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EDEN

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Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 923 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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EDEN , the name of the region in which, according to the See also:

Hebrew See also:paradise-tradition in its See also:present See also:form, See also:God planted a See also:garden (or See also:park), wherein he put the See also:man whom he had formed (Gen. ii. 8). See also:Research into See also:primitive beliefs, guided by the See also:comparative method, leads to the view that the " garden " was originally a See also:celestial locality (see PARADISE), and we cannot therefore be surprised if, now that paradise has been brought down to See also:earth, the See also:geographical details given in the See also:Bible are rather difficult to See also:work into a consistent picture. The fantastic See also:geography of the (See also:Indian) See also:Vishnu Purana and the (Iranian) Bundahish will, in this See also:case, be a striking parallel. Let us now take the details of Eden as they occur. In Gen. ii. 8 we read that the garden See also:lay " in Eden eastward, where " eastward " is generally taken to mean "in the See also:east of the earth." This, however, seems inconsistent with Isa. xiv. 13, where the " See also:mountain of God," which corresponds (see Ezek. See also:xxviii. 13,14 and the See also:article See also:ADAM) to the " garden in Eden," is said to have been " in the uttermost parts of the See also:north " (so R.V.). The former statement (" eastward ") suits Babylonia, where See also:Friedrich See also:Delitzsch' places Eden; the latter does not. We are further told (v. ro) that " a See also:river went out from Eden to See also:water the garden," and that " from thence it parted itself (?), and became four heads (?)," which is commonly understood to mean that the river was so large that, soon after leaving the garden (" from thence " is all that the See also:text says), it could still See also:supply four considerable streams (the text says, not "streams," but " heads," i.e. • perhaps " beginnings " or " starting-points ").

In vv. 11-14 the names of four See also:

rivers are given, but in spite of the descriptive supplements attached to three of them, only that one which has no supplement can be identified with much See also:probability. In fact, Perath may without any obvious difficulty be " See also:Euphrates," except in Jer. xiii., where a more southerly stream seems indicated, but to the See also:identification of "Hiddekel " with " See also:Tigris " (Babylonian Diglat) the presence of the initial Hi in the Hebrew is an objection. Now as to "Pishon " and " Gihon." If a moderately See also:early tradition may he trusted, the " Gihon " is another name for the " Shihor," which was either in or beside " See also:Mizraim " (= See also:Egypt) or Mizrim. (= the North Arabian Musri), and indeed according to most scholars means the See also:Nile in Jer. ii. 18, where the See also:Septuagint substitutes for itGeon, i.e. Gihon. For " Pishon " few plausible suggestions have been made; it is not, however, a hopeless problem from the point of view which recognizes Eden in See also:Arabia. For details of the interesting descriptive supplements of the names Pishon, Gihon, and Hiddekel, on which there is' much difference of See also:opinion, it must suffice to refer to the See also:Encyclopaedia Biblica and Hasting's See also:Dictionary of the Bible. We must, however, mention a widely held explanation of the name Eden. Plausible as it is to interpret this name as "delight"—indeed, the Septuagint translates in Gen. iii. 23 f. o aapaSearos ris rpvcbils—this cannot have been the See also:original meaning.

Hence Delitzsch (Wo lag das Parodies? p.

End of Article: EDEN

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