2. Fationalistic Interpretations. — Turning from such doubtful inqturies, later German interpreters have mostly agreed to consider Gen. ii, 10 sq. as a nij'thical description of the lost Paradise, to be compared with
PARADISE
655
PARADISE
the Grecian accounts of the trardens of the Hesperides. They assume, as its possible foundation, an old tradi- tion jilacing the original seat of the human race in Eastern Asia, which, liowever, like the Grecian myth referred to, grew by the free accretion of partial and fragmentar}' geographical notions, until the garden of Eden came to have a place as definite on the map of the world, in nien"s eyes, as the Gardens of the Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed, or the Indian mountain Meru, from which four rivers pour forth to water the whole earth (comp. Bohlen, fwiien, ii, 210). Credner, however, who adopts this view in the main, thinks that the account itself indicates a western po- sition for Eden, and compares the " Islands of the Blessed," which he identifies with the Canaries ! The authors of the Universal History receive the account in Genesis as giving Moses's geographical view, in the then imperfect state of knowledge (^AUgemeine Welt- historie, i, 124) ; and it is plausibly urged that in early times the scientific method of statement, giving frag- ments of knowledge as such, apart from all subjective notions, was unknown. Yet this view does not shut out the inquirj' what particular lands and rivers were meant bj' the writer ; and this question has been exam- ined especially by Sickler, Buttniann, and Hartmann. Sickler (in Augusti's Theol. Monaisschrift, I, i, 1 sq., 75 sq.) supposes that the author of the account meant by the river (in;) the Caspian Sea, viewing it as an enormous stream from the East. Tlie first river named is Pishon, which surrounds the whole earth, from the east out to the Nile. The second is the At- lantic, Mediterranean, and Black seas, including also the Phasis. This, in the writer's view, surrounded the wdiole earth on the west, as far as tlie Nile. The third and fourth rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, are merely inland streams, dividing one region from an- other, but making the circuit of none. Eden is then in the vicinity of the Caspian, where there are very fruitful and pleasant tracts of countrj'. According to Buttniann, however (Aelteste Erdkunde des Morgenl. Berlin, 1803 ; also in his Mythologus, i, G3 sq.), this ac- count was brought from Southern into "Western Asia. The original writer conceives of the four chief streams of the world as if they proceeded from one region and were arms of a single river. In the central part of Southern Asia he was acquainted with the Indus and Ganges; while the Shat el-Arab, the united Tigris and Euphrates (called Euphrates when the storj' reach- es Western Asia, because this river is there best known) towards the west, and the Irabatti in Ava and Pegu towards the east, were to him the limits of the known world. Pishon is compared with Besj'nga ((i3/;<7(;yy«), called by Ptolemy (vii, 2) the most con- siderable stream of India east of tlie Ganges ; Havilah with Ava, a verj' ancient Indian kingdom (known to the Greeks as xpii/rj} XMpa, land of gold), and with the name Eviltre, or Evilei, given in connection with the Chinese by an unknown author (Hudson, Expos, tot. 3fiindi, iii, 2). Cash, like the Ethiopia of the Greeks, will then mean simply the extreme South. Gihon is the Ganges, and Hiddekel the Indus (called Hind, Hidd), the name Hiddekel being reallj' the two names Hid, Chid, tlie Indus, and Dekel, the Tigris, which have been through carelessness or ignorance written together. Eiiialh', the narrator bj' Assur, Assyria (v, I'i), probably understood the same region which later writers refer to the Medes or Persians. Hart- mann {Avfkldrung iiher Asien, i, 249 sq.) attributes the whole geographical account in Gen. ii to the Bab- ylonian or Persian period, and places Paradise in Northern India, in the famous valley of Cashmere (see Herod, iii, 17). As this valley is shut in by a chain of impassable mountains, covered with snow, from which on the north spring the tributaries of the O.xus, and on the south those of the Indus ; and as the Be- hut (Hydaspes, modern Ihylum) flows through the
valley, it is easy to suppose that a very old tradition might substitute one stream instead of one mountain chain as the source of several rivers. Now the He- brew writer gave those names to these four streams of Paradise which seemed greatest to him ; thus Gihon is the Oxus, Pishon the Phasis, Havilah is Colchis, Cush is Bactria, or Balk. Just such a fanciful con- ception as this tradition presents lies at the basis of the exposition of Josephus {Antiq. i, 1, 3), extending, however, only to the Pishon and the Gihon, which he makes to be the Ganges and the Nile respectively (comp. Epiphan. Opera, ii, GO ; Hettinger, Enneas Dis- sertat. p. 67 sq.). The fact that Havilah is mentioned as abounding in gold might be adduced to support this view of the Pishon. But although India was known as a gold country, yet Africa, and, in Western Asia, Arabia, were far more famous in this respect ; and the reference of Havilah to a special district on this ground is mere waywardness. The reference of Gihon to the Nile by Josephus is adopted by most of tlie fathers (see esp. Theophil. Antol. ii, 24 ; Philostorg. in Niceph. JJist. Eccles. ix, 19), and in this view the Ethiopian Nile, with its branches, ma}- be understood (see Gesen. Thesaiir. i, 282). Even the Greeks connected the Nile with the Indus (Pishon ? comp. Arrian, Alex, vi, 1, 3; Pausan. ii, 5, 2). On the other hand (see Philostorg. I. c.) some have supposed Pishon to be the Indian riv- er Hypasis.