| |
Easton's Bible Dictionary
delight.
(1) The garden in which our first parents dwelt ( Genesis
2:8 - 17
). No geographical question has been so much discussed as that bearing on its
site. It has been placed in Armenia, in the region west of the Caspian Sea, in
Media, near Damascus, in Palestine, in Southern Arabia, and in Babylonia. The
site must undoubtedly be sought for somewhere along the course of the great streams
the Tigris and the Euphrates of Western Asia, in "the land of Shinar" or Babylonia.
The region from about lat. 33 degrees 30' to lat. 31 degrees, which is a very
rich and fertile tract, has been by the most competent authorities agreed on as
the probable site of Eden. "It is a region where streams abound, where they divide
and re-unite, where alone in the Mesopotamian tract can be found the phenomenon
of a single river parting into four arms, each of which is or has been a river
of consequence."
Among almost all nations there are traditions of the primitive innocence of our
race in the garden of Eden. This was the "golden age" to which the Greeks looked
back. Men then lived a "life free from care, and without labour and sorrow. Old
age was unknown; the body never lost its vigour; existence was a perpetual feast
without a taint of evil. The earth brought forth spontaneously all things that
were good in profuse abundance."
(2) One of the markets whence the merchants of Tyre obtained richly embroidered
stuffs ( Ezekiel
27:23 ); the same, probably, as that mentioned in 2
Kings 19:12 , and Isaiah
37:12 , as the name of a region conquered by the Assyrians.
(3) Son of Joah, and one of the Levites who assisted in reforming the public worship
of the sanctuary in the time of Hezekiah ( 2
Chronicles 29:12 ).
Hitchcock's Dictionary of Bible Names
pleasure; delight
Smith's Bible Dictionary
(pleasure)
(1) The first residence of man, called in the Septuagint 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 mans
first abode than a garden. The description of Eden is found in ( Genesis
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
).
(2) One of the marts which supplied the luxury of Tyre with richly-embroidered
stuffs. In ( 2
Kings 19:12 ) and Isaiah
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. ( Amos
1:5 )
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
e'-d'-n ('edhen, "delight"; Edem):
(1) The land in which "Yahweh God planted a garden," where
upon his creation "he put the man whom he had formed" (Genesis 2:8).
In the Assyrian inscriptions idinu (Accadian, edin) 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 Genesis 2 and 3: Genesis 4:16 ; Isaiah
51:3 ; Ezekiel 28:13 ; 31:9 , 16 , 18 ; 36:35 ; Joel 2:3. The Garden of Eden is
said to be "eastward, in Eden" Genesis (Genesis 2:8); where the vegetation was
luxurious (Genesis 2:9) and the fig tree indigenous (3:7), and where it was watered
by irrigation.
All kinds of animals, including cattle, beasts of the field and birds, were found
there (Genesis 2:19 , 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 (nahar) (Genesis 2:10) which was parted and became four heads
(ro'shim), a word which (Judges 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 (okeanos) 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 perath 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, 183-96, 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 Genesis 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 (nahar) would
be represented by the Persian Gulf itself, which was indeed called by the Babylonians
nar marratum, "the bitter river." This theory is further supported by the fact
that according to the cuneiform inscriptions Eridu was reputed to have in its
neighborhood a garden, "a holy place," in which there grew a sacred palm tree.
This "tree of life" appears frequently upon the inscriptions 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 (2 Chronicles 29:12 ; 31:15).
LITERATURE
Dawson Modern Science in Bible Lands; Friedrich Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? (1881); Sayce, HCM, 95; Hommel, Anc. Hebrew Tradition, 314; William F. Warren, Paradise Found, 1885.
George Frederick Wrigh
Tags:
adam, bible commentary, bible history, bible reference, bible study, define, eden (garden of), eve, first residence of man, paradise, serpent
Comments:
|
 |
|
