desert lying W and S of the Euphrates; and Kush is a name for
northern and middle Babylonia, derived from the Kaššite dynasty that
once ruled there. In spite of the learning and ingenuity with which
this theory has been worked out, it cannot clear itself of an air of
artificiality at variance with the simplicity of the passage it seeks to
explain. That the Euphrates should be at once the undivided Paradise-stream
and one of the 'heads' into which it breaks up is a glaring
anomaly; while v.14 shows that the narrator had distinctly before his
mind the upper course of the Tigris opposite Assur, and is therefore
not likely to have spoken of it as an effluent of the Euphrates. The
objection that the theory confuses rivers and canals is fairly met by the
argument that the Bab. equivalent of (
Hebrew characters) is used of canals, and also by
the consideration that both the canals mentioned were probably ancient
river-beds; but the order in which the rivers are named tells heavily
against the identifications. Moreover, the expression 'the whole land
of Ḥavilah' seems to imply a much larger tract of the earth's surface
than the small section of desert enclosed by the Pallakopas; and to
speak of the whole of northern Babylonia as 'surrounded' by the
Shaṭṭ en-Nil is an abuse of language.—According to Sayce (HCM,
95 ff.; DB, i. 643 f.), the garden of Eden is the sacred garden of Ea
at Eridu; and the river which waters it is the Persian Gulf, on the
shore of which Eridu formerly stood. The four branches are, in
addition to Euphrates and Tigris (which in ancient times entered the
Gulf separately), the Pallakopas and the Choaspes (now the Kerkha),
the sacred river of the Persians, from whose waters alone their kings
were allowed to drink (Her. i. 188). Besides the difficulty of supposing
that the writer of v.10 meant to trace the streams upwards towards their
source above the garden, the theory does not account for the order in
which the rivers are given; for the Pallakopas is W of Euphrates,
while the Choaspes is E of the Tigris.[1] Further, although the description
of the Persian Gulf as a 'river' is fully justified by its Bab.
designation as Nâr Marratum ('Bitter River'), it has yet to be made
probable that either Babylonians or Israelites would have thought of a
garden as watered by 'bitter' (i.e. salt) water.—These objections apply
with equal force to the theory of Hommel (AA, iii. 1, p. 281 ff., etc.,
AHT, 314 ff.), who agrees with Sayce in placing Paradise at Eridu, in
making the single stream the Persian Gulf, and one of the four branches
the Euphrates. But the three other branches, Pishon, Giḥon, and
Ḥiddeḳel, he identifies with three N Arabian wādīs,—W. Dawāsir,
W. Rummā, and W. Sirhān (the last the 'wādī of Diḳlah' = ḫad-deḳel
[see on v.14 above], the name having been afterwards transferred to the
Tigris).
2. Since none of the above theories furnishes a satisfactory solution of the problem, we may as well go back to what appears the natural
- ↑ This objection is avoided by the modified theory of Dawson, who identifies Pishon with the Karun, still further E than the Kerkha. But that removes it from all connexion with Ḥavilah, which is one of the recommendations of Sayce's view.
