Eden
VIEW:49 DATA:01-04-2020
pleasure; delight
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary
EDEN.2Ch_29:12; 2Ch_31:15, a Levite, or possibly two. It is not certain that Eden is the true form of the name: LXX [Note: Septuagint.] has Jodan in the first, Odom in the second passage. When it transliterates Eden elsewhere it is usually in the form Edem.
J. Taylor.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
("delight".) ("Paradise",) the Septuagint translation of "garden," a park and pleasure ground. From the Zendic pairidaeza, a hedging round. In N.W. Mesopotamia an Eden is mentioned near the Tigris (2Ki_19:12; Isa_37:12; Eze_27:23). Another, in Coelosyria, near Damascus (Amo_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 branch into two channels again below Bassera, before failing into the sea, Gihon the E. channel, and Pison the W. Havilah, near the W. channel, would thus be N.E. Arabia; and Cush (or Ethiopia), near the E. channel, would be Kissia, Chuzestan, or Susiana. The united rivers are called the Shat-el-Arab. Eden, was but a temporary nursery for the human family: from there people, if they had remained innocent, would have spread out in every direction until the whole earth became "the garden of the Lord."
God's purpose, though deferred, will, in His own time, be realized by the Second Adam, the Lord Jesus from heaven. 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. Man was to dress and keep the garden, for without human culture, grain and other plants will degenerate. As nature was made for man, his calling was to ennoble it, and to make paradise, which though so lovely, was susceptible of development, a transparent mirror of the Creator's glory.
It was designed also as the scene of man's own spiritual development by its two trees, of life and of knowledge. Here also the "beasts of the field," i.e. that live on its produce (game and tame cattle, as distinguished from "beasts of the earth"), were brought to him to develop that intellect which constitutes his lordship and superiority to the brutes. His inner thought in observing their natures found expression in names appropriate. The Paradise regained can never be lost by those who overcome through the Lord Jesus (Rev_2:7; Rev_22:14). The traditions of almost all nations have preserved the truth, in some form, that there was an original abode of man's innocence; 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 Eze_28:13; Joe_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, etc., 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.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
E'den. (pleasure).
1. The first residence of man, called in the Septuagint (LXX) Paradise. The latter is a word of Persian origin, and describes an extensive tract of pleasure land, somewhat like an English park; and the use of it suggests a wider view of man's first abode than a garden. The description of Eden is found in Gen_2:8-14.
In the eastern portion of the region of Eden was the garden planted. The Hiddekel, one of its rivers, is the modern Tigris; the Euphrates is the same as the modern Euphrates. With regard to the Pison and Gihon, 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 same region, rise the Araxes (Pison of Genesis) and the Oxus (Gihon of Genesis).
2. One of the marts which supplied the luxury of Tyre with richly-embroidered stuffs. In 2Ki_19:12 and Isa_37:12, "the sons of Eden" are mentioned with Gozan, Haran and Rezeph as victims of the Assyrian greed of conquest. Probability seems to point to the northwest of Mesopotamia as the locality of Eden.
3. Beth-Eden, "house of pleasure"; probably the name of a country residence, of the kings of Damascus. Amo_1:5.
4. A Gershonite Levite, son of Joah, in the days of Hezekiah. 2Ch_29:12. (B.C. 727).
5. Also a Levite, probably identical with the preceding, Eden, 4. 2Ch_31:15.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
Garden of, the residence of our first parents in their state of purity and blessedness. The word Eden in the Hebrew denotes pleasure or delight: whence the name has been given to several places which, from their situation, were pleasant or delightful. Thus the Prophet Amo_1:5, speaks of an Eden in Syria, which is generally considered to have been in the valley of Damascus, where a town called Eden is mentioned by Pliny and Ptolemy, and where the tomb of Abel is pretended to be shown. This has in consequence been selected by some as the site of the garden of Eden. By others, the garden has been placed on the eastern side of mount Libanus; and by others again, in Arabia Felix, where traces of the word Eden are found. But the opinion which has been most generally received on this subject is that which places the garden on the Lower Euphrates; between the junction of that river with the Tigris and the gulf of Persia. This is Dr. Well's opinion; in which he is supported by Huetius, Grotius, Marinus, and Bochart. To this it is replied, that, according to this scheme, the garden was intersected by a great branch of the Euphrates, in the lower and broadest part of its course; which will give it an extent absolutely irreconcilable with the idea of Adam's dressing it by his own manual labour, or even of overlooking it: beside that all communication would be cut off between its different parts by a stream half a mile in width. Its local features, too, if in this situation, must have been of the most uninteresting kind; the whole of that region, as far as the sight can reach, being a dead, monotonous, sandy, or marshy flat, without a single undulation to relieve the eye, or give any of the beauties which the imagination involuntarily paints to itself as attendant on a spot finished by the hand of God as the residence of his creatures in a state of innocence; whose minds may be supposed to be tuned to the full enjoyment of the grand and beautiful in nature. How different will be the aspect and arrangement of this favoured spot, if it be placed where only, according to the words of Moses, it can be placed; namely, at the heads or fountains of the rivers described, instead of their mouths.
The country of Eden, therefore, according to others, was some where in Media, Armenia, or the north of Mesopotamia; all mountainous tracts, and affording, instead of the sickening plains of Babylonia, some of the grandest, as well as the richest scenery in the world. A river or stream rising in some part of this country, entered the garden; where it was parted into four others, in all probability, by first falling into a basin or lake, from which the other streams issued at different points, taking different directions, and growing into mighty rivers; although at their sources in the garden, they would be like all other rivers, mere brooks, and forming no barrier to a free communication between the parts of the garden. Dr. Wells, in order to support his hypothesis of the situation of Eden on the lower parts of the Euphrates and Tigris, after giving these rivers a distribution which has now no existence, makes the Pison and Gihon to be parts of the Tigris and Euphrates themselves: an arrangement at perfect disagreement with the particular description of Moses; beside, that the Gihon thus called, instead of compassing the whole land of Cush, can only be said to skirt an extreme corner of it. It appears, indeed, that in the time of Alexander, the Euphrates pursued a separate course to the sea; or, at least, that a navigable branch of it was carried in that direction: in the mouth of which, at Diridotis, Nearchus anchored with his fleet. But what reliance can be placed on the ever shifting channels of a river flowing through an alluvial soil, and over a perfect level divertible at the pleasure of the people inhabiting its banks? Or, what theory can be founded on their distribution, which will not be as unstable as the streams them selves? This very channel, so essential to the hypothesis which places Eden in this situation, was annihilated by the Orcheni, a neighbouring people; who directed the stream to water their own land, and thus gave it a shorter course into the Tigris, which it has ever since preserved. But it is only the lower parts of the Euphrates and Tigris, as they creep through the plains of Babylonia, which are thus inconstant: higher up in their courses, they flow over more solid strata, and in deeper valleys, unchanged by time. It is here that their conformity with the Mosaic account is to be sought; and it is here that they may be found, in the exact condition in which they were left by the deluge, and, indeed, according to Moses, in which they existed before that event. It is true, that the heads of the four rivers, above described, cannot now be found sufficiently near, to recognize thence the exact situation of paradise; but they all arise from the same mountainous region; and the springs of the Euphrates and Tigris, as already mentioned, are even now nearly interwoven. Mr. Faber supposes the lake Arsissa to cover the site of Eden; and that the change which carried the heads of the rivers to a greater distance from it, was occasioned by the deluge. But it is far more probable that this change, if we may infer from the account given by Moses that the courses of all the streams remained unaltered by the flood, may have taken place at man's expulsion from the garden: when God might choose to obliterate this fair portion of his works, unfitted for any thing but the residence of innocence; and to blot at once from the face of the earth, like the guilty cities of the plain, both the site and the memorial of man's transgression,an awful event, which would add tenfold horrors to the punishment.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
ē?d'n (עדן, ‛ēdhen, ?delight?; Ἔδεμ, Édem):
(1) The land in which ?Yahweh God planted a garden,? where upon his creation ?he put the man whom he had formed? (Gen_2:8). In the Assyrian inscriptions ı̀dinu (Accadian, êdin) means ?plain? and it is from this that the Biblical word is probably derived. Following are the references to Eden in the Bible, aside from those in Gen 2 and 3: Gen_4:16; Isa_51:3; Eze_28:13; Eze_31:9, Eze_31:16, Eze_31:18; Eze_36:35; Joe_2:3. The Garden of Eden is said to be ?eastward, in Eden? Gen (Joe_2:8); where the vegetation was luxurious (Joe_2:9) and the fig tree indigenous (Joe_3:7), and where it was watered by irrigation. All kinds of animals, including cattle, beasts of the field and birds, were found there (Joe_2:19, Joe_2:20). Moreover, the climate was such that clothing was not needed for warmth. It is not surprising, therefore, that the plural of the word has the meaning ?delights,? and that Eden has been supposed to mean the land of delights, and that the word became a synonym for Paradise.
The location of Eden is in part to be determined from the description already given. It must be where there is a climate adapted to the production of fruit trees and of animals capable of domestication, and in general to the existence of man in his primitive condition. In particular, its location is supposed to be determined by the statements regarding the rivers coursing through it and surrounding it. There is a river (nāhār) (Gen_2:10) which was parted and became four heads (ro'shı̄m), a word which (Jdg_8:16; Job_1:17) designates main detachments into which an army is divided, and therefore would more properly signify branches than heads, permitting Josephus and others to interpret the river as referring to the ocean, which by the Greeks was spoken of as the river (ōkeanós) surrounding the world. 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 perāth translated Euphrates is a more general term, signifying ?the broad? or ?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. So far as that phrase is concerned, therefore, speculation is left free to range over the whole earth, and this it has done.
1. Central Asia
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, and 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, 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 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? (ibid., 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.
2. The North Pole
Dr. William F. Warren has with prodigious learning attempted to show that the original Eden was at the North Pole, a theory which has too many considerations in its support to be cast aside unceremoniously, for it certainly is true that in preglacial times a warm climate surrounded the North Pole in all the lands which have been explored. In Northern Greenland and in Spitzbergen abundant remains of fossil plants show that during the middle of the Tertiary period the whole circumpolar region was characterized by a climate similar to that prevailing at the present time in Southern Europe, Japan, and the southern United States (see Asa Gray's lectures on ?Forest Geography and Archaeology? in the American Journal of Science, CXVI, 85-94, 183-196, and Wright, Ice Age in North America, 5th edition, chapter xvii). But as the latest discoveries have shown that there is no land within several hundred miles of the North Pole, Dr. Warren's theory, if maintained at all, will have to be modified so as to place Eden at a considerable distance from the actual pole. Furthermore, his theory would involve the existence of ?Tertiary man,? and Thus extend his chronology to an incredible extent, even though with Professor Green (see ANTEDILUVIANS) we are permitted to consider the genealogical table of Gen 5 as sufficiently elastic to accommodate itself to any facts which may be discovered.
3. Armenia
Much also can be 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. 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.
4. Babylonia
Two theories locate Eden in the Euphrates valley. 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 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. 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. In this case the river (nāhār) 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 with two guardian spirits standing on either side.
The other 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 being somewhat such as it is at New Orleans where the Mississippi River puts off numerous streams which empty into Lake Pontchartrain. Delitzsch supposes 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.
(2) A Levite of the time of Hezekiah (2Ch_29:12; 2Ch_31:15).
Literature
Dawson Modern Science in Bible Lands; Friedrich Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? (1881); Sayce, HCM, 95ff; Hommel, Anc. Hebrew Tradition, 314; William F. Warren, Paradise Found, 1885.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
E?den [PARADISE]
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Gen_2:15 (c) Here is a type of the condition of bliss and blessing that is the portion of the consecrated, trusting Christian in this life and of the eternal richness of the next life.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.
Eden
(Hebrews id.), the name of three places and of one or two men.
I. The garden of EDEN" (עֵדֶן, delight, and so Sept. ἡδονή,Vulg. voluptas) is the most ancient and venerable name in geography, the name of the first district of the earth's surface of which human beings could have any knowledge. 1. The Name. The word is found in the Arabic as well as in the Hebrew language. It is explained by Firuzabadi, in his celebrated Arabic lexicon (Kamus), as signifying delight, tenderness, loveliness (see Morren, in Edinb. Biblical Cabinet, 11:2, 48, 49). Major Wilford and professor Wilson find its elements in the Sanscrit. The Greek ἡδονἤ is next to identical with it in both sound and sense. It occurs in three places (Isa_37:12; Eze_27:23; Amo_1:5) as the name of some eminently pleasant districts, but not the Eden of this article. Of them we have no certain knowledge, except that the latter instance points to the neighborhood of Damascus. In these cases it is pointed, in the Hebrew text, with both syllables short עֶדֶן but when it is applied to the primitive seat of man, the first syllable is long. The passages in which it occurs in the latter sense are, in addition to Gen_2:2; Gen_4:16, the few following, of which we transcribe the chief, because they cast light upon the primeval term: "He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Jehovah." "Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God." "All the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him." "This land which was desolate is become like the garden of Eden" (Isa_51:3; Eze_28:13; Eze_31:9; Eze_31:16; Eze_31:18; Eze_36:35; Joe_2:3). All this evidence goes to show that Eden was a tract of country, and that in the most eligible part of it was the Paradise, the garden of all delights, in which the Creator was pleased to place his new and pre-eminent creature, with the inferior beings for his sustenance and solace. SEE GARDEN.
The old translators appear to have halted between a mystical and literal interpretation. The word עדן is rendered by the Sept. as a proper name in three passages only, Gen_2:8; Gen_2:10; Gen_4:16, where it is represented by Ε᾿δέμ. In all others, with the exception of Isa_2:3, it is translated τρυφή. In the Vulgate it never occurs as a proper name, but is rendered "voluptas," "locus voluptatis," or deliciae." The Targum of Onkelos gives it uniformly עדן, and in the Peshito Syriac it is the same, with a slight variation in two passages. SEE PARADISE.
2. Biblical Description. The following is a simple translation of the Mosaic account of the situation of the Adamic Paradise (Gen_2:8-17). SEE GENESIS.
Now Jehovah God had planted a garden in Eden eastward, and he placed there the man whom he formed: for Jehovah God had caused to spring from the ground every tree pleasant for sight or good for food; also the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river issued from Eden to water the garden, and thence it was parted, and became four head-[streams]: the name of the first is Pishon; this [is the one] that surrounds all the land of the Chavilah, where [is] the [metal] gold (the gold too of that land [is] good); there [also is] the [substance called bedolach, and a stone [called] the shoham); and the name of the second river [is] Gichon; this [is the one] that surrounds all the land of Cush: and the name of the third river [is] Chiddekel; this [is the one] that flows east of Ashshur: and the name of the fourth river, that [is] Perath.
Thus Jehovah God took the man, and settled him in the garden of Eden, to till it, and to keep it. Then Jehovah God enjoined upon the mans, saying, "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, except of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day of thy eating of it, thou shalt surely die."
The garden of Paradise is here said to be to the east, i.e., in the eastern part of the tract of Eden (see Gesenius, Heb. Lex. s.v.). The river which flowed through Eden watered the garden, and thence branched out into four distinct streams. The first problem to be solved, then, is this: To find a river which, at some stage of its course, is divided into four streams, two of which are the Tigris and Euphrates. The identity of these rivers with the Hiddekel and Perath has never been disputed, and no hypothesis which omits them is worthy of consideration. Setting aside minor differences of detail, the theories which have been framed with regard to the explanation of the above description of the terrestrial paradise naturally divide themselves into two classes. The first class includes all those which place the main river of the garden of Eden below the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris, and interpret the names Pison and Gihon of certain portions of these rivers; the second, those which seek for it in the high table-land of Armenia, the fruitful parent of many noble streams. These theories have been supported by most learned men of all nations, of all ages, and representing every shade of theological belief; but there is scarcely one which is not based in some degree upon a forced interpretation of the words of the narrative. Those who contend that the united stream of the Euphrates and Tigris is the "river" which "goeth forth from Eden to water the garden," have committed a fatal error in neglecting the true meaning of יָצָא, which is only used of the course of a river from its source downwards (compare Eze_47:1). Following the guidance which this word supplies, the description in Eze_47:10 must be explained in this manner: the river takes its rise in Eden, flows into the garden, and from thence is divided into four branches, the separation taking place either in the garden or after leaving it. If this be the case, the Tigris and Euphrates before junction cannot, in this position of the garden, be two of the four branches in question. But, though they have avoided this error, the theorists of the second class have generally been driven into another but little less destructive. Looking for the true site of Eden in the highlands of Armenia, near the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates, and applying the names Pison and Gihon to some one or other of the rivers which spring from the same region, they have been compelled to modify the meaning of נָהָר the "river," and to give to רָחשַׁים a sense which is scarcely supported by a single passage. In no instance is ראֹשׁ (lit. "head") applied to the source of a river. On several occasions (compare Jdg_7:16; Job_1:17, etc.) it is used of the detachments into which the main body of an army is divided, and analogy therefore leads to the conclusion that רָאשַׁים denotes the "branches" of the parent stream. There are other difficulties in the details of the several theories which may be obstacles to their entire reception, but it is manifest that no theory which fails to satisfy the above- mentioned conditions can be allowed to take its place among things that are probable. What, then, is the river which goes forth from Eden to water the garden? is a question which has often been asked, and still waits for a fully satisfactory answer. That the ocean stream which surrounded the earth was the source from which the four rivers flowed was the opinion of Josephus (Ant. 1, 1, 53) and Johannes Damascenus (De Orthod. Fid. 2:9). It was the Shat el-Arab, according to those who place the garden of Eden below the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates, and their conjecture would deserve consideration were it not that this stream cannot, with any degree of propriety, be said to rise in Eden. By those who refer the position of Eden to the highlands of Armenia, the "river" from which the four streams diverge is conceived to mean "'a collection of springs," or a well-watered district. It is scarcely necessary to say that this signification of נָהָר (nahar') is without a parallel; and even if it could, under certain circumstances, be made to adopt it, such a signification is, in the present instance, precluded by the fact that, whatever meaning we may assign to the word in Job_1:10, it must be essentially the same as that which it has in the following verses, in which it is sufficiently definite. Sickler (Augusti, Theol. Monatschrift, 1:1), supposing the whole narrative to be a myth, solves the difficulty by attributing to its author a large measure of ignorance. The "river" was the Caspian Sea, which in his apprehension was an immense stream from the east. Bertheau, applying the geographical knowledge of the ancients as a test of that of the Hebrews, arrived at the same conclusion, on the ground that all the people south of the Armenian and Persian highlands place the dwelling of the gods in the extreme north, and the regions of the Caspian were the northern limit of the horizon of the Israelites (Knobel, Genesis). But he allows the four rivers of Eden to have been real rivers, and not, as Sickler imagined, oceans which bounded the earth east and west of the Nile. The modern Lake Van, or perhaps the ancient stream of which this is now the representative, appears to be the only body of water in this vicinity answering to the Mosaic description. Nor will it do to suppose that in former ages great changes had taken place, which have so disguised the rivers in question that their course connection, and identity are not now traceable; for two of the rivers, at least, remain to this day essentially the same as in all historic times, end the whole narrative of Moses is evidently adapted to the geography as it existed in his own day, being constantly couched in the present tense, and in terms of well-known reference as landmarks. SEE RIVER.
Some, ever ready to use the knife, have unhesitatingly pronounced the whole narrative to be a spurious interpolation of a later age (Granville Penn, Min. and Mos. Geol. page 184). But, even admitting this, the words are not mere unmeaning jargon, and demand explanation. Ewald (Gesch. 1:331, note) affirms, and we have only his word for it, that the tradition originated in the far East, and that in the course of its wanderings the original names of two of the rivers at least were changed to others with which the Hebrews were better acquainted. Hartmann regards it as a product of the Babylonian or Persian period. Luther, rejecting the forced interpretations on which the theories of his time were based, gave it as his opinion that the garden remained under the guardianship of angels till the time of the Deluge, and that its site was known to the descendants of Adam; but that by the flood all traces of it were obliterated. But, as before remarked, the narrative is so worded as to convey the idea that the countries and rivers spoken of were still existing in the time of the historian. It has been suggested that the description of the gardens of Eden is part of an inspired antediluvian document (Morren, Rosemuller's Geogr. 1:92). The conjecture is beyond criticism; it is equally incapable of proof or disproof, and has not much probability to recommend it. The effects of the flood in changing the face of countries, and altering the relations of land and water, are too little known at present to allow any inferences to be drawn from them. (See below.)
Conjectures with regard to the dimensions of the garden have differed as widely as those which assign its locality. Ephraem Syrus maintained that it surrounded the whole earth, while Johannes Tostatus restricted it to a circumference of thirty-six or forty miles, and others have made it extend over Syria, Arabia, and Mesopotamia. But of speculations like these there is no end.
3. Identifications of the Site. It would be difficult, in the whole history of opinion, to find any subject which has so invited, and at the same time so completely baffled conjecture, as the garden of Eden. The three continents of the Old World have been subjected to the most rigorous search; from Chine to the Canary Isles, from the Mountains of the Moon to the coasts of the Baltic, no locality which in the slightest degree corresponded to the description of the first abode of the human race has been left unexamined. The great rivers of Europe, Asia, and Africa have in turn done service as the Pison and Gihon of Scripture, and there remains nothing but the New World wherein the next adventurous theorist may bewilder himself in the mazes of this most difficult question. Upon the question of the exact geographical position of Eden dissertations innumerable have been written. Many authors have given descriptive lists of them, with arguments for and against each. The most convenient presentation of their respective outlines has been reduced to a tabulated form, with ample illustrations, by the Reverend N. Morren (annexed to his translation of the younger Rosenmuller's Biblical Geography of Central Asia, pages 91-98, Edinburgh, 1836). He reduces them to nine principal theories, as follows (numbered as in the following table; compare Kalisch, Genesis, page 100 sq.)
a. The opinion which fixes Eden in Armenia we have placed first, because it is that which has obtained most general support, and seems nearest the truth. (See Number 6) For if we may suppose that, while Cain moved to the East (Gen_4:16), the posterity of Seth remained in the neighborhood of the primeval seat of mankind, and that Noah's ark rested not very far from the place of his former abode, then Mount Ararat in Armenia becomes a connecting point between the antediluvian and post- diluvian words (Gen_8:4), and the names of the Phrat, Hiddekel, etc., would readily be given to rivers, which, after the great deluge, seemed to flow in channels somewhat corresponding to the Paradisiacal streams. The opinion in question was first systematically propounded by Reland, and is held by Calmnet, and by his American editor, Professor Robinson, who, however, understands by Cush, Chusistan. Professor Stuart takes the Pishon for the Kur, and Cush for Cushi-Capcoch, i.e., the northern part of the region between the Caspian Lake and the Persian Gulf (Heb. Chrest on Gen_2:10-14). The Cossaei, whom Reland finds in Cush, lived near Media, in the tract now called Dilem, southwest of the Caspian Sea. Link takes the Gihon for the Cur or Cyrus, and Cush for the Caucasus. Verbrugge coincides with Reland, except that he takes the Gihon to be the Gyndes, which flowed between Armenia and Matiana.
b. This opinion was most elaborately defended by Huet, bishop of Avranches; but it is also maintained by Calvin, Bochart, Wells, Steph. Morinus, Vorst, etc. Hales was of this sentiment in the first edition of his Chronology, but in the second he follows the opinion of Reland. The Shat el-Arab is the name of the united streams of the Euphrates and Tigris. Ainsworth says, "It is probable that the united rivers emptied themselves into the gulf at this period (in ancient times) by several distinct mouths, of which the first or greatest was at Teredon, the Ostium Tigris Occidentale of Ptolemy, and the mouth of the Euphrates, according to Nearchus; the second was the Pasitigris of Pliny, probably the Shat el-Arab, and the Ostium Tigris Orientale of the Alexandrian geographer." Cush they compare with the Cutha of 2Ki_17:24; and Havilah with the Chaulataioi of Eratosthenes in Strabo, 16:767. Grotius thinks the Pishon is the Pasitigris, and the Gihon, the Nahr Malikah, or the Chaboras. Hottinger agrees with Grotius as to the Pishon, but takes the Gihon for the Nahr Sura. Hopkinson makes the Pishon and Gihon to be the two canals of the Euphrates, the Nahl Malikah, and the Nahr Sares or Sura.
c. The celebrated Gottingen professor, J.D. Michaelis, originated this hypothesis, though he is doubtful as to some of the points. Gatterer, in the main, agrees with him, only he understands the Hiddekel to be the Indus, and takes the Pishon for the Phasis. Cush is found by Michaelis in the name of the city Cath or Caths, the ancient capital of Chowrasmia, on the Oxus or Jihun, near the site of Balkh. He refers to Quint. Curtius as speaking of the Cusaei or Cusitani being in Bactria upon the Oxus. Wahl sees Cush in the Khousti of Moses of Chorene, meaning the large province between the Caspian and Persian Seas, as far as the Indus and Oxus. The land of Havilah Michaelis connects with the tribe of Chwaliski or Chwalisses, from whom the Russians call the Caspian Sea the Chwalinskoie More.
d. This theory has been proposed by the eminent Orientalist Von Hammer. The Sihon, he says, rises near the town of Cha, and compasses the land of Ilah, famous for the gold and precious stones of Turkistan.
e. That Paradise was in Syria was the opinion of the voluminous Le Clerc, in his valuable Commentary. Havilah is the tract mentioned in 1Sa_15:7. Cush is Cassiotis or Mount Casius, near Seleucia in Syria. This opinion is shared by Lakemacher, who, however, takes the Pishon to be the Jordan. Heidegger thinks the Jordan was the great river of Paradise, an idea adopted by the paradoxical Hardouin, in his Excursus to Pliny's Nat. Hist. lib. 6. Others, who place Eden in Arabia Felix, transform the Pishon into the Persian Gulf, and the Gihon into the Red Sea.
f. This is perhaps the most ancient opinion of any being found in Josephus (Ant. 1:1, 3), and in several of the fathers, e.g. Theophilus Autol, 2:24; Epiphan. (Epp. 2:60); Philostorgus in Nicephor. Hist. Eccl. 9:19, though the latter takes the Pishon for the Indian river Hypasis. The editor of Calmet observes that the inhabitants of the kingdom of Goiam call the Nile the Gihon." Cush is naturally taken for Ethiopia. This view is embraced by the celebrated Gesenius, with the exception that he maintains the Pishon to be the Indus; in this he is followed in the main by Professor Bush, who likewise observes: "This view of the subject, it is admitted, represents the ancient Eden as a very widely extended territory, reaching from the Indus on the east to the Nile and the Mediterranean on the west, and including the intermediate countries. If the view above given of the topography of Eden be correct, it will be seen that it embraced the fairest portion of Asia, besides a part of Africa, comprising the countries at present known as Cabul, Persia, Armenia, Kurdistan, Syria, Arabia, Abyssinia, and Egypt. The garden, however, which is said to have been 'eastward in Eden,' was probably situated somewhere in the neighborhood of the Euphrates, perhaps not far from the site of Babylon, a region nearer its eastern than its western limits; but the exact position it is apparently vain to attempt to determine." Among the most thorough scholars, the contest seems snow to lie mainly between this view and that in Number 1. g. Captain Wilford, well known for his profound acquaintance with Hindu antiquities, advanced the present view, as being founded upon the Indian Puranas (Asiatic Researches, 6:455, Lond. edit.). It was partly adopted by a late ingenious but fanciful writer, Mr. C. Taylor, editor of Calmet's Dictionary, who, in however, makes the Pishon the Nilab; the Gihon, the western branch of the Oxus; the Hiddekel, the eastern; and the Phrat, the Hirmend.
h. This and the following are given as specimens of the views of the modern German school of neology, which regards the whole narrative as a myth, similar to the Greek tradition of the Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed, etc. Philip Buttman is the author of the hypothesis under the present number. The Pishon he compares with the Besynga, which is mentioned by Ptolemy as the most considerable river of India east of the Ganges. Ava was early known as a region of gold; and an anonymous geographer, in Hudson's collection, volume 3, speaks of the Eviltae or Evilaei as being near the Senes or Chinese.
i. Another neological theory the author, A.T. Hartmann, who looks upon the description as a product of the Babylonish or Persian period. The idea of Eden being the far-famed vale of Cashmere had been anticipated by Herder in his work on the History of Mankind. Appropriate accounts of Cashmere may be found in the travels of Burnes and Jacquemont.
Many of the Orientals think that Paradise was in the island of Serendib or Ceylon; while the Greeks place it at Beth-Eden, on Lebanon.
These, indeed, are but a few of the opinions that have been propounded; yet, though many more might be added, it is to be observed that most of them have much in common, and differ only in some of the details. To enumerate the vagaries of German and other writers on this subject would be endless. (See Kittos Scripture Lands, page 1-8.) The fact is that not one of them answers to all the conditions of the problem. It has been remarked that this difficulty might have been expected, and is obviously probable, from the geological changes that may have taken place, and especially in connection with the Deluge. This remark would not be applicable, to the extent that is necessary for the argument, except upon the supposition before mentioned, that the earlier parts of the book of Genesis consist of primeval documents, even antediluvian, and that this is one of them. There is reason to think, however, that since the Deluge the face of the country cannot have undergone any change approaching to what the hypothesis of a post-diluvian composition would require. But we think it highly probable that the principal of the immediate causes of the Deluge, the "breaking up of the fountains of the great deep," was a subsidence of a large part or parts of the land between the inhabited tract (which we venture to place in E. long. from Greenwich, 300 to 500, and N. lat. 250 to 400) and the sea which lay to the south, or an elevation of the bed of that sea. SEE DELUGE.
As nearly as we can gather from the Scriptural description, Eden was a tract of country, the finest imaginable, lying probably between the 35th and the 40th degree of N. latitude, of such moderate elevation, and so adjusted, with respect to mountain ranges, and watersheds, and forests, as to preserve the most agreeable and salubrious conditions of temperature and all atmospheric changes. Its surface must therefore have been constantly diversified by hill and plain. In the finest part of this land of Eden, the Creator had formed an enclosure, probably by rocks, and forests, and rivers, and had filled it with every product of nature conducive to use and happiness. Due moisture, of both the ground and the air, was preserved by the streamlets from the nearest hills, and the rivulets from the more distant; and such streamlets and rivulets, collected according to the levels of the surrounding country ("it proceeded from Eden") flowed off afterwards in four larger streams, each of which thus became the source of a great river.
Here, then, in the south of Armenia, after the explication we have given, it may seem the most suitable to look for the object of our exploration, the site of Paradise.
That the Hiddekel (this name is said to be still in use among the tribes who live upon its banks Col. Chesney, Expedition. to Tigris and Euphrates, 1:13) is the Tigris, and the Phrath the Euphrates, has never been denied, except by those who assume that the whole narrative is a myth which originated elsewhere and was adapted by the Hebrews to their own geographical notions. As the former is the name of the great river by which Daniel sat (Dan_10:4), and the latter is the term uniformly applied to the Euphrates in the Old Testament, there seems no reason to suppose that the appellations in Gen_2:14 are to be understood in any other than the ordinary sense. One circumstance in the description is worthy of observation. Of the four rivers, one, the Euphrates, is mentioned by name only, as if that were sufficient to identify it. The other three are defined according to their geographical positions, and it is fair to conclude that they were therefore rivers with which the Hebrews were less intimately acquainted. If this be the case, it is scarcely possible to imagine that the Gihon, or, as some say, the Pison, is the Nile, for that must have been even more familiar to the Israelites than the Euphrates, and have stood as little in need of a definition.
But the stringent difficulty is to find any two rivers that will reasonably answer to the predicates of the Pishon and the Gihon, and any countries which can be collocated as Havilah and Cush. The latter name, indeed, was given by the Hebrews and other Orientals to several extensive countries, and those very distant both from Armenia and from each other. As for Havilah, we have the name again in the account of the dispersion of the descendants of Noah (chapter 10:29); but whether that was the same as this Havilah, and in what part of Asia it was, we despair of ascertaining. Reland and others, the best writers upon this question, have felt themselves compelled to give to these names a comprehension which destroys all preciseness. So, likewise, the meaning of the two names of natural products can be little more than matter of conjecture the bedolach and the stone shoham. The farmer word occurs only here and in Num_11:7. The Septuagint, our oldest and best authority with regard to terms of natural history, renders it, in our passage, by anthrax, meaning probably the ruby, or possibly the topaz; and in Numbers by crystallos, which the Greeks applied not merely to rock-crystal, but to any finely transparent mineral. Any of the several kinds of odoriferous gum, which many ancient and modern authorities have maintained, is not, likely, for it could not be in value comparable to gold. The pearl is possible, but not quite probable, for it is an animal product, and the connection seems rather to confine us to minerals; and pearls, though translucent, are not transparent as good crystal is. Would not the diamond be an admissible conjecture? The shoham occurs in ten other places, chiefly in the book of Exodus, and in all those instances our version says onyx; but the Septuagint varies, taking onyx, sardius, sardonyx, beryl, prase-stone, sapphire, and smaragdus, which is a green-tinctured rock-crystal. The preponderance seems to be in favor of onyx, one of the many varieties of banded agate; but the idea of value leads us to think that the emerald is the most probable. There are two remarkable inventories of precious stones in Exo_39:10-13, and Eze_28:13, which may be profitably studied, comparing the Septuagint with the Hebrew. SEE HAVILAR. For attempted identifications of the Pison and Gihon, see those names respectively.
4. For the Literature of the subject, SEE PARADISE.
II. (עֶדֶן, Sept. Ε᾿δἐμ, but omits in Isa_37:12, and Eze_27:23; Vulg. Eden), one of the marts which supplied the luxury of Tyre with richly embroidered stuffs. It is associated with Haran, Sheba, and Asshur; and in Amo_1:5, Beth-Eden, or "the house of Eden," is rendered in the Sept. by Charran (Xαῤῥάν). In 2Ki_19:12, and Isa_37:12, "the sons of Eden" are mentioned with Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, as victims of the Assyrian greed of conquest. Telassar appears to have been the headquarters of the tribe; and Knobel's (Comm. on Isaiah) etymology of this name would point to the highlands of Assyria as their whereabouts. But this has no sound foundation, although the view which it supports receives confirmation from the version of Jonathan, who gives חדיב (Chadib) as the equivalent of Eden. Bochart proved (Phaleg. part 1, p. 274) that this term was applied by the Talmudic writers to the mountainous district of Assyria; which bordered on Media, and was known as Adiabene. But if Gozan be Gausanitis in Mesopotamia, and Haran be Carrhe, it seems more natural to look for Eden somewhere in the same locality. Keil (Comm. on Kings, 2:97) thinks it may be Ma'don, which Assemani (Bibl. Or. 2:224) places in Mesopotamia, in the modern province of Diarbekr. Bochart, considering the Eden of Genesis and Isaiah as identical, argues that Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and Eden are mentioned in order of geographical position, from north to south; and, identifying Gozan with Gausanitis, Haran with Carrhae, a little below Gausanitis on the Chabor, and Rezeph with Reseipha, he gives to Eden a still more southerly situation at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris, or even lower. According to him, it may be Addan or Addana, which geographers place on the Euphrates. . Michaelis (Suppl. No. 1826) is in favor of the modern Aden, a port of Arabia (called by Ptolemy Α᾿ραβίας ἐμπόριον), as the Eden of Ezekiel. SEE VEDAN.
III. (עֶדֶן, Amo_1:5, "house of Eden"). SEE BETH-EDEN.
IV. (Sept. Ι᾿ωδἀν v. r. Ι᾿ωαδάμ.) Son of Joah, and one of the Gershonite Levites who assisted in the reformation of public worship under Hezekiah (2Ch_29:12). B.C. 726. He is probably the same with the Levite appointed in the same connection one of the superintendents of the distribution of the free-will offerings (2Ch_31:15, Sept. Ο᾿δόμ, v.r. δόντων).
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary
EDEN.2Ch_29:12; 2Ch_31:15, a Levite, or possibly two. It is not certain that Eden is the true form of the name: LXX [Note: Septuagint.] has Jodan in the first, Odom in the second passage. When it transliterates Eden elsewhere it is usually in the form Edem.
J. Taylor.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
("delight".) ("Paradise",) the Septuagint translation of "garden," a park and pleasure ground. From the Zendic pairidaeza, a hedging round. In N.W. Mesopotamia an Eden is mentioned near the Tigris (2Ki_19:12; Isa_37:12; Eze_27:23). Another, in Coelosyria, near Damascus (Amo_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 branch into two channels again below Bassera, before failing into the sea, Gihon the E. channel, and Pison the W. Havilah, near the W. channel, would thus be N.E. Arabia; and Cush (or Ethiopia), near the E. channel, would be Kissia, Chuzestan, or Susiana. The united rivers are called the Shat-el-Arab. Eden, was but a temporary nursery for the human family: from there people, if they had remained innocent, would have spread out in every direction until the whole earth became "the garden of the Lord."
God's purpose, though deferred, will, in His own time, be realized by the Second Adam, the Lord Jesus from heaven. 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. Man was to dress and keep the garden, for without human culture, grain and other plants will degenerate. As nature was made for man, his calling was to ennoble it, and to make paradise, which though so lovely, was susceptible of development, a transparent mirror of the Creator's glory.
It was designed also as the scene of man's own spiritual development by its two trees, of life and of knowledge. Here also the "beasts of the field," i.e. that live on its produce (game and tame cattle, as distinguished from "beasts of the earth"), were brought to him to develop that intellect which constitutes his lordship and superiority to the brutes. His inner thought in observing their natures found expression in names appropriate. The Paradise regained can never be lost by those who overcome through the Lord Jesus (Rev_2:7; Rev_22:14). The traditions of almost all nations have preserved the truth, in some form, that there was an original abode of man's innocence; 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 Eze_28:13; Joe_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, etc., 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.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
E'den. (pleasure).
1. The first residence of man, called in the Septuagint (LXX) Paradise. The latter is a word of Persian origin, and describes an extensive tract of pleasure land, somewhat like an English park; and the use of it suggests a wider view of man's first abode than a garden. The description of Eden is found in Gen_2:8-14.
In the eastern portion of the region of Eden was the garden planted. The Hiddekel, one of its rivers, is the modern Tigris; the Euphrates is the same as the modern Euphrates. With regard to the Pison and Gihon, 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 same region, rise the Araxes (Pison of Genesis) and the Oxus (Gihon of Genesis).
2. One of the marts which supplied the luxury of Tyre with richly-embroidered stuffs. In 2Ki_19:12 and Isa_37:12, "the sons of Eden" are mentioned with Gozan, Haran and Rezeph as victims of the Assyrian greed of conquest. Probability seems to point to the northwest of Mesopotamia as the locality of Eden.
3. Beth-Eden, "house of pleasure"; probably the name of a country residence, of the kings of Damascus. Amo_1:5.
4. A Gershonite Levite, son of Joah, in the days of Hezekiah. 2Ch_29:12. (B.C. 727).
5. Also a Levite, probably identical with the preceding, Eden, 4. 2Ch_31:15.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
Garden of, the residence of our first parents in their state of purity and blessedness. The word Eden in the Hebrew denotes pleasure or delight: whence the name has been given to several places which, from their situation, were pleasant or delightful. Thus the Prophet Amo_1:5, speaks of an Eden in Syria, which is generally considered to have been in the valley of Damascus, where a town called Eden is mentioned by Pliny and Ptolemy, and where the tomb of Abel is pretended to be shown. This has in consequence been selected by some as the site of the garden of Eden. By others, the garden has been placed on the eastern side of mount Libanus; and by others again, in Arabia Felix, where traces of the word Eden are found. But the opinion which has been most generally received on this subject is that which places the garden on the Lower Euphrates; between the junction of that river with the Tigris and the gulf of Persia. This is Dr. Well's opinion; in which he is supported by Huetius, Grotius, Marinus, and Bochart. To this it is replied, that, according to this scheme, the garden was intersected by a great branch of the Euphrates, in the lower and broadest part of its course; which will give it an extent absolutely irreconcilable with the idea of Adam's dressing it by his own manual labour, or even of overlooking it: beside that all communication would be cut off between its different parts by a stream half a mile in width. Its local features, too, if in this situation, must have been of the most uninteresting kind; the whole of that region, as far as the sight can reach, being a dead, monotonous, sandy, or marshy flat, without a single undulation to relieve the eye, or give any of the beauties which the imagination involuntarily paints to itself as attendant on a spot finished by the hand of God as the residence of his creatures in a state of innocence; whose minds may be supposed to be tuned to the full enjoyment of the grand and beautiful in nature. How different will be the aspect and arrangement of this favoured spot, if it be placed where only, according to the words of Moses, it can be placed; namely, at the heads or fountains of the rivers described, instead of their mouths.
The country of Eden, therefore, according to others, was some where in Media, Armenia, or the north of Mesopotamia; all mountainous tracts, and affording, instead of the sickening plains of Babylonia, some of the grandest, as well as the richest scenery in the world. A river or stream rising in some part of this country, entered the garden; where it was parted into four others, in all probability, by first falling into a basin or lake, from which the other streams issued at different points, taking different directions, and growing into mighty rivers; although at their sources in the garden, they would be like all other rivers, mere brooks, and forming no barrier to a free communication between the parts of the garden. Dr. Wells, in order to support his hypothesis of the situation of Eden on the lower parts of the Euphrates and Tigris, after giving these rivers a distribution which has now no existence, makes the Pison and Gihon to be parts of the Tigris and Euphrates themselves: an arrangement at perfect disagreement with the particular description of Moses; beside, that the Gihon thus called, instead of compassing the whole land of Cush, can only be said to skirt an extreme corner of it. It appears, indeed, that in the time of Alexander, the Euphrates pursued a separate course to the sea; or, at least, that a navigable branch of it was carried in that direction: in the mouth of which, at Diridotis, Nearchus anchored with his fleet. But what reliance can be placed on the ever shifting channels of a river flowing through an alluvial soil, and over a perfect level divertible at the pleasure of the people inhabiting its banks? Or, what theory can be founded on their distribution, which will not be as unstable as the streams them selves? This very channel, so essential to the hypothesis which places Eden in this situation, was annihilated by the Orcheni, a neighbouring people; who directed the stream to water their own land, and thus gave it a shorter course into the Tigris, which it has ever since preserved. But it is only the lower parts of the Euphrates and Tigris, as they creep through the plains of Babylonia, which are thus inconstant: higher up in their courses, they flow over more solid strata, and in deeper valleys, unchanged by time. It is here that their conformity with the Mosaic account is to be sought; and it is here that they may be found, in the exact condition in which they were left by the deluge, and, indeed, according to Moses, in which they existed before that event. It is true, that the heads of the four rivers, above described, cannot now be found sufficiently near, to recognize thence the exact situation of paradise; but they all arise from the same mountainous region; and the springs of the Euphrates and Tigris, as already mentioned, are even now nearly interwoven. Mr. Faber supposes the lake Arsissa to cover the site of Eden; and that the change which carried the heads of the rivers to a greater distance from it, was occasioned by the deluge. But it is far more probable that this change, if we may infer from the account given by Moses that the courses of all the streams remained unaltered by the flood, may have taken place at man's expulsion from the garden: when God might choose to obliterate this fair portion of his works, unfitted for any thing but the residence of innocence; and to blot at once from the face of the earth, like the guilty cities of the plain, both the site and the memorial of man's transgression,an awful event, which would add tenfold horrors to the punishment.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
ē?d'n (עדן, ‛ēdhen, ?delight?; Ἔδεμ, Édem):
(1) The land in which ?Yahweh God planted a garden,? where upon his creation ?he put the man whom he had formed? (Gen_2:8). In the Assyrian inscriptions ı̀dinu (Accadian, êdin) means ?plain? and it is from this that the Biblical word is probably derived. Following are the references to Eden in the Bible, aside from those in Gen 2 and 3: Gen_4:16; Isa_51:3; Eze_28:13; Eze_31:9, Eze_31:16, Eze_31:18; Eze_36:35; Joe_2:3. The Garden of Eden is said to be ?eastward, in Eden? Gen (Joe_2:8); where the vegetation was luxurious (Joe_2:9) and the fig tree indigenous (Joe_3:7), and where it was watered by irrigation. All kinds of animals, including cattle, beasts of the field and birds, were found there (Joe_2:19, Joe_2:20). Moreover, the climate was such that clothing was not needed for warmth. It is not surprising, therefore, that the plural of the word has the meaning ?delights,? and that Eden has been supposed to mean the land of delights, and that the word became a synonym for Paradise.
The location of Eden is in part to be determined from the description already given. It must be where there is a climate adapted to the production of fruit trees and of animals capable of domestication, and in general to the existence of man in his primitive condition. In particular, its location is supposed to be determined by the statements regarding the rivers coursing through it and surrounding it. There is a river (nāhār) (Gen_2:10) which was parted and became four heads (ro'shı̄m), a word which (Jdg_8:16; Job_1:17) designates main detachments into which an army is divided, and therefore would more properly signify branches than heads, permitting Josephus and others to interpret the river as referring to the ocean, which by the Greeks was spoken of as the river (ōkeanós) surrounding the world. 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 perāth translated Euphrates is a more general term, signifying ?the broad? or ?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. So far as that phrase is concerned, therefore, speculation is left free to range over the whole earth, and this it has done.
1. Central Asia
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, and 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, 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 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? (ibid., 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.
2. The North Pole
Dr. William F. Warren has with prodigious learning attempted to show that the original Eden was at the North Pole, a theory which has too many considerations in its support to be cast aside unceremoniously, for it certainly is true that in preglacial times a warm climate surrounded the North Pole in all the lands which have been explored. In Northern Greenland and in Spitzbergen abundant remains of fossil plants show that during the middle of the Tertiary period the whole circumpolar region was characterized by a climate similar to that prevailing at the present time in Southern Europe, Japan, and the southern United States (see Asa Gray's lectures on ?Forest Geography and Archaeology? in the American Journal of Science, CXVI, 85-94, 183-196, and Wright, Ice Age in North America, 5th edition, chapter xvii). But as the latest discoveries have shown that there is no land within several hundred miles of the North Pole, Dr. Warren's theory, if maintained at all, will have to be modified so as to place Eden at a considerable distance from the actual pole. Furthermore, his theory would involve the existence of ?Tertiary man,? and Thus extend his chronology to an incredible extent, even though with Professor Green (see ANTEDILUVIANS) we are permitted to consider the genealogical table of Gen 5 as sufficiently elastic to accommodate itself to any facts which may be discovered.
3. Armenia
Much also can be 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. 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.
4. Babylonia
Two theories locate Eden in the Euphrates valley. 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 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. 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. In this case the river (nāhār) 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 with two guardian spirits standing on either side.
The other 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 being somewhat such as it is at New Orleans where the Mississippi River puts off numerous streams which empty into Lake Pontchartrain. Delitzsch supposes 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.
(2) A Levite of the time of Hezekiah (2Ch_29:12; 2Ch_31:15).
Literature
Dawson Modern Science in Bible Lands; Friedrich Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? (1881); Sayce, HCM, 95ff; Hommel, Anc. Hebrew Tradition, 314; William F. Warren, Paradise Found, 1885.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
E?den [PARADISE]
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Gen_2:15 (c) Here is a type of the condition of bliss and blessing that is the portion of the consecrated, trusting Christian in this life and of the eternal richness of the next life.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.
Eden
(Hebrews id.), the name of three places and of one or two men.
I. The garden of EDEN" (עֵדֶן, delight, and so Sept. ἡδονή,Vulg. voluptas) is the most ancient and venerable name in geography, the name of the first district of the earth's surface of which human beings could have any knowledge. 1. The Name. The word is found in the Arabic as well as in the Hebrew language. It is explained by Firuzabadi, in his celebrated Arabic lexicon (Kamus), as signifying delight, tenderness, loveliness (see Morren, in Edinb. Biblical Cabinet, 11:2, 48, 49). Major Wilford and professor Wilson find its elements in the Sanscrit. The Greek ἡδονἤ is next to identical with it in both sound and sense. It occurs in three places (Isa_37:12; Eze_27:23; Amo_1:5) as the name of some eminently pleasant districts, but not the Eden of this article. Of them we have no certain knowledge, except that the latter instance points to the neighborhood of Damascus. In these cases it is pointed, in the Hebrew text, with both syllables short עֶדֶן but when it is applied to the primitive seat of man, the first syllable is long. The passages in which it occurs in the latter sense are, in addition to Gen_2:2; Gen_4:16, the few following, of which we transcribe the chief, because they cast light upon the primeval term: "He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Jehovah." "Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God." "All the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him." "This land which was desolate is become like the garden of Eden" (Isa_51:3; Eze_28:13; Eze_31:9; Eze_31:16; Eze_31:18; Eze_36:35; Joe_2:3). All this evidence goes to show that Eden was a tract of country, and that in the most eligible part of it was the Paradise, the garden of all delights, in which the Creator was pleased to place his new and pre-eminent creature, with the inferior beings for his sustenance and solace. SEE GARDEN.
The old translators appear to have halted between a mystical and literal interpretation. The word עדן is rendered by the Sept. as a proper name in three passages only, Gen_2:8; Gen_2:10; Gen_4:16, where it is represented by Ε᾿δέμ. In all others, with the exception of Isa_2:3, it is translated τρυφή. In the Vulgate it never occurs as a proper name, but is rendered "voluptas," "locus voluptatis," or deliciae." The Targum of Onkelos gives it uniformly עדן, and in the Peshito Syriac it is the same, with a slight variation in two passages. SEE PARADISE.
2. Biblical Description. The following is a simple translation of the Mosaic account of the situation of the Adamic Paradise (Gen_2:8-17). SEE GENESIS.
Now Jehovah God had planted a garden in Eden eastward, and he placed there the man whom he formed: for Jehovah God had caused to spring from the ground every tree pleasant for sight or good for food; also the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river issued from Eden to water the garden, and thence it was parted, and became four head-[streams]: the name of the first is Pishon; this [is the one] that surrounds all the land of the Chavilah, where [is] the [metal] gold (the gold too of that land [is] good); there [also is] the [substance called bedolach, and a stone [called] the shoham); and the name of the second river [is] Gichon; this [is the one] that surrounds all the land of Cush: and the name of the third river [is] Chiddekel; this [is the one] that flows east of Ashshur: and the name of the fourth river, that [is] Perath.
Thus Jehovah God took the man, and settled him in the garden of Eden, to till it, and to keep it. Then Jehovah God enjoined upon the mans, saying, "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, except of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day of thy eating of it, thou shalt surely die."
The garden of Paradise is here said to be to the east, i.e., in the eastern part of the tract of Eden (see Gesenius, Heb. Lex. s.v.). The river which flowed through Eden watered the garden, and thence branched out into four distinct streams. The first problem to be solved, then, is this: To find a river which, at some stage of its course, is divided into four streams, two of which are the Tigris and Euphrates. The identity of these rivers with the Hiddekel and Perath has never been disputed, and no hypothesis which omits them is worthy of consideration. Setting aside minor differences of detail, the theories which have been framed with regard to the explanation of the above description of the terrestrial paradise naturally divide themselves into two classes. The first class includes all those which place the main river of the garden of Eden below the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris, and interpret the names Pison and Gihon of certain portions of these rivers; the second, those which seek for it in the high table-land of Armenia, the fruitful parent of many noble streams. These theories have been supported by most learned men of all nations, of all ages, and representing every shade of theological belief; but there is scarcely one which is not based in some degree upon a forced interpretation of the words of the narrative. Those who contend that the united stream of the Euphrates and Tigris is the "river" which "goeth forth from Eden to water the garden," have committed a fatal error in neglecting the true meaning of יָצָא, which is only used of the course of a river from its source downwards (compare Eze_47:1). Following the guidance which this word supplies, the description in Eze_47:10 must be explained in this manner: the river takes its rise in Eden, flows into the garden, and from thence is divided into four branches, the separation taking place either in the garden or after leaving it. If this be the case, the Tigris and Euphrates before junction cannot, in this position of the garden, be two of the four branches in question. But, though they have avoided this error, the theorists of the second class have generally been driven into another but little less destructive. Looking for the true site of Eden in the highlands of Armenia, near the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates, and applying the names Pison and Gihon to some one or other of the rivers which spring from the same region, they have been compelled to modify the meaning of נָהָר the "river," and to give to רָחשַׁים a sense which is scarcely supported by a single passage. In no instance is ראֹשׁ (lit. "head") applied to the source of a river. On several occasions (compare Jdg_7:16; Job_1:17, etc.) it is used of the detachments into which the main body of an army is divided, and analogy therefore leads to the conclusion that רָאשַׁים denotes the "branches" of the parent stream. There are other difficulties in the details of the several theories which may be obstacles to their entire reception, but it is manifest that no theory which fails to satisfy the above- mentioned conditions can be allowed to take its place among things that are probable. What, then, is the river which goes forth from Eden to water the garden? is a question which has often been asked, and still waits for a fully satisfactory answer. That the ocean stream which surrounded the earth was the source from which the four rivers flowed was the opinion of Josephus (Ant. 1, 1, 53) and Johannes Damascenus (De Orthod. Fid. 2:9). It was the Shat el-Arab, according to those who place the garden of Eden below the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates, and their conjecture would deserve consideration were it not that this stream cannot, with any degree of propriety, be said to rise in Eden. By those who refer the position of Eden to the highlands of Armenia, the "river" from which the four streams diverge is conceived to mean "'a collection of springs," or a well-watered district. It is scarcely necessary to say that this signification of נָהָר (nahar') is without a parallel; and even if it could, under certain circumstances, be made to adopt it, such a signification is, in the present instance, precluded by the fact that, whatever meaning we may assign to the word in Job_1:10, it must be essentially the same as that which it has in the following verses, in which it is sufficiently definite. Sickler (Augusti, Theol. Monatschrift, 1:1), supposing the whole narrative to be a myth, solves the difficulty by attributing to its author a large measure of ignorance. The "river" was the Caspian Sea, which in his apprehension was an immense stream from the east. Bertheau, applying the geographical knowledge of the ancients as a test of that of the Hebrews, arrived at the same conclusion, on the ground that all the people south of the Armenian and Persian highlands place the dwelling of the gods in the extreme north, and the regions of the Caspian were the northern limit of the horizon of the Israelites (Knobel, Genesis). But he allows the four rivers of Eden to have been real rivers, and not, as Sickler imagined, oceans which bounded the earth east and west of the Nile. The modern Lake Van, or perhaps the ancient stream of which this is now the representative, appears to be the only body of water in this vicinity answering to the Mosaic description. Nor will it do to suppose that in former ages great changes had taken place, which have so disguised the rivers in question that their course connection, and identity are not now traceable; for two of the rivers, at least, remain to this day essentially the same as in all historic times, end the whole narrative of Moses is evidently adapted to the geography as it existed in his own day, being constantly couched in the present tense, and in terms of well-known reference as landmarks. SEE RIVER.
Some, ever ready to use the knife, have unhesitatingly pronounced the whole narrative to be a spurious interpolation of a later age (Granville Penn, Min. and Mos. Geol. page 184). But, even admitting this, the words are not mere unmeaning jargon, and demand explanation. Ewald (Gesch. 1:331, note) affirms, and we have only his word for it, that the tradition originated in the far East, and that in the course of its wanderings the original names of two of the rivers at least were changed to others with which the Hebrews were better acquainted. Hartmann regards it as a product of the Babylonian or Persian period. Luther, rejecting the forced interpretations on which the theories of his time were based, gave it as his opinion that the garden remained under the guardianship of angels till the time of the Deluge, and that its site was known to the descendants of Adam; but that by the flood all traces of it were obliterated. But, as before remarked, the narrative is so worded as to convey the idea that the countries and rivers spoken of were still existing in the time of the historian. It has been suggested that the description of the gardens of Eden is part of an inspired antediluvian document (Morren, Rosemuller's Geogr. 1:92). The conjecture is beyond criticism; it is equally incapable of proof or disproof, and has not much probability to recommend it. The effects of the flood in changing the face of countries, and altering the relations of land and water, are too little known at present to allow any inferences to be drawn from them. (See below.)
Conjectures with regard to the dimensions of the garden have differed as widely as those which assign its locality. Ephraem Syrus maintained that it surrounded the whole earth, while Johannes Tostatus restricted it to a circumference of thirty-six or forty miles, and others have made it extend over Syria, Arabia, and Mesopotamia. But of speculations like these there is no end.
3. Identifications of the Site. It would be difficult, in the whole history of opinion, to find any subject which has so invited, and at the same time so completely baffled conjecture, as the garden of Eden. The three continents of the Old World have been subjected to the most rigorous search; from Chine to the Canary Isles, from the Mountains of the Moon to the coasts of the Baltic, no locality which in the slightest degree corresponded to the description of the first abode of the human race has been left unexamined. The great rivers of Europe, Asia, and Africa have in turn done service as the Pison and Gihon of Scripture, and there remains nothing but the New World wherein the next adventurous theorist may bewilder himself in the mazes of this most difficult question. Upon the question of the exact geographical position of Eden dissertations innumerable have been written. Many authors have given descriptive lists of them, with arguments for and against each. The most convenient presentation of their respective outlines has been reduced to a tabulated form, with ample illustrations, by the Reverend N. Morren (annexed to his translation of the younger Rosenmuller's Biblical Geography of Central Asia, pages 91-98, Edinburgh, 1836). He reduces them to nine principal theories, as follows (numbered as in the following table; compare Kalisch, Genesis, page 100 sq.)
a. The opinion which fixes Eden in Armenia we have placed first, because it is that which has obtained most general support, and seems nearest the truth. (See Number 6) For if we may suppose that, while Cain moved to the East (Gen_4:16), the posterity of Seth remained in the neighborhood of the primeval seat of mankind, and that Noah's ark rested not very far from the place of his former abode, then Mount Ararat in Armenia becomes a connecting point between the antediluvian and post- diluvian words (Gen_8:4), and the names of the Phrat, Hiddekel, etc., would readily be given to rivers, which, after the great deluge, seemed to flow in channels somewhat corresponding to the Paradisiacal streams. The opinion in question was first systematically propounded by Reland, and is held by Calmnet, and by his American editor, Professor Robinson, who, however, understands by Cush, Chusistan. Professor Stuart takes the Pishon for the Kur, and Cush for Cushi-Capcoch, i.e., the northern part of the region between the Caspian Lake and the Persian Gulf (Heb. Chrest on Gen_2:10-14). The Cossaei, whom Reland finds in Cush, lived near Media, in the tract now called Dilem, southwest of the Caspian Sea. Link takes the Gihon for the Cur or Cyrus, and Cush for the Caucasus. Verbrugge coincides with Reland, except that he takes the Gihon to be the Gyndes, which flowed between Armenia and Matiana.
b. This opinion was most elaborately defended by Huet, bishop of Avranches; but it is also maintained by Calvin, Bochart, Wells, Steph. Morinus, Vorst, etc. Hales was of this sentiment in the first edition of his Chronology, but in the second he follows the opinion of Reland. The Shat el-Arab is the name of the united streams of the Euphrates and Tigris. Ainsworth says, "It is probable that the united rivers emptied themselves into the gulf at this period (in ancient times) by several distinct mouths, of which the first or greatest was at Teredon, the Ostium Tigris Occidentale of Ptolemy, and the mouth of the Euphrates, according to Nearchus; the second was the Pasitigris of Pliny, probably the Shat el-Arab, and the Ostium Tigris Orientale of the Alexandrian geographer." Cush they compare with the Cutha of 2Ki_17:24; and Havilah with the Chaulataioi of Eratosthenes in Strabo, 16:767. Grotius thinks the Pishon is the Pasitigris, and the Gihon, the Nahr Malikah, or the Chaboras. Hottinger agrees with Grotius as to the Pishon, but takes the Gihon for the Nahr Sura. Hopkinson makes the Pishon and Gihon to be the two canals of the Euphrates, the Nahl Malikah, and the Nahr Sares or Sura.
c. The celebrated Gottingen professor, J.D. Michaelis, originated this hypothesis, though he is doubtful as to some of the points. Gatterer, in the main, agrees with him, only he understands the Hiddekel to be the Indus, and takes the Pishon for the Phasis. Cush is found by Michaelis in the name of the city Cath or Caths, the ancient capital of Chowrasmia, on the Oxus or Jihun, near the site of Balkh. He refers to Quint. Curtius as speaking of the Cusaei or Cusitani being in Bactria upon the Oxus. Wahl sees Cush in the Khousti of Moses of Chorene, meaning the large province between the Caspian and Persian Seas, as far as the Indus and Oxus. The land of Havilah Michaelis connects with the tribe of Chwaliski or Chwalisses, from whom the Russians call the Caspian Sea the Chwalinskoie More.
d. This theory has been proposed by the eminent Orientalist Von Hammer. The Sihon, he says, rises near the town of Cha, and compasses the land of Ilah, famous for the gold and precious stones of Turkistan.
e. That Paradise was in Syria was the opinion of the voluminous Le Clerc, in his valuable Commentary. Havilah is the tract mentioned in 1Sa_15:7. Cush is Cassiotis or Mount Casius, near Seleucia in Syria. This opinion is shared by Lakemacher, who, however, takes the Pishon to be the Jordan. Heidegger thinks the Jordan was the great river of Paradise, an idea adopted by the paradoxical Hardouin, in his Excursus to Pliny's Nat. Hist. lib. 6. Others, who place Eden in Arabia Felix, transform the Pishon into the Persian Gulf, and the Gihon into the Red Sea.
f. This is perhaps the most ancient opinion of any being found in Josephus (Ant. 1:1, 3), and in several of the fathers, e.g. Theophilus Autol, 2:24; Epiphan. (Epp. 2:60); Philostorgus in Nicephor. Hist. Eccl. 9:19, though the latter takes the Pishon for the Indian river Hypasis. The editor of Calmet observes that the inhabitants of the kingdom of Goiam call the Nile the Gihon." Cush is naturally taken for Ethiopia. This view is embraced by the celebrated Gesenius, with the exception that he maintains the Pishon to be the Indus; in this he is followed in the main by Professor Bush, who likewise observes: "This view of the subject, it is admitted, represents the ancient Eden as a very widely extended territory, reaching from the Indus on the east to the Nile and the Mediterranean on the west, and including the intermediate countries. If the view above given of the topography of Eden be correct, it will be seen that it embraced the fairest portion of Asia, besides a part of Africa, comprising the countries at present known as Cabul, Persia, Armenia, Kurdistan, Syria, Arabia, Abyssinia, and Egypt. The garden, however, which is said to have been 'eastward in Eden,' was probably situated somewhere in the neighborhood of the Euphrates, perhaps not far from the site of Babylon, a region nearer its eastern than its western limits; but the exact position it is apparently vain to attempt to determine." Among the most thorough scholars, the contest seems snow to lie mainly between this view and that in Number 1. g. Captain Wilford, well known for his profound acquaintance with Hindu antiquities, advanced the present view, as being founded upon the Indian Puranas (Asiatic Researches, 6:455, Lond. edit.). It was partly adopted by a late ingenious but fanciful writer, Mr. C. Taylor, editor of Calmet's Dictionary, who, in however, makes the Pishon the Nilab; the Gihon, the western branch of the Oxus; the Hiddekel, the eastern; and the Phrat, the Hirmend.
h. This and the following are given as specimens of the views of the modern German school of neology, which regards the whole narrative as a myth, similar to the Greek tradition of the Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed, etc. Philip Buttman is the author of the hypothesis under the present number. The Pishon he compares with the Besynga, which is mentioned by Ptolemy as the most considerable river of India east of the Ganges. Ava was early known as a region of gold; and an anonymous geographer, in Hudson's collection, volume 3, speaks of the Eviltae or Evilaei as being near the Senes or Chinese.
i. Another neological theory the author, A.T. Hartmann, who looks upon the description as a product of the Babylonish or Persian period. The idea of Eden being the far-famed vale of Cashmere had been anticipated by Herder in his work on the History of Mankind. Appropriate accounts of Cashmere may be found in the travels of Burnes and Jacquemont.
Many of the Orientals think that Paradise was in the island of Serendib or Ceylon; while the Greeks place it at Beth-Eden, on Lebanon.
These, indeed, are but a few of the opinions that have been propounded; yet, though many more might be added, it is to be observed that most of them have much in common, and differ only in some of the details. To enumerate the vagaries of German and other writers on this subject would be endless. (See Kittos Scripture Lands, page 1-8.) The fact is that not one of them answers to all the conditions of the problem. It has been remarked that this difficulty might have been expected, and is obviously probable, from the geological changes that may have taken place, and especially in connection with the Deluge. This remark would not be applicable, to the extent that is necessary for the argument, except upon the supposition before mentioned, that the earlier parts of the book of Genesis consist of primeval documents, even antediluvian, and that this is one of them. There is reason to think, however, that since the Deluge the face of the country cannot have undergone any change approaching to what the hypothesis of a post-diluvian composition would require. But we think it highly probable that the principal of the immediate causes of the Deluge, the "breaking up of the fountains of the great deep," was a subsidence of a large part or parts of the land between the inhabited tract (which we venture to place in E. long. from Greenwich, 300 to 500, and N. lat. 250 to 400) and the sea which lay to the south, or an elevation of the bed of that sea. SEE DELUGE.
As nearly as we can gather from the Scriptural description, Eden was a tract of country, the finest imaginable, lying probably between the 35th and the 40th degree of N. latitude, of such moderate elevation, and so adjusted, with respect to mountain ranges, and watersheds, and forests, as to preserve the most agreeable and salubrious conditions of temperature and all atmospheric changes. Its surface must therefore have been constantly diversified by hill and plain. In the finest part of this land of Eden, the Creator had formed an enclosure, probably by rocks, and forests, and rivers, and had filled it with every product of nature conducive to use and happiness. Due moisture, of both the ground and the air, was preserved by the streamlets from the nearest hills, and the rivulets from the more distant; and such streamlets and rivulets, collected according to the levels of the surrounding country ("it proceeded from Eden") flowed off afterwards in four larger streams, each of which thus became the source of a great river.
Here, then, in the south of Armenia, after the explication we have given, it may seem the most suitable to look for the object of our exploration, the site of Paradise.
That the Hiddekel (this name is said to be still in use among the tribes who live upon its banks Col. Chesney, Expedition. to Tigris and Euphrates, 1:13) is the Tigris, and the Phrath the Euphrates, has never been denied, except by those who assume that the whole narrative is a myth which originated elsewhere and was adapted by the Hebrews to their own geographical notions. As the former is the name of the great river by which Daniel sat (Dan_10:4), and the latter is the term uniformly applied to the Euphrates in the Old Testament, there seems no reason to suppose that the appellations in Gen_2:14 are to be understood in any other than the ordinary sense. One circumstance in the description is worthy of observation. Of the four rivers, one, the Euphrates, is mentioned by name only, as if that were sufficient to identify it. The other three are defined according to their geographical positions, and it is fair to conclude that they were therefore rivers with which the Hebrews were less intimately acquainted. If this be the case, it is scarcely possible to imagine that the Gihon, or, as some say, the Pison, is the Nile, for that must have been even more familiar to the Israelites than the Euphrates, and have stood as little in need of a definition.
But the stringent difficulty is to find any two rivers that will reasonably answer to the predicates of the Pishon and the Gihon, and any countries which can be collocated as Havilah and Cush. The latter name, indeed, was given by the Hebrews and other Orientals to several extensive countries, and those very distant both from Armenia and from each other. As for Havilah, we have the name again in the account of the dispersion of the descendants of Noah (chapter 10:29); but whether that was the same as this Havilah, and in what part of Asia it was, we despair of ascertaining. Reland and others, the best writers upon this question, have felt themselves compelled to give to these names a comprehension which destroys all preciseness. So, likewise, the meaning of the two names of natural products can be little more than matter of conjecture the bedolach and the stone shoham. The farmer word occurs only here and in Num_11:7. The Septuagint, our oldest and best authority with regard to terms of natural history, renders it, in our passage, by anthrax, meaning probably the ruby, or possibly the topaz; and in Numbers by crystallos, which the Greeks applied not merely to rock-crystal, but to any finely transparent mineral. Any of the several kinds of odoriferous gum, which many ancient and modern authorities have maintained, is not, likely, for it could not be in value comparable to gold. The pearl is possible, but not quite probable, for it is an animal product, and the connection seems rather to confine us to minerals; and pearls, though translucent, are not transparent as good crystal is. Would not the diamond be an admissible conjecture? The shoham occurs in ten other places, chiefly in the book of Exodus, and in all those instances our version says onyx; but the Septuagint varies, taking onyx, sardius, sardonyx, beryl, prase-stone, sapphire, and smaragdus, which is a green-tinctured rock-crystal. The preponderance seems to be in favor of onyx, one of the many varieties of banded agate; but the idea of value leads us to think that the emerald is the most probable. There are two remarkable inventories of precious stones in Exo_39:10-13, and Eze_28:13, which may be profitably studied, comparing the Septuagint with the Hebrew. SEE HAVILAR. For attempted identifications of the Pison and Gihon, see those names respectively.
4. For the Literature of the subject, SEE PARADISE.
II. (עֶדֶן, Sept. Ε᾿δἐμ, but omits in Isa_37:12, and Eze_27:23; Vulg. Eden), one of the marts which supplied the luxury of Tyre with richly embroidered stuffs. It is associated with Haran, Sheba, and Asshur; and in Amo_1:5, Beth-Eden, or "the house of Eden," is rendered in the Sept. by Charran (Xαῤῥάν). In 2Ki_19:12, and Isa_37:12, "the sons of Eden" are mentioned with Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, as victims of the Assyrian greed of conquest. Telassar appears to have been the headquarters of the tribe; and Knobel's (Comm. on Isaiah) etymology of this name would point to the highlands of Assyria as their whereabouts. But this has no sound foundation, although the view which it supports receives confirmation from the version of Jonathan, who gives חדיב (Chadib) as the equivalent of Eden. Bochart proved (Phaleg. part 1, p. 274) that this term was applied by the Talmudic writers to the mountainous district of Assyria; which bordered on Media, and was known as Adiabene. But if Gozan be Gausanitis in Mesopotamia, and Haran be Carrhe, it seems more natural to look for Eden somewhere in the same locality. Keil (Comm. on Kings, 2:97) thinks it may be Ma'don, which Assemani (Bibl. Or. 2:224) places in Mesopotamia, in the modern province of Diarbekr. Bochart, considering the Eden of Genesis and Isaiah as identical, argues that Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and Eden are mentioned in order of geographical position, from north to south; and, identifying Gozan with Gausanitis, Haran with Carrhae, a little below Gausanitis on the Chabor, and Rezeph with Reseipha, he gives to Eden a still more southerly situation at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris, or even lower. According to him, it may be Addan or Addana, which geographers place on the Euphrates. . Michaelis (Suppl. No. 1826) is in favor of the modern Aden, a port of Arabia (called by Ptolemy Α᾿ραβίας ἐμπόριον), as the Eden of Ezekiel. SEE VEDAN.
III. (עֶדֶן, Amo_1:5, "house of Eden"). SEE BETH-EDEN.
IV. (Sept. Ι᾿ωδἀν v. r. Ι᾿ωαδάμ.) Son of Joah, and one of the Gershonite Levites who assisted in the reformation of public worship under Hezekiah (2Ch_29:12). B.C. 726. He is probably the same with the Levite appointed in the same connection one of the superintendents of the distribution of the free-will offerings (2Ch_31:15, Sept. Ο᾿δόμ, v.r. δόντων).
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
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