EDEN
53
EDEN
scription in ver. 10 must be explained in this manner : the river talves its rise in Eden, flows into the garden, and from thence is divided into four brandies, the sep- aration taking place either in the garden or after leav- ing it. If this be the case, the Tigris and Euphrates before junction cannot, in this position of the garden, be two of the four brandies in question. But, though they have avoided this error, the theorists of the second class have generally lieen driven into another but lit- tle less destructive. Loolving for the true site of Eden in the highlands of Armenia, near the sources of tlie 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 1il3, the "river," and to give to D"'dX1 a sense which is scarcely supported liy a single passage. In no instance is HJX"! (lit. "head") applied to the source of a river. On several occasions (conip. Judg. vii, 16 ; Job i, 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 D'l'.l/N"! 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 tlieory whicli fails to satisfv the above-mentioned conditions can be allowed to take its place among things that are proba- ble. What, then, is the river whicli goes forth from Eden to water the garden ? is a question which lias often been asked, and still waits foe a full)' 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. i, 1, o) and Johannes Damascenus (De Orthod. Fid. ii, 9). It was the Shut el- Arab, according to those who place the garden of Eden below the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates, and their conjecture would deserve consid- eration were it not that this stream cannot, with any degree of proprietj-, be said to rise in Eden. T>y those who refer the position of Eden to the highlands of Ar- menia, the "river" from which the four streams di- verge is conceived to mean "a collection of springs," or a well-watered district. It is scarcely necessary to say that this signification of ~iil3 (naliar') is without a parallel ; and even if it could, under certain circum- stances, be made to adopt it, such a signification is, in the pressnt instance, precluded by the fact that, what- ever meaning we may assign to the word in ver. 10, it must be essentially the same as that which it has in the following verses, in which it is sufficient!}' definite. Sickler (Augusti, Theol. Monatschrift, i, 1), supposing the whole narrative to be a mytli, solves the difficulty b}' attriljuting to its author a large meas- ure of ignorance. The "river" was the Caspian Sea, which in his apprehension was an immense stream from the east. IJertheau, applying the geographical knowledge of the ancients as a test of that of the He- brews, 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 ex- treme north, and the regions of the Caspian were the northern limit of tlie 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, ap- pears to be the onlj' body of water in this vicinity an- swering 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 daj' essentially the same as in all historic times, and 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 unhesita- tingl}' pronounced the whole narrative to be a spurious interpolation of a later age (Granville Penn, Min. and Mos. Geol. p. 184). But, even admitting this, the Avords are not mere unmeaning jargon, and demand explanation. Ewald (Gesch. i, o31, note) affirms, and we have onU' his word for it, that the tradition origi- nated in the far East, and that in the course of its wan- derings 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, reject- ing 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 remark- ed, the narrative is so worded as to convey the idea that the countries and rivers spoken of were still exist- ing in the time of the historian. It has been sug- gested that the description of the garden of Eden is part of an inspired antediluvian document (!Morren, Rosenmiiller's Geogr. i, 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.)