In order to escape the difSculties presented in tliis account, attempts have been made to force upon the text various strange interpretations. Thus Verbrugge (Orat. de sit. Paradis. p. 11) understands the river ("lil3) to mean merely a great abundance of springs; and hence one need onlj' seek a well-watered district of Asia to find EJen at once (comp. Jahn's Arckdol. I, i, 28). This ccrtainh' gives wide room for selection ! But it is surpassed in this respect by the view, often urged, that the position of the rivers has changed in the course of ages (see Clericus, Ad. Gen. ii, 8; lie- land ; Baumgarten, Comment. I, i, 40). Calvin op- poses this view (see Com. on Gen. ii, 10). This idea has been elaborated by liaumer (in the Hertha^ 1829, xiii, 340 sq.), who adopts the idea that at one time the Black and Caspian seas were one ; and, gathering to- gether the Irtish, the Petchora, the Uwina, and the Volga, forms a Ural island, which he calls Havilah, and shows that gold is reallj' found in that region. But tins view, and in particular the beauty and pleas- ant climate of tliis region, are mere assumption (comp. with this theory that of Ephraem Syrus on Gen. ii, in his Opera, i, 23). Clericus understood by Pishon the Chrysorrhoas, which rises near Damascus, and ap- pears by its very name to flow through a gold region (comp. Kohlreif, Das loegen Krschaf. d. Mensch. denlc- wi'ird. Damash. Lubeck, 1737). Lakemacher (Observ. I'hilol. V, 195 sq.) also jdaces Paradise in Syria, but makes the Jordan the Pishon. Harduin, again {De situ Paradis. Ter. [excursus to Plin}''s Hist. Nat. vi] i, 359 sq.), finds it in Galilee, and takes the Jordan for the original river. Rut his explanation of Gen. ii, 10 is too wild and trivial for refutation. Thus Gihon is the Dead Sea, and Pishon the river Achena in Arabia (mentioned by Pliny, vi, 32). But Clericus explains the details plausiblj'. For Havilah he refers to 1 Sam. XV, 7, where it is mentioned as a place near Pal- estine. He makes Cush the same with Cassiotis in
Syria. (Strabo mentions a mount Casius in Seleucia, xvi, 750.) Gihon is then the Orontes (see Strabo, xvi, 750 sq. ; Ammian. Marcel, xiv, 8, p. 29), and Eden also lies in Syria.
According to Reland (Dissert. Miscell. i, 1 sq.) and Calmet, Pishon is the Phasis, which rises in Mount Caucasus, and stands connected with the ancienth' famous gold land Colchis (Plinj', vi, 4 ; Strabo, xi, 498) ; and Gihon is the Araxes (modern Aras), which also arises in Armenia and flows into the Caspian. Cush is tlie land of the Cossreans (who are placed by the ancient geographers in the neighborhood of JMedia and the Caspian. Strabo, xi, 522; xvi, 744; Diod. Sic. xvii, 111 ; comp. Mannert, V, ii, 493 sq.). Thus all the four rivers arise in one region — in the Armenian mountains — and Armenia is Eden. Verbrugge agrees v.ith this view for the most part, but would make Gi- hon the river Gyndes (see Herod, i, 189), which formed part of the boundarj' between Armenia and Matiana. J. D. Michaelis, who, however, is doubtful in respect to some of the rivers, was inclined to find the Gihon in the Oxus of the ancients, which is still by the Arabs and Persians called Jehun ; and compares the name Cush with the city Chath, which stood on the site of the present Balch, on the Oxus; Havilah with the Chwalisher or Chwalisser (comp. Mtiller in Biisch- ing's lla/jazin, xvi, 287 sq.), the people from whom the Caspian Sea is called by the Russians the Chwal- inskoje. Consistently with this view, Pishon might be the Aras (Araxes), although Michaelis does not suggest it (comp. Schlotzer, in Michaelis's Liter. Brief- tvfchsel, i, 212 sq.). Jalm agrees in general with Mi- chaelis (Archdol. I, i, 27 sq.), but makes Pishon the Phasis. This scheme of identification, in some form, certainly has the greatest countenance in the sacred text.
Hammer (in the Wiener Jah-huch d. Lit. 1820, ix, 21 sq. ; comp. Mahn in Bertholdt's Journ. xi, 327 sq.) finds the Mosaic Paradise in the elevated plain of Bactria. Pishon, in his view, is the river Sihon, or Jax- artes, which arises near the city Cha, and flows around the land Hah, where lay the gold-mine of Turkistan, and where jewels and bdellium were also found. Hav- ilah is then Chowaresm ; Gihon the Oxus, the river nearest the Jaxartes, which arises in the land of Hin- du-Cush, or the Indian Caucasus. Link (Urwelt, i, 307, 1st ed.) understands Cush of the land around the Caucasus; Pishon of the Phasis; Gihon is the Kur (the Cyrus), and, as the sources of the streams are not far apart, he finds Paradise in the highland of Ar- menia and Grusinia, the original home of many kinds of fruit-trees and of grain.
All the hypotheses of this class, though differing so widely among themselves, have this in common, that they understand the Mosaic account to indicate a par- ticular region of Asia ; and comparing the names Hav- ilah, Cush, etc., with names of similar sound which now occur in Syria, Armenia, and the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, combine the results with the position of the Tigris and Euphrates. In opposition, however, to this method of inquiry, it may be urged (1) that Cush (Ethiopia) has a fixed geographical meaning, though of wide extent, and that hence every effort to give it an entirely new and special significance in this place, as is done bj' Clericus, Reland, Michaelis, and others, is exceeding!}' forced. (2) That Havilah (1 Sam. xv, 7) is certainly in Arabia, and cannot have bordered on the Chrj'sorrlioas. (3) The fact that the Phasis of the ancients did not arise in Armenia, but in the Cau- casus range, militates against Reland's tlieor}'. (4) To explain Havilah by a name which cannot be proved to be ancient at all (as INIichaelis does) is pointless, (Beke's view [in Origines Bibl. i, 311 sq.] is worthless.)