teach that the soul (נֶפֶשׁ) arises through the union of the universal life-principle (רוּחַ) with the material frame (בָּשָׂר): cf. e.g. Grüneisen, Ahnenkultus, 34 f. No such ideas are expressed: neither בשר nor רוח is mentioned, while נפשׁ is not applied to a separate element of man's being, but to the whole man in possession of vital powers. "All that seems in question here is just the giving of vitality to man. There seems no allusion to man's immaterial being, to his spiritual element. . . . Vitality is communicated by God, and he is here represented as communicating it by breathing into man's nostrils that breath which is the sign of life" (Davidson, OTTh. 194). At the same time, the fact that God imparts his own breath to man, marks the dignity of man above the animals: it is J's equivalent for the 'image of God.'
8-17. The garden of Eden.—That the planting of the
garden was subsequent to the creation of man is the undoubted
meaning of the writer; the rendering plantaverat
(V: so IEz.) is grammatically impossible, and is connected
with a misconception of מקדם below.—a garden in Eden]
This is perhaps the only place where Eden (as a geographical
designation) is distinguished from the garden
(cf. 210. 15 323. 24 416, Is. 513, Ezk. 2813 319. 16. 18 3635, Jl. 23,
Sir. 4027). The common phrase גַּן עֵדֶן would suggest to a
Hebrew the idea 'garden of delight,' as it is rendered by G
(often) and V (v.i.). There is no probability that the
proper name was actually coined in this sense. It is derived
by the younger Del. and Schrader from Bab. edinu, 'plain,'
'steppe,' or 'desert' (Del. Par. 80; KAT2, 26 f.; KAT3, 539);
but it is a somewhat precarious inference that the garden
was conceived as an oasis in the midst of a desert (Ho.).—מִקֶּדֶם]
‘in the (far) East’; i.e. from the Palestinian standpoint
of the author; not, of course, to be identified with any other
עֵדֶן within the geographical horizon of the Israelites (see
2 Ki. 1912 [= Is. 3712], Ezk. 2723, Am. 15).
Besides the passages cited above, the idea of a divine garden
appears also in Gn. 1310, Ezk. 318. Usually it is a mere symbol of
8. גן] G παράδεισος (cf. פרדס, Ca. 413, Ec. 25, Neh. 28: probably from Pers.), and so VS.—עֵדֶן] is regularly treated as nom. prop. by TO S, by V only 416 (everywhere else as appellative: voluptas, deliciæ). G has Ἐδεμ only in 28. 10 416; elsewhere τρυφή[ς], except Is. 513 (παράδεισος).—מקדם] Lit. 'in front' (on the מן see Kön. Lgb. ii. p. 318; BDB, 578b): in the hist. books it always means 'east' or 'eastward'; but in prophs. and Pss. it usually has temporal sense ('of old'); and so it is misunder-
