river named in Genesis 2; the Gihon. However, as we will see, neither the Pishon nor the Gihon rivers are located in Egypt, because there was another area referred to as the "land of Cush" in or near Mesopotamia.
The ancient city of Kish, which was east of the city of Babylon, gives support to this theory. The word Kish is probably derived from the word Kush or Cush. From Genesis 10:8-12) we can deduce that Nimrod was a Cushite (son of Cush), and that part of the land of his or his father's domain would have been called the "land of Cush". We know that part of Nimrods' Empire was near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, because of some of the cities associated with him in Genesis: Babel (Babylon), Erech (Iraq), Accad (Akkadia, northern Iran/Iraq), the land of Shinar (Sumer, southern Iran/Iraq). We can also find the word Cush or Kush in the Hindu-Kush Mountains near western India, which suggests that the Middle East ancient "land of Cush" may have extended as far east as India. Thus the unknown Gihon River (which runs through the land of Cush) is probably a river in ancient Babylon (modern Iraq/Iran).
As we look at the map of Iraq, the first river we note north and east of the Tigris/Euphrates delta is named the Rud-e Karun, which runs mainly through Iran (Remember that Rabbi Aaron Marcus felt that the Pishon was the Karun). The Rud-e-Karun is probably the same as the Pishon River "that winds across the length of land of Havilah."
One of the next major rivers north of the Pishon/Karun is the Nahr Diyala (in which we can possibly see the name Havilah). This river flows into the Tigris River near Baghdad. There is also a town named Halabjah (which sounds similar to Havilah) close to this river, near the Iranian border. This area would have been in the land of Cush, or in the land of the Kassites, as it is referred to in the Bible. I suspect that the Nahr Diyala River is the same as the Gihon River that "winds through the entire land of Cush." Thus, both the Pishon and the Gihon rivers (like the Tigris and Euphrates) may be in Iran/Iraq.
Since the river in the land of Eden flows "through" (not out of) the garden of Eden, and since the four rivers mentioned are "afterwards" of Eden (upstream of Eden, not surrounding the garden), we can assume that the "Garden" was not necessarily in Eden, but close to it, and that Eden encompassed the area from central to southern Iraq; and that the "Garden" was probably on the flood plain of the Tigris and Euphrates in southern Iraq, not in central Iraq or Mesopotomia as many Bible researchers have suggested.
The area of the Garden of Eden may have been the primary area known by the early Semitic patriarchs of the Middle East at the time when the stories of creation first began. It is doubtful that they knew if there were people in most of Europe, or in China, Africa, Australia or North and South America. The Middle East is where many of the stories of the Bible originated. But, as we will find out, the list of ethnic groups in Genesis 10 includes groups that inhabited areas of Europe, Asia and Africa that were probably unknown to the people of the Middle East when they first used the names of those ethnic groups.
Suspected locations
There have been a number of claims as to the actual geographic location of the Garden of Eden, though many of these have little or no connection to the text of Genesis. Most put the Garden somewhere in the Middle East near Mesopotamia. Locations as diverse as Ethiopia, Java, Sri Lanka, the Seychelles, Brabant, and Bristol, Florida have all been proposed as locations for the garden. Some Christian theologians believe that the Garden never had a terrestrial existence, but was instead an adjunct to heaven as it became identified with Paradise (see below).
The text asserts that from Eden the river divided into four branches: Hiddekel a.k.a. Tigris, Euphrates, Pishon and Gihon. The identity of the former two are commonly accepted, though the latter two rivers have been the subject of endless argument. But if the Garden of Eden had really been near the sources of the Tigris and the Euphrates, then the original narrators in the land of Canaan would have identified it as located generally in the Taurus Mountains, in Anatolia. Satellite photos reveal two dry riverbeds flowing toward the Persian Gulf near where the Tigris and Euphrates also terminate. While this accounts for four rivers in the vicinity, that area is the mouth of those rivers rather than their source.
Some literalists point out that the world of Eden's time was destroyed during Noah's Flood and it is therefore impossible to place the Garden anywhere in post-flood geography. There is also an attempt to tie this with the mystical sunken land of Atlantis. One favourite location is Sundaland in the South China Sea. In this case the current Tigris and Euphrates rivers would not be the ones referred to in the narrative, but later rivers named after two of the earlier rivers, just as in more modern times colonists would name features of their new land after similar features in their homeland. This idea also resolves the apparent problem that the Bible describes the rivers as having a common source, which the current rivers do not.
One recent claim by archaeologist David Rohl puts the garden in the north-western Iran. According to him, the Garden is a river valley east of the Sahand Mountain, near Tabriz. He cites several geological similarities with Biblical descriptions, and multiple linguistic parallels as evidence. The Medians lived in this area before founding the Persian Empire.
The Urantia Book (1955) places the Garden of Eden in a long narrow peninsula projecting westward from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and having been long ago submerged in connection with volcanic activity and the submergence of a Sicilian land bridge to Africa, features unidentified by geologists.
Sumeria and Dilmun
The first Sumerians lived in the plains of what is now southern Iraq. Some of the historians working from within the cultural horizons of southernmost Sumer, where the earliest surviving non-Biblical source of the legend lies, point to the quite genuine Bronze Age entrepôt of the island Dilmun (now Bahrain) in the Persian Gulf, described as 'the place where the sun rises' and 'the Land of the Living'. The setting of the Sumerian creation myth, Enûma Elish, has clear parallels with the Genesis narratives. After its actual decline, beginning about 1500 B.C., Dilmun developed such a reputation as a long-lost garden of exotic perfections that it appears to have influenced the story of the Garden of Eden. Some interpreters have tried to establish an Edenic garden at the trading-center of Dilmun.
Latter Day Saints' geography for Eden
For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormons or LDS), the Garden of Eden is believed to have been located in the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman located in present-day Daviess County, Missouri. Mormons believe the configuration of the continents was different before the Great Flood, and that the geographic descriptions of Eden in the Book of Genesis refer to entirely different lands and rivers, whose names were transposed after the biblical flood to local lands and rivers in the Near East, from their original site near Independence, Missouri.
Eden as Paradise
"Paradise" (Hebrew פרדס PaRDeS) used as a synonym for the Garden of Eden shares a number of characteristics with words for 'walled orchard garden' or 'enclosed hunting park' in an ancient Persian language. This word "paradise" occurs three times in the Old Testament, but always in contexts other than a connection with Eden: in the Song of Solomon iv. 13: "Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard" ;Ecclesiastes ii. 5: "I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits";and in Nehemiah ii. 8: "And a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king's orchard, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me. ". In the Song of Solomon, it is clearly "garden;" in the second and third examples "park." In the post-Exilic apocalyptic literature and in the Talmud, "paradise" gains its associations with the Garden of Eden and its heavenly prototype. In the Pauline Christian New Testament, there is an association of "paradise" with the realm of the blessed (as opposed to the realm of the cursed) among those who have already died, with literary Hellenistic influences observed by numerous scholars. The Greek Garden of the Hesperides was somewhat similar to the Christian concept of the Garden of Eden, and by the 16th century a larger intellectual association was made in the Cranach painting (see illustration). In this painting, only the action that takes place there identifies the setting as distinct from the Garden of the Hesperides, with its golden fruit.
Some anthropologists have hypothesized that the Garden of Eden does not represent a geographical place, but rather represents cultural memory of "simpler times", when man lived off God's bounty (as "primitive" hunters and gatherers still do) as opposed to toiling at agriculture (being "civilized"). Of course there is much dispute between Judeo-Christian and secular scholars as to the plausability of this idea - the refuting claim being that cultivation and agricultural work were present both before and after the "Garden Life".
Author Ann Druyan considers the Garden of Eden to be far removed from the typical view of Paradise, observing:
"It's puzzling that Eden is synonymous with paradise when, if you think about it at all, it's more like a maximum-security prison with twenty-four hour surveillance. It's a horrible place. Adam and Eve have no childhood. They awaken full-grown...They have no mother, nor did they ever have one...Their father is a terrifying, disembodied voice who is furious with them from the moment they first awaken." [1]
Hebraic and Christian Scholars, on the other hand, claim that a state of "maximum-security with twenty-four hour surveillance" surrounded the garden only after the disobedience of man and woman. They also disagree with her view of God in the text, noting that in the Genesis account, Adam and Eve had a daily positive interaction with their "Father" prior to eating the forbidden fruit. These scholars also claim that Adam and Eve were at full liberty in the garden prior to this incident, since otherwise they could not have chosen to eat the forbidden fruit; others suggest that the forbidden nature of the fruit suggests that their liberty was compromised.
Etymology
The origin of the term "Eden", which in Hebrew means "delight", may be with Akkadian edinu which derives from the Sumerian E.DIN. The latter words mean "plain" or "steppe", so the connection between the terms may be coincidental. However, to modern eyes, the wording "east, in Eden" suggests a geographical rather than metaphorical use of the term.
Eden in Art
Garden of Eden motifs most frequently portrayed in illuminated manuscripts and paintings are the "Sleep of Adam" ("Creation of Eve"), the "Temptation of Eve" by the Serpent, the "Fall of Man" where Adam takes the fruit, and the "Expulsion". The idyll of "Naming Day in Eden" was less often depicted. Much of Milton's Paradise Lost occurs in the Garden of Eden. Michelangelo depicted a scene at the Garden of Eden in the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
See also
- Genesis
- Adam and Eve
- Tree of Knowledge
- Tree (mythology)
- Fleur de lys
- Tree of Life
- Palmette
- Paradise
- Jannah
- Original Sin
- Millennialism
- Pandora's Box
- Serpent
- Tomoanchan
- Zohar
- Cradle of Humanity
- Eden Project
- In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (song)
External links
- Returning to Eden investigates the Garden of Eden motif from a political, historical, and philosophical perspective, viewing it as a precursor of political utopianism.
- Smithsonian article on the geography of the Tigris-Euphrates region
- Review of the Young Earth Creationist Book "After Eden"
Categories: Torah places | Abrahamic mythology | Simple living
