
The Garden Of Eden
A) PARADISE.
B) WHERE IS/WAS THE GARDEN LOCATED.
C) THE RIVERS.
D) THE HISTORIANS CHIME IN.
E) THERE ARE TWO THEORIES.
F) TRADITIONS OF NATIONS.
A) PARADISE
The “Garden of Eden” is the garden in which our first parents dwelt (Gen. 2:8-17). Eden was but a temporary nursery for the human family. Because, from these people, if they had remained innocent, would have spread out in every direction until the whole earth became “the garden of the Lord.” The “Garden of Eden,” or, the first residence of man as called in the “Septuagint” (“LXX”), is also known as, “Paradise.” In the Assyrian inscriptions “idinu” (Accadian, “edin”), means, “plain,” and it is from this that the Biblical word is probably derived.
B) WHERE IS/WAS THE GARDEN LOCATED
No geographical question has been so diligently discussed, or determined to be discovered, as to the exact bearing of its site. The many discussions place its geography in Armenia, in the region west of the Caspian Sea; or in Media, near Damascus; or in Palestine; or in Southern Arabia; and even in Babylonia.
The site must undoubtedly be sought for somewhere along the course of the great streams of the Tigris and the Euphrates of Western Asia, in “the land of Shinar,” or Babylonia. The region from about Latitude 33 degrees 30’, to Latitude 31 degrees (Longitude around 44 Degrees), which is a very rich and fertile tract. This has been agreed upon by the most competent authorities as to the probable site of Eden. However, they are basing this on today’s geography of our Earth; discounting what it looked like pre-flood.
In North West Mesopotamia, an Eden is mentioned near the Tigris River (2Ki. 19:12; Isa. 37:12; Eze. 27:23). Another, in Coelosyria, near Damascus (Amos 1:5). The primitive Eden was somewhere in the locality containing the conjoined Euphrates and the Tigris (or Hiddekel), which branch off northward into those two rivers, and southward it branches into two channels again, below Bassera, before failing into the Gihon River (Gen. 2:13), the East channel, and the Pison River (Gen. 2:11), the West channel. Havilah (Gen. 2:11), near the Western channel, would thus be North East Arabia; and Cush (or Ethiopia), near the Eastern channel, would be Kissia, Chuzestan, or Susiana. The united rivers are called the Shat-el-Arab. Again, Bible commentators may be basing this on today’s geography of our Earth; counting on that our Earth may have had the same river structure pre-flood.
The rivers are named as they were after the flood, which must have altered the face of the ancient Eden. The four took their rise in it, as their center, which is not true of the present Tigris (“arrow”) and Euphrates (“the good and fertile”). Armenia’s highlands are the traditional cradle of the race; thence probably, from Eden as their source, flowed the two eastern rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, and the two western ones through the regions answering to Arabia and Egypt. In either case, the world as we know it today is not the world then known to the pre-flood peoples.
C) THE RIVERS
Again, in the eastern portion of the region of Eden was the garden planted. The “Hiddekel” (Gen. 2:14; then its different or same location, in Dan. 10:4), one of its rivers, is believed by some to be the modern Tigris River. The Euphrates River is also believed to be the same river as the modern Euphrates River. With regard to the Pison and Gihon Rivers, a great variety of opinion exists. But the best authorities are divided between:
(1) Eden as in northeast Arabia, at the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris, and their separation again, making the four rivers of the different channels of these two, or
(2) and most probably, Eden as situated in Armenia, near the origin of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and in which the same region, rise the Araxes (Pison of Genesis) and the Oxus (Gihon of Genesis). Much is said in favor of identifying Eden with Armenia, for it is here that the Tigris and Euphrates have their origin, while two others, the Aras (Araxes) emptying into the Caspian Sea, and the Choruk (thought by some to be the Phasis) emptying into the Black Sea, would represent the Gihon and the Pishon. Havilah would then be identified with Colchis, famous for its golden sands (read Gen. 2:11). But Cush is difficult to find in that region; while these four rivers could by no possibility be regarded as branches of one parent stream.
D) THE HISTORIANS CHIME IN
According to Josephus, the Ganges, the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Nile are the four rivers, being but branches of this one river. Moreover, it is contended by some, with much show of reason, that the word “perath,” translated Euphrates, is a more general term, signifying “the broad,” or the “deep” river, and so may here refer to some other stream than the Euphrates; possibly to a river in some other region whose name is perpetuated in the present Euphrates, as “the Thames” of New England perpetuates the memory of “the Thames of Old England.”
In ancient times there was a river, “Phrath in Persia,” and perhaps two. It is doubtful whether the phrase “eastward, in Eden” refers to the position with reference to the writer, or simply with reference to Eden itself (most likely to Eden itself). So far as that phrase is concerned, therefore, speculation is left free to range over the whole earth. And this it has done.
Christopher Columbus, when passing the mouth of the Orinoco, surmised that its waters came down from the Garden of Eden. It is fair to say, however, that he supposed himself to be upon the East coast of Asia.
The traditions of its location somewhere in Central Asia are numerous and persistent. Naturalists have, with Quatrefages, pretty generally fixed upon the portion of Central Asia, stretching East from the Pamir, often referred to as the roof of the world, from which flow four great rivers -- the Indus, the Tarim, the Sur Daria (Jaxartes), and the Ainu Daria (Oxus) -- as the original cradle of mankind.
This conclusion has been arrived at from the fact that at the present time the three fundamental types of the races of mankind are grouped about this region. The Negro races are, indeed, in general, far removed from the location. But still, fragments of them, both pure and mixed, are found in various localities, both in the interior and on the seashore and adjacent islands, where they would naturally radiate from this center. While the yellow and the white races here meet at the present time in close contact. In the words of Quatrefages, “No other region of the globe presents a similar union of extreme human types distributed round a common center.” “The Human Species,” page 176.
Philology, also, points to this same conclusion. On the East are the monosyllabic languages, on the North the polysyllabic or agglutinative languages, and on the West and South, the inflectional or Aryan languages, of which the Sanskrit is an example, being closely allied to nearly all the languages of Europe. Moreover, it is to this center that we trace the origin of nearly all our domesticated plants and animals.
Naturally, therefore, the same high authority Philology writes, “There we are inclined to say the first human beings appeared and multiplied till the populations overflowed as from a bowl and spread themselves in waves in every direction.” “The Human Species,” page 177. With this conclusion, as already said, a large number of most eminent authorities agree. But it should be noted that if, as we believe, there was a universal destruction of antediluvian man, the center of dispersion had in view by these naturalists and archaeologists would be that from the time of Noah, and so would not refer to the Eden from which Adam and Eve were driven. The same may be said of Haeckel’s theory that man originated in a submerged continent within the area of the Indian Ocean.
E) THERE ARE TWO THEORIES
Two theories locate Eden in the Euphrates valley (ancient Babylonia). Of these the first would place it near the head of the Persian Gulf where the Tigris and Euphrates, after their junction form the Shatt el-’Arab, which bifurcates into the Eastern and the Western arm, before reaching the Gulf. Calvin considered the Pishon to be the Eastern Arm, and the Gihon the Western Arm. Other more recent authorities modify the theory by supposing that Gihon and Pishon are represented by the Karum and the Kerkhah Rivers, which come into the Shatt el-’Arab from the East.
The most plausible objection to this theory is that the Biblical account represents all these branches as down stream from the main river, whereas this theory supposes that two of them at least, are up stream. This objection has been ingeniously met by calling attention to the fact that 2,000 years before Christ, the Persian Gulf extended up as far as Eridu, 100 miles above the present mouth of the river, and that the Tigris and the Euphrates then entered the head of the Gulf through separate channels. The enormous amount of silt brought down by the streams having converted so much of the valley into dry land is the explanation.
In consequence of the tides which extend up to the head of the Gulf, the current of all these streams would be turned up stream periodically, and so account for the Biblical statement (Gen. 2:14). In this case the River Nahar would be represented by the Persian Gulf itself, which was indeed called by the Babylonians, “nar marratum,” “the bitter river.”
This theory is further supported by the fact that according to the cuneiform inscriptions, Eridu was reputed to have in its neighborhood a garden, “a holy place,” in which there grew a sacred palm tree. This, “tree of Life,” appears frequently upon the inscriptions there, with two guardian spirits standing on either side. All of this we must keep in mind that they are dealing with geography after the Flood, as opposed to what really existed before the great Flood.
The other (second) theory, advocated with great ability by Friedrich Delitzsch, places Eden just above the site of ancient Babylon, where the Tigris and Euphrates approach to within a short distance of one another, and where the country is intersected by numerous irrigating streams which put off from the Euphrates and flow into the Tigris, whose level is here considerably lower than that of the Euphrates. The situation is that of being somewhat such as it is at New Orleans, where the Mississippi River puts off numerous streams which empty into Lake Pontchartrain.
Delitzsch supposes that the, “Shatt el-Nil,” which flows eastward into the Tigris, to be the Gihon, and the Pallacopas, flowing on the West side of the Euphrates through a region producing gold, to be the Pishon. The chief difficulties attending this theory pertain to the identification of the Pishon with the Pallacopas, and the location of Havilah on its banks.
There is difficulty, also, in all these theories in the identification of Cush (Ethiopia), later associated with the country from which the Nile emerges, thus giving countenance to the belief of Josephus and many others, that that river represented the Gihon. If we are compelled to choose between these theories it would seem that the one, which locates Eden near the head of the Persian Gulf, combines the greater number of probabilities of every kind.
F) TRADITIONS OF NATIONS
The traditions of almost all nations have preserved the truth, in some form, that there was an original abode of man’s innocence. Here are a few: the Greek and Latin garden of the Hesperides; the Hindu golden Mount Meru; the Chinese enchanted gardens; the Medo-Persian Ormuzd’s mountain Albordj (compare to Eze. 28:13; Joel 2:3).
The Hindus’ tradition tells of a “first age of the world when justice, in the form of a bull, kept herself firm on her four feet, virtue reigned, man free from disease saw all his wishes accomplished, and attained an age of 400 years.” In the “Teutonic,” “Edda,” “Fab.” 7, etcetera, we find corruption is represented as suddenly produced by strange women’s blandishments who deprived men of their pristine integrity. In the Tibetan, Mongolian, and Singhalese traditions, a covetous temper works the sad change. The Babylonians, Egyptians, and Chinese had the tradition of man’s life once reaching thousands of years. The Greeks and Romans made it from 800 to 1,000 years. Of course, the Bible has Adam living until 930 years (Gen. 5:5).