This wonderful land is mentioned in the biblical Book of Genesis. Paradise from which God eventually banished the first humans lay on Earth. Where exactly was it located?
There was no fear, suffering and want in this garden. The animals and the first people lived in perfect harmony. According to the Bible, God created Eden by separating out a portion of the Earth with particularly favorable properties. So the garden was a very physical place. Genesis reports, " And God planted a garden in Eden in the east." The rank of this specific place, separated from the rest of the planet, was very high since God Himself was there. There he also planted trees of life and of the knowledge of good and evil. Then he created the first humans. They were to live in paradise and take care of it. "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it."
Rivers of Eden
Where was that garden? We know that in the "east". The Bible also gives the names of the rivers that flowed through God's garden :
A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it split up to give rise to four rivers. The name of the first one - Piszon; it is the one that goes around the whole country Chawila where the gold is. And the gold of that land is splendid; there is also fragrant resin and redstone. The name of the second river - Gihon; it goes around the whole country - Kush. The name of the third river - Chiddekel (Tiger); it flows east of Ashshur. The fourth river is Perat (Euphrates).
According to the Bible, God created Eden by separating out a portion of the Earth with particularly favorable properties.
Two of the rivers mentioned still exist today. Based on this information, it could be concluded that the Garden of Eden was located in Mesopotamia . The problem is that it was not known what to do with the other two rivers that would flow out of Eden. Scientists cannot identify them. In addition, Gihon, who was to circumnavigate the country of Kush, would have to travel from Mesopotamia as far as African Nubia, because the land of Kush was located there in antiquity.
According to skeptics, it is impossible to determine which specific rivers are meant. Maybe they are just a figment? According to the Bible, God sent a flood to the world not long after the first people were expelled from paradise which washed away all the land and its topography at that time. So the Paradise Tiger would not necessarily correspond to the Tiger actually flowing through today's Iraq. People after the flood could name objects from the "old" world.
Edinu
On the other hand, linguistic premises indicate the Mesopotamian location of paradise. The word Eden most likely comes from the Akkadian term edin which means steppe, desert, but also plain . The genealogy of the name of the biblical paradise would suggest looking for it in the area of today's Iraq and western Iran.
The word Eden is most likely derived from the Akkadian word for edin
Official science "knows" nothing about the Garden of Eden, the Flood, or the many other things mentioned in the Bible. Nevertheless, from time to time scientists appear ready to risk criticism, accusations of heresy and putting on the label of a misfit, assigning the biblical content the value of truthfulness. This is what British Egyptologist and historian David Rohl did , which became famous primarily for the creation of the so-called New Chronology of Antiquity that shifted the origins of the civilizations of Sumer and Egypt far into the past and derived them from the "tribe of Adam." Around 5500 B.C.E. it was to move south to found 500 years later the first city in the world - the Sumerian Eridu.
Tabriz - welcome to paradise
It was Rohl who pointed to Eden's alleged physical location. According to him, the garden was to be located in today's Tabriz Valley, in northwestern Iran. Tabriz is a large Iranian city with developed industry. 1.5 million people live here. Not far from this city, south of Mount Ararat (where Noah's Ark was to land after the flood), allegedly there was a paradise. According to the researcher, there are several indications of this. The main one is in the language. According to Rohl , back in the 8th century CE The Arabs of Tabriz were to use the river and mountain names mentioned in the Bible.
Rohl believes he has identified the rivers of paradise that he says continue to flow today. It is about Murat (one of the main source rivers of the Euphrates), which he identified as the biblical Euphrates), Arax (the biblical river Gihon), Cuzil Uzum (the river Pishon mentioned in the Scriptures) and the Tigris.
Paradise found?
Although Rohl is not a home-grown researcher, but an educated scientist, in the official academic world hardly anyone takes his findings seriously. The question of the "actual" location of paradise is also irrelevant to the followers of Judaism or Christianity . They regard Eden not so much as a physical place but as a state of the original covenant of man and God and a life in homeostasis that was disturbed by the temptation of the serpent and the fall of the first humans.
The question of the "actual" location of Paradise is also irrelevant to the followers of Judaism or Christianity.
Modern science, however, has examples showing that reading ancient scriptures literally can produce surprising results. For example the discovery of the ruins of ancient Troy in 1870 by the amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann. He considered Iliad to be a "signpost" . In the nineteenth century, it was thought that the city that was at war between the Achaeans and the Trojans was just a figment of Homer's imagination. Few people gave it real value. Schliemann, however, trusted the epic from thousands of years ago and, following its instructions, came across an ancient city. The myth was confirmed in reality.
Is this a warning to those who refuse the seed of truth in the Bible's records of Eden? Perhaps. Certainly, more than one researcher will undertake the search for the lost paradise ...
Bibliography:
- David Rohl, Pharaohs and kings. Time trial. Volume I. The Bible - From Myth to History, Amber, Warsaw 1996.
- David Rohl, The legend of the rise of civilization. Time trial, Pantheon, Wrocław 2004.
- Stanisław Kobielus, Man and the Garden of Eden in the religious culture of the Middle Ages , PAX Publishing Institute, Warsaw 1997.