This article in a nutshell: Ancient Sumer is identified as the land of Nod (and the land of Eden) while Cain's city of Enoch is a fusion of motifs originally associated with the Sumerian cities of Unug (Uruk) and Nunki (Eridu). The biblical notion that the world's first city is founded by a wanderer and shedder of blood is traced to Mesopotamian notions that a wanderer and shedder of blood founded Sumer's first city, Eridug.
A "warning" to the viewer (especially if you are a _devout_ Christian, Jew or Moslem):
My research at this website is that of a Secular Humanist. Secular Humanists understand that the Bible is _not_ the word of God (for the reasons why please click here). Secular Humanists seek to explain the Bible's concepts as evolving from within the context of the Ancient Near East and its religious notions regarding the origins of the world, why man was created and what his purpose in life is. If asked to briefly summarize _my_ understanding of the Hebrew God, Yahweh-Elohim, it would be best encapsulated by the Latin Motto now found on the money of the United States of America:
E PLURIBUS UNUM: "From Many, One." That is to say I understand that the Hebrews took the many gods and goddesses of Mesopotamia, Syria, Canaan and Phoenicia, and ascribed their powers, feats, epithets and personas to their God. Whereas MANY GODS and GODDESSES were responsible for the Shuruppak Flood in the Hebrew transformation and recasting as Noah's Flood it is only ONE GOD who is responsible. I understand that many of the Hebrew notions about the relationship between God and Man are deliberate _refutations_and_challenges_ of the beliefs held by the Mesopotamians, said refutations being in the form of a series of 180 degree "inversions" or "reversals" of earlier Mesopotamian concepts.
According to Genesis after the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden in Eden, a son is born called Cain. He slays his brother Abel and his punishment is to be "wanderer on the earth" (Ge 4:12). Cain complains that as a wanderer his life will be peril and he will be slain (Ge 4:13-14). He then dwells in the "land of Nod, east of Eden" (Ge 4:17) and there builds a city calling it Enoch, after his son (Ge 4:17). We are told that one of Cain's descendants is a herdsman of cattle and the "father" of those who dwell in tents (Ge 4:20). One of Cain's descendants boasts of killing a man (Ge 4:23).
For two millennia scholars have sought to identify the "land of Nod" as well as the "land of Eden" and its garden. I understand that Eden and its garden is a Hebrew myth based upon later recastings of motifs and concepts appearing in earlier Mesopotamian myths regarding primal man's origins of the 3rd through 2nd millenniums B.C.
Davila on the land of Nod possibly _not_ being a location's name:
"Nod. The name of the land where Cain went after he had killed his brother Abel...Gen 4:16...locates it "east of Eden." The land of Nod is not mentioned elsewhere in the Bible. It is unlikely that an actual geographic location is meant. The name seems to be derived from the Hebrew root nwd, "to wander"...Thus, rather than denoting a specific place, the land of Nod symbolizes Cain's fate as "a fugitive and a wanderer (nad) on the earth" (Gen 4:12,14)..."East of Eden" simply means outside of the Garden of Eden, and thus banishment from God."
(p. 1133. Vol. 4. James R. Davila. "Nod." David Noel Freedman. Editor. The Anchor Bible Dictionary. New York. Doubleday. 1992)
Englert on Nod possibly being a "play on words":
"Nod [wandering]. A country east of Eden where Cain went and dwelt (Gen 4:16). Possibly the name represents a play on words, a place of wandering for the condemned wanderer. Some have suggested that words "east of Eden" are a gloss added in order to attach the story to the Eden narrative of Genesis 3."
(p. 557. Vol. 3. D. M. C. Englert. "Nod." George A. Buttrick. Editor. The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible. Nashville & New York. Abingdon Press. 1962)
The Hebrew word nowd translated into English as nod according to Strong, is a primitive root which can mean "to wander," or "to flee" among other meanings (cf. p. 77. # 5110-5113. "Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary." James Strong. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, Complete and Unabridged. Waco, Texas. Word Books. 1977).
Nod or nuwd, various renderings of from Strong's Concordance (Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary):
5110
nuwd, nood, a primitive root; to waver; figuratively to wander, flee, disappear; also (from shaking the head in sympathy) to console, deplore, or (from tossing the head in scorn) taunt- bemoan, flee, get, make to move, take pity, remove, shake, skip for joy, be sorry, vagabond, way, wandering.
5111
nuwd (Chaldean word), nood; corresponding to 5116; to flee: -get away.
5112
nowd, node or nod, node; from 5110; exile: wandering.
5113
nowd, node; the same as 5112; vagrancy: Nod, the land of Cain: -Nod.
The notion of primal man being a "wanderer" in "fear of his life" is a motif or concept appearing in Mesopotamian myths and I thus draw the conclusion that the Hebrews have recast these notions as Cain being a wanderer in fear of his life in a place called Nod.
The "first" slaying for the Mesopotamian myths is of an Igigi god called We-ila at the Sumerian city of Nibru (Akkadian Nippur). He is classed as a garden-laborer with fellow laborers who rebel against the Anunnaki god of Nippur called Enlil. Enlil (Akkadian Ellil) and Enki (Akkadian Ea of Eridu) determine that the hard labor protested by the Igigi gods in their city-gardens, creating irrigation canals and ditches and planting seed, hoeing weeds and harvesting the produce to feed the Anunnaki gods is not without just cause. To end the revolt of the Igigi at Nippur (and at Eridu) Enki decides to create a new laborer with Enlil's assent to work in the gods' city-gardens, man will bear the work basket of the gods. Man will care for the gods' city-gardens, thus giving the Igigi gods a never-ending rest from physical toil upon the earth as already enjoyed by the Anunnaki gods. That is to say, in the Mesopotamian myths the "shedding of blood by man" is an activity of the gods _before_ man's creation! The god Abzu (Apsu) was slain by his son Enki (Ea) the god of Eridu; Marduk the god of Babylon slew the goddess Tiamat (spouse of Abzu/Apsu) and later her replacement companion the god Kingu; Enki slew the Igigi god We-ila at Nippur to animate the clay that became man with this god's blood and flesh. Genesis _denies_ that God is "a shedder of the blood" of fellow gods, there is only _one_ God! In the Hebrew recasting of the Mesopotamian creation myths it is man who becomes "the shedder of much blood," instead of gods viciously slaughtering each other! In other words, in the Mesopotamian myths man is made in the image of the gods who shed each other's blood thus man is a shedder of human blood too, he can be no different from the gods in whose image he was made. The Hebrews deny this Mesopotamian concept, that man sheds his fellow-man's blood because he was made in the image the gods who shed each others blood. The Hebrew God is portrayed as being outraged that man sheds his fellow man's blood.
Other Mesopotamian myths have man created and abandoned by the gods and left "to wander" the great uncultivated plain through which run the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. He is portrayed as being naked, his companions are wild animals he eats grass with them (gazelles) and he laps water at watering holes in the wilderness with the beasts. This uncultivated land that he wanders is not called Nod, its name in Sumerian is _edin_ (alternately rendered _eden_ by some scholars), the uncultivated steppeland or floodplain associated with Mesopotamia. The city-gardens of the gods _created _before_ man_ are never called edin/eden, the edin/eden is contiguous to or abuts their city-gardens. That is to say the city-gardens are _in_ the midst of the uncultivated edin/eden or are _surrounded by_ the uncultivated edin/eden, the gods' city-gardens are _in_ the edin/eden.
"And the Lord God planted a garden _in_ Eden...there he put the man whom he had formed." (Genesis 2:8)
In agreement with earlier scholars I identify Eden with the Sumerian edin, which means "uncultivated steppe or plain," and usually associated with the area today called Mesopotamia. The Mesopotamian myths have the gods in the beginning dwelling upon the earth. They create cities to live in and to provide food for themselves they acquire the arts of animal husbandry and learn to make irrigated city-gardens to raise fruits, vegetables and grain. Tiring of all this toil, the gods decide to create man to be their slave, his duty will be to provide life's necessities (food, clothing and shelter) that the gods may be at ease for the rest of eternity and free from earthly toil. Man will care for their city-gardens, dig irrigation ditches to provide water for the crops, harvest them and present them as food offerings to the gods in the temples.
The gods' city-gardens possess fruit trees, vegetables, and grain (to make bread and beer from), they are "off limits" for foraging by beasts contra Genesis' portrayal of God's Garden in Eden allowing wild animals to feed in it with Adam and Eve.
The Mesopotamian myths contradict themsleves regarding the edin. Some myths claim naked man knows no fear in the edin because no predators exist "yet" to offer man harm as in the below Eridu Genesis myth. However, other accounts reveal that the edin possesses carnivores: lions, leopards, bears, wolves and poisonous snakes as well as tent-dwelling bandits and cut-throats. Edin, contra Eden, is a place of danger for man. If the carnivores of edin don't kill man, he faces the danger of being slain by edin's tent-dwelling nomads, brigands and outcasts from respectable society, said 'respectable society' being characterized as urban city-dwellers!
I thus understand that motifs of primal man's (Cain) facing danger in Genesis is a recasting of motifs associated with the edin. That is to say the Land of Nod or "land of wanderers" is the edin!
The Sumerian god Enki of Eridu is portrayed in myth as ordering the slaughter of the Igigi god We-ila at Nippur and mixing his blood and flesh with Nippur's clay to create man. That is to say the clay that is man has no life until the slain god's flesh and blood is ground into it, animating it. I understand this motif has been recast as Cain slaying Abel his brother, Abel's blood crying out to God from the ground (Ge 4:10-11). The Igigi were gods and Enki is an Anunnaki god, so in a sense a god has slain a "brother-god" causing his blood to enter the earth or clay to thereby animate man. Enki bears the Sumerian epithet Nudimmud which means "creator of man." Is it possible that this title was morphed into Nod where dwells a primal man who slays his brother? Cain, the world's first murderer, is credited with creating the world's first city named after his son Enoch, and in the Sumerian myths it is Enki who is credited with creating the world's first city, Eridu, in Sumer. Was Enki morphed into Enoch? So Enki/Nudimmud shed his brother-god's blood and created the world's first city and Genesis has the world's first city, Enoch, created in the land of NOD by a "wanderer and shedder of human blood."
Professor Frymer-Kensky on the meaning of Nudimmud:
"There had been considerable rivalry between Enki/Ea and the mother-goddess as to who created the first humans, and Ea eventually became considered Nudimmud, the "man-creator." (p. 246. Note 53. Tikva Frymer-Kensky. In the Wake of the Goddesses, Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. New York. Fawcett Columbine, Ballantine Books, 1993. First edition 1992 The Free Press a division of Macmillan, Inc.)
The "Eridu Genesis Myth" (translated by Professor Thorkild Jacobsen in 1981) speaks of naked man, abandoned, ignored and forgotten by the gods, wandering the "high desert" or "high steppe" (Sumerian: an edin) with wild animals for companions. He knows no fear, because no animals exist "yet" to harm him like lions, hyenas, and snakes. This myth supplies the motif for Genesis' notion that primal naked man (Adam) has no fear of wild animals in Eden (edin). This motif is, of course, "nonsense," as other Mesopotamian accounts reveal that naked man (Enkidu) fears edin's carnivores and Sumerian cylinder seals show a naked man (Enkidu?) embracing gazelles and defending them from lions that roam the edin. Please click here for cylinder seals showing naked man (Enkidu?) protecting gazelles from predators.
Eden's Cain is a "wanderer" who settles down and builds a city. I understand that the motif of primal man wandering the high edin or "high desert" then settling down to build cities has been recast as Cain the wanderer building a city.
Of interest here is that the Sumerian Eridu Genesis account was found at Nippur and at Ur. In other myths we learn that the god of Nippur, Enlil, summons his brother-god Enki of Eridu, to his city to put down the rebellion of the Igigi gods by creating man of clay to replace them as laborers in his city-garden. In yet another myth Enlil of Nippur sends a flood to destroy mankind, but Enki defies him and thwarts his plan by warning one man of the flood, telling him to build a boat and save the seed of man and animalkind for a new beginning. Enki is credited with creating man at not only Nippur but also at Eridu to replace the rebelling Igigi gods as garden laborers. In otherwords, Genesis' Yahweh-Elohim who created man and placed him in his garden, made Cain a wanderer, had him build a city, is nothing more than a Hebrew recast of motifs and concepts associated with Nippur and Eridu whose myths speak of man's creation and his being naked and wandering with animals in the edin. That is to say Eridu and Nippur are pre-biblical prototypes of Genesis' garden _in_ Eden. No texts about primal man have been found at Eridu, but this city and its association with primeval man appear in texts found at Ur (Tell Muqayyar south of Babylon) where Abraham lived.
The Mesopotamian myths understand _before_ man was created that the gods were naked and wandered the edin like wild animals, they knew not the wearing of clothes or eating of bread, they ate plants with their mouths like sheep. Eventually they acquire the arts of husbandry and becomes tillers of the soil creating irrigated city-gardens. That is to say Genesis' notions of primeval man (Cain) at first being a wanderer who later settles down to build a city is apparently a recast of earlier Meopotamian motifs regarding the gods and primeval man.
Professor Kramer on the Anunnaki gods being wandering naked animals in the beginning just like primeval man:
"They (the Anunnaki) knew not the eating of bread,
Knew not the dressing of garments,
Ate plants with their mouths like sheep,
Drank water from the ditch..."
(pp. 220-221. "Literature: The Sumerian Belles-Lettres." Samuel Noah Kramer. The Sumerians, Their History, Culture, and Character. Chicago & London. University of Chicago Press. 1963. Reprint of 1972)
Please note that both Enlil and Enki the gods of Nippur and Eridu, locations where man was created of clay to replace the rebelling Igigi gods, are both classed as being Anunnaki gods. The above verse reveals that once upon a time the Anunnaki were _wanderers_ of the edin, naked beasts, who knew not the eating of bread, eating plants with their mouths like sheep. That is to say, both Nippur and Eridu, portrayed in some myths as having been built and occupied the gods _before_ man's creation were created by "wanderers" of the edin (recalling Cain "the wanderer" creating the city of Enoch).
Jacobsen on naked primal man being a wanderer or "nomadic vagrant" of the an edin or high steppe (note that Jacobsen's portrayal of primeval man being a vagrant or wanderer at first and then later settling down to build cities appears to anticipate Genesis' portrayal of Cain another primeval man who is a wanderer who later settles and builds a city):
"...the goddess of birth, the mother of mankind, Nintur...decided to call mankind home from a nomadic, vagrant existence, to have them build cities and temples, and thus become sedentary and civilized." (pp. 130-131. Thorkild Jacobsen. "The Eridu Genesis." pp. 129-142 in Richard S. Hess & David Toshio Tsumura. Editors. I Studied Inscriptions From Before the Flood, Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1-11. Winona Lake, Indiana. Eisenbrauns. 1994)
Jacobsen's translation of the Eridu Genesis (Note: I have not followed Jacobsen's poetic format. Emphasis mine):
"Mankind's trails when forgotten by the gods were in the high (i.e., not subject to flooding) desert. In those days no canals were opened, no dredging was done at dikes and ditches on dike tops. The seeder plow and plowing had not yet been instituted for the knocked under and downed people. Mankind of (those) distant days, since Shakan (the god of flocks) had not (yet) come out of the dry lands, _did not know arraying themselves in prime cloth_, MANKIND WALKED ABOUT NAKED. In those days, there being NO SNAKES, being NO SCORPIONS, being NO LIONS, being NO HYENAS, being NO DOGS, being NO WOLVES, MANKIND HAD NO OPPONENT, FEAR AND TERROR DID NOT EXIST. [The people had as yet no] king. Nintur was paying attention: Let me bethink myself of my mankind, (all) forgotten as they are; and mindful of mine, Nintur's creatures let me bring them back, let me lead the people back from their trails. May they come and build cities and cult-places, that I may cool myself in their shade; may they lay the bricks of the cult-cities in pure spots, and may they found places for divination in pure spots! She gave directions for purification, and cries for quarter, the things that cool (divine) wrath, perfected the divine service and the august offices, and said to the (surrounding) regions: "Let me institute peace there!" When An, Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursag fashioned the darkheaded (people) they had made the small animals (that came up) from (out of) the earth in abundance and had let there be, as befits (it) gazelles, (wild) donkeys, and fourfooted beasts in the desert...he (i.e., the king)...laid the bricks of those cities...The firstling of those cities, Eridu she [Nintur] gave to the leader Nudimmud [Enki/Ea]...[man] dredged the canals, which were blocked with purplish (wind-born) clay, and they carried water. Their [man's] cleaning of the smaller canals established abundant growth." (pp. 160-161. Patrick D. Miller, Jr. "Eridu, Dunnu and Babel: A Study in Comparitive Mythology." pp. 143-168. Richard S. Hess & David Toshio Tsumura. Editors. I Studied Inscriptions From Before the Flood, Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1-11. Winona Lake, Indiana. Eisenbrauns. 1994. ISBN 0-931464-88-9, citing from Professor Thorkild Jacobsen's translation. 1981. "The Eridu Genesis.")
Below, a Sumerian account of Sheep's/Ewe's (personified) refuting Grain's/Wheat's (personified) claim as to who benefits man more:
"Your shepherd on the high plain eyes my produce enviously; when I am standing in the furrow in the field, my farmer chases away your herdsman with his cudgel. Even when they look out for you, from the open country to the hidden places, your fears are not removed from you: fanged (?) snakes and BANDITS, the creatures of the desert, WANT YOUR LIFE on the high plain.
The Sumerian an edin-na (an = high + edin-na =plain) is rendered variously as a "high" desert, steppe, or plain where shepherds graze their sheep and goats; Note that this _edin_ is characterized as being a place of danger, inhabitated by snakes and other predatory creatures of the desert (leopards, lions, and hyenas) which seek a sheep's life, but this can apply just as well to man. Edin is not a pleasant, idyllic place of tranquility where man has no fear its wild animals. The Mesopotamians understood man had been created to care for the gods' city-gardens (at Eridu and Nippur and Babylon) and present them their produce for their sustenance in the Temples. These gardens which produced grain for bread and beer, fruit-trees, and assorted vegetables were surrounded by uncultivated steppeland called the edin where shepherds grazed their flocks (the gardens themselves were never called edin). As noted in these verses, the farmer was vigilant to keep out of his garden-fields of grain, the shepherd of edin and his foraging flocks. Foraging wild animals would be just as _unwelcome_ in the gods' city-gardens. I understand that the Hebrews are denying, challenging and refuting the Mesopotamian notions about the relationship between man, wild animals and the gods' gardens by recasting all of the above as a series of inversions or reversals of Mesopotamian concepts. For the Hebrews there is no danger for man from wild animals in Eden and they are free to feed off the plants in God's garden, which is not a city-garden, but in the midst of a region called Eden.
As regards motifs from Genesis of Cain the wanderer fearing for his life, note the statement that BANDITS SEEK ONE'S LIFE in the an-edin or "high steppe." The motif here of course is of predator's seeking the sheep's life but this motif can apply just as well to man. The Mesopotamian city-dwellers regarded the edin as a place of lawlessness, filled with tent-dwelling nomads and bandits. The wanderers of edin are murderers, no wonder then Cain the "wanderer" fears for his life, he has "murdered" and become a wanderer, and wanderers in Mesopotamian eyes are equated with lawless murderers. The Mesopotamians equate the good-life with cities. Here law prevails, one is safe. The Hebrews deny this notion for they have Cain the wanderer-murderer founder of the world's first city and one of his descendants, Lamech, boasts of killing a man (Ge 4:23-24). Why are the Hebrews portraying a murderer as the founder of the world's first city thereby suggesting cities are full of Cain's muderous descendants? The answer will surprise you. Abraham is portrayed as a shepherd in his wanderings between Ur of the Chaldees, Haran and Canaan. Having been a resident at/near Ur he would be aware that tent-dwelling nomads are feared and despised by the city-dwellers. In defense of his way of life as a tent-dwelling shepherd of edin the steppe he probably inverted the Mesopotamian storyline. Nomadic tent-dwelling herders are not lawless murderers despised by God, the city-dwellers are who God despises (the descendants of a murdering Cain). Abraham is also portrayed as having been originally a polytheist before being "called' by God at Haran. As a practicing polytheist at Ur (originally a Sumerian city-state) he would have, no doubt, been familiar with Sumerian and Mesopotamian myths and their notions that the wanderers of edin are to be equated with murderers. He would also be aware that the gods' heart's delight was to dwell in cities, not the edin. He also would be aware that these city-dwelling gods were portrayed as shedding the blood of their fellow gods in these cities! Thus the reason perhaps that the founder of cities is a murderer. Enki slew Apsu at Eridu. We-ila is slain at Nippur at Enki's behest, with Enlil's assent. Marduk of Babylon slays Tiamat and Kingu. In other words the shedding of blood in Mesopotamian myths is not just a phenomenon associated with the lawless edin and its wanderers but in cities too (man's very creation at Nippur being a result of We-ila's being killed by Enlil and Enki). So the motifs of being a murderer and fearing for one's life associated with Cain the wanderer and city-dweller are nothing more than recast echoes of earlier themes and motifs appearing in the Mesopotamian myths.
The steppe was called in Sumerian eden/edin and at other times arali. In any case it is a place of danger for man:
"Generally, the town-dwelling population of southern Mesopotamia considered the open semi-desert countryside to be a dangerous and lawless place..."
(p. 13. "Arali." Gwendolyn Leick. A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology. London. Routledge. 1991. Reprint 1997)
The motif of Cain the wanderer being fearful of dying is also picked up in the Epic of Gilgamesh. After Enkidu's death Gilgamesh becomes a wanderer of the steppe (Sumerian edin, Akkadian seru) and he is portrayed as fearing death. His wanderings are likened to those a bandit (bandits are to be equated with murderers who have fled to wander the lawless wilderness):
Gilgamesh speaking to an alewife or barmaid:
"Enkidu, whom I love so much,
Experienced all troubles with me.
He suffered the fate of mankind.
Day and night I wept over him...
Since his death I have not found eternal life.
I keep wandering like a bandit in the open
country.
Now that I have found you, alewife,
May I not find the death I dread.'
"Gilgamesh, where do you roam?
You will not find the eternal life you seek.
When the gods created mankind
They appointed death for mankind,
Kept eternal life in their own hands..."
(pp. 149-150. "The Epic of Gilgamesh." Stephanie Dalley. Myths From Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh And Others. Oxford & New York. Oxford University Press. 1989, 1991)
To the degree that I have identified Cain's murder of Abel as a recasting of the slaying of We-ila at the instigation of Enki and Enlil at Nippur and the world's first city founded by Cain in the land of Nod as being a recast of the world's first city founded by Enki at Eridu, the city of Enoch (Ge 4:17) is recalling Eridu in Sumer. Genesis has the land of Nod being "east of Eden" (Ge 4:16) and it is interesting to note that according to the Sumerian myths and annals Eridu was the farthest east location within the edin, the uncultivated steppe which ends here. Eridu, according to ancient hymns lay on the "shore of the sea," which was portrayed as a land of marshes. Oil corings confirm the Sumerian accounts about Eridu. A vast marine sea existed in the 4th-2nd millenniums B.C. extending from the Persian Gulf to Eridu and Ur of the Chaldees (modern Tell Muqayyar). So I understand that the city of Enoch in the land of Nod east of Eden is recalling ancient Sumerian Eridug (Akkadian: Eridu, Arabic: Tell Abu Shahrain). But the land of Nod, as applied to people who wander in fear of their lives, is a recast of life in the edin, the great uncultivated steppe or plain which extends from Eridu to Haran in Syria. I understand that Nod really is not exclusively Eridu and area, its the whole of Mesopotamia. In other words edin-the-uncultivated-steppeland watered by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is not only the land of Eden its also the land of Nod!
In agreement with Professors Robert Graves and Raphael Patai (1963) I understand Enkidu and Shamhat of the Epic of Gilgamesh have been recast as Adam and Eve. In the Bible they are expelled from the Garden in Eden and their son Cain settles in the Land of Nod _east_ of Eden. I have identified a watering hole in the wilderness (Sumerian: an edin, "high plain") west-southwest of Uruk as the possible setting for Enkidu's encounter with Shamhat and Eridu the "first city" in Sumerian myth is _east_ of this watering hole! That is to say, the watering hole was morphed by the Hebrews into a God's garden in Eden, and Eridu, _east_ of this location became Cain's city of Enoch. Please click here for a map showing the watering hole where Enkidu (Adam's prototype) met Shamhat (Eve's prototype). In the Sumerian world's "first city" dwells its founder, the Sumerian god Enki who was responsible for slaying a brother-god, We-ila, and who bore the epithet NUDIMMUD, "creator of man."
Note: In agreement with other scholars I understand that Eridu is also _one of several prototypes_ for God's Garden in Eden. Please click here for the details.
Paradoxically, Eridu as the world's first city in Mesopotamian myths becomes _for me_ the pre-biblical prototype of the Bible's first city built in the "land of Nod" by Cain and called Enoch. Of interest is that Enoch's son is Irad which is similar in sound to Eridu (Irad apparently dwells in the world's first city and Eridu is the world's first city in Mesopotamian myth. Did the Hebrews creatively transform Eridu into a person named Irad?).
Regarding Enoch as the name of the world's first city in the Bible, it is worth noting that Uruk was a much larger city than Eridu, and its Sumerian name was Unug, which sounds somewhat like Enoch. So we might have a fusion here of two Mesopotamian historical kernels, Eridu as the world's "first" city in Mesopotamian myth and Unug (Arabic: Warka, Akkadian: Uruk, Genesis' Erech in the plain of Shinar) which according to archaeologists was a much larger and more important city.
In 1963 Professors Graves and Patai identified Adam and Eve as later recasts of Enkidu and Shamhat of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and my research agrees with their proposal (cf. pp. 78-79 & 81. Robert Graves & Raphael Patai. Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis. New York. Doubleday & Company. 1963, 1964. Reprinted 1983 by Greenwich House). Enkidu (Adam) and Shamhat (Eve) leave the watering-hole in edin-the-steppe (recast in Genesis as the "garden in Eden") and come to dwell in the city of Uruk, Sumerian Unug. So, it just might well be that Genesis' city of Enoch is an echo of Unug! The land of Nod is described as "east" of the garden of Eden and Unug is "east-northeast" of the watering-hole (said watering-hole being about where the letter "b" is in Obeid on the below map. Please click here and scroll down for a more detailed map of the wateringhole)
Please click here for how Enkidu of the watering-hole in edin-the-steppe was recast as Adam.
Below, a map showing the location of Nippur and Eridu in the 3rd-2nd millenniums B.C. where, according to ancient Mesopotamian myths man was created to work in the city-gardens of the Sumerian gods Enlil and Enki to relieve the Igigi gods of toil. Note the dotted line showing the shore of Persian Gulf near Eridu and Ur (cf. p. 33. "Map of Mesopotamia." Lloyd R. Bailey. Noah, the Person and the Story in History and Tradition. Columbia, South Carolina. University of South Carolina Press. 1989). In reality, this map errs! The Persian Gulf's shore was _not_ near Ur and Eridu in the land of Sumer. The shoreline was in reality where it has always been, south of Basra!
The fine dots or stipples on the below map represent steppeland. The Sumerian word for uncultivated steppeland is edin and it is in the edin that man wanders in fear of his life by edin's carnivores and tent-dwelling brigands and cut-throats, outcasts of the city-dwellers (cf. p. 52. Map titled: "Natural or Climax Vegetation of the Eastern Mediterranean Region." Charles Keith Maisels. The Emergence of Civilization From hunting and gathering to agriculture, cities, and the state in the Near East. London & New York. Routledge. 1990, 1993, 1999). From a Mesopotamian perspective, the edin is a land possessing wanderers and murderers, which would equate in their eyes the land of Nod with an edin extending from Eridu in Lower Mesopotamia to Haran in Upper Mesopotamia. There is, however, a "problem." Genesis apparently _disagrees_ with this concept. Nod has a boundary. It lies to the _east of_ Eden (the Garden of Eden). To find biblical Nod, one will first have to find the Garden of Eden using clues from the Bible. So the below map is what a Mesopotamian would have understood the land of Nod to be, which _contradicts_ the biblical portrayal of Nod's western boundary.
Sumerian edin which means "uncultivated steppeland or plain" applies to the land of Mesopotamia, and in particular ancient Sumer. The god's city-gardens made before man was created and filled with fruit-trees were never called edin, they were in the midst of the edin or surrounded by the edin. In the edin wandered according to myths naked primal man, who fed on grass and who knew not it was wrong to be naked. He knew no fear from his herbivore companions the gazelles. His and the animal's "heart's delight" according to the Epic of Gilgamesh was the water of the watering-hole in the edin (the notion of primal man's hearts' DELIGHT being water being recast as the Hebrew word `eden meaning DELIGHT, Sumerian edin being morphed into Hebrew `eden). In the edin primal naked man (Enkidu being created of clay and having like Adam no mother or father) meets a naked woman, Shamhat the harlot-priestess from Uruk, who awaits his arrival in order to seduce him and separate him from his animal companions. She succeeds and convinces him to leave edin and dwell with her in Uruk. He learned from her in edin that it is wrong to be naked and both leave the edin with their nakedness clothed just as Adam learned in a place called Eden it was wrong to be naked _after_ his contact with another naked woman, Eve. Genesis' notion that man after being expelled from Eden eventually settles in a land of wanderers, called Nod and comes to live in a city called Enoch is a recast of Enkidu (Adam) and Shamhat (Eve) leaving edin to live at Sumerian Unug, Akkadian Uruk. The notion that it is the world's "first city" preserves Sumerian notions that Eridu was the first city, but Eridu has been fused with Unug to become Enoch. Unug or Uruk was in antiquity a much larger and more important city than Eridu.
Genesis' Garden _in_ Eden, its motifs, concepts and its characters have been identified as later _recasts_ of fictious personages and events appearing in earlier Mesopotamian myths, one of which was the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The Hebrews' intent in recasting the Mesopotamian myths was to deny, refute and challenge their portrayal of the relationship between Man and his Creator. The Mesopotamians saw man as a victim of uncaring capricious gods whereas the Hebrews portrayed their God as the victim of an evil-hearted and unappreciative mankind.
Apparently the honor for the 'earliest" association (1887) of Cain's city of Enoch and its land of Nod with Uruk goes to Professor Sayce (1846-1933) of Oxford University in England (Oxford Professor of Assyriology 1891-1919) who by 1887 had identified Cain's (his Kain) city of Enoch with Uruk, which had been earlier called in Sumerian (his Accadian) Unug (his Unu-ki or Unuk) and the city of Eridu preserving the names of Irad and Jerad, other descendants of Cain:
"Its earliest name was the Accadian Unu-ki or Unuk, "the place of the settlement," of which the collateral form Uruk does not seem to have come in vogue before the Semitic period. If I am right in identifying Unuk with the Enoch of Genesis, the city built by Kain in commemoration of his first-born son, Unuk must be regarded as having received its earliest culture from Eridu, since Enoch was the son of Jared, according to Gen. v. 18, and Jared or Irad (Gen. iv. 18) is the same word as Eridu."
(p. 185. "The Gods of Babylonia." Archibald Henry Sayce. The Hibbert Lectures of 1887, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, as illustrated by the religion of the Ancient Babylonians. London & Oxford. Williams & Norgate. 1897, fourth edition. Reprinted by Kessinger Publishers of Whitefish, Montana in paperback)
Other scholars like Professor Morris Jastrow Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania had by 1898 noted the parallels between Enkidu and Shamhat of the Epic of Gilgamesh and Adam and Eve and that motifs associated with Adapa of Eridu appeared to be identified with Adam.
I have noted that after leaving the watering hole in the edin Enkidu and Shamhat come to dwell at Uruk, the Sumerian Unug, Sayce's Enoch built by Cain. I understand that the Hebrews are recasting motifs and concepts from several different Mesopotamian myths into a new story. They deny the existence of the Mesopotamian gods and goddesses and their many city-gardens in the midst of the edin (every Mesopotamian city had its god's or goddess' garden that man tilled), there is only _one_ God and only _one_ god's garden in Eden and it is not a city-garden.
We are told that God's garden is watered by a single stream that rises in Eden and that this stream later subdivides into four rivers, the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris (Hebrew Hidekkel) and Euphrates. The land of Nod ("land of wanderers"?) lies _east of_ Eden. Where in Mesopotamia does a single stream become four?
Before we answer that question an important observation needs to be made: Genesis does not name the single stream which arose in Eden to water God's garden. Some commentators understand that _after_ leaving the garden this stream subdivides into four streams. Quite clearly God's garden is _not_ watered by either the Pishon, Gihon, Hidekkel (Tigris) or Euphrates _in denial of_ the Mesopotamian portrayal of the latter two streams being the source of water for the gods' city-gardens of Sumer in Lower Mesopotamia! That is to say the Hebrews are challening, refuting and denying the Mesopotamian understanding that the Euphrates and Tigris provide water for a God's garden!
According to Archaeologists in antiquity the Euphrates was one stream from Mari to Sippar. From the latter site it eventually subdivided into three streams as it crossed the great floodplain of Lower Meopotamia.
Some Archaeologists have noted on the basis of paleohydrological surveys by Geologists that in the course of the 6th through early 2nd millenniums B.C. the Tigris "apparently" _joined_ the Euphrates in the vicinity of Sippar. For me, this _joining_ of the Tigris to the Euphrates and its three streams became Genesis' river of Eden with four streams. By the 2nd millennium B.C. the Tigris began moving to the east and its present location while the Euphrates migrated to the west, separating from each other. Please click here for maps showing the joining of the Euphrates and Tigris near Sippar.
Thus the most likely location for Genesis' Garden _in_ Eden "fed by one river" that later became four streams would appear to be Mari. This would make the land of Nod "to the east" of the Garden in Eden (that is to say "to the east of" Mari). Uruk, Sumerian Unug (Sayce's Unuk) does _lie to the east_ of Mari. Thus the Garden of Eden, if at Mari, was in Upper Mesopotamia while the Land of Nod to its east was the great floodplain of Lower Mesopotamia, Unug/Unuk/Uruk being Cain's city of Enoch according to Professor Sayce (Eridu, which was the "first" city in Mesopotamian myths lies to the east of Uruk, and to the east of Mari and Sippar too). Please note that in the Mesopotamian myths man at first is a "wanderer" then the gods take him and have him build cities (cf. above, Jacobsens' Eridu Genesis myth). Thus the cities of Sumer were, according to Eridu Genesis myth, built by man the wanderer under a goddesses' direction. Genesis apparently has recast this as Cain the wanderer building a city in the land of Nod, "the land of wanderers," calling it Enoch. That is to say Sumer has been recast into the Land of Nod. Please note that Eridu _in_ Sumer is the "first city" and according to the Eridu Genesis myth it is built by man the wanderer of edin at the goddess Nintur's direction and given to the God Enki. However, Mesopotamian myths frequently contradict each other. Another myth has Enki dwelling at Eridu and being awakened by his mother and he asked to put down the rebellion of the Igigi gods. He decides to create man of the clay from the apsu fountain at Eridu to replace the rebelling Igigi as laborers. So in this myth Eridu was created by the gods _before_ man was created.
Please click here for a wall mural found at Mari showing winged fabulous beasts guarding two trees in a god's garden and dieties holding water pots with four streams erupting from them, perhaps an allusion to the Euphrates leaving Mari to eventually become the four streams of Lower Mesopotamia? At Mari archaeologists found names of people in the area possessing the theophoric _yawi_ understood to be Yahweh who revealed himself to Abraham at Haran in Upper Mesopotamia (Mari lies in Upper Mesopotamia). Please click here for and scroll down to the end of the article for further details on the _yawi_ names found at Mari in Upper Mesopotamia and at Kish in Lower Mesopotamia.
Highly reccomended is Scafi's recent book which covers most of the attempts to locate the Garden of Eden and the land of Nod on a map. He covers proposals from Medieval times to the 21st century. Some maps are in black and white others in full color. Do yourself a favor and buy this book: Alessandro Scafi. Mapping Paradise, A History of Heaven on Earth. Chicago & London. The University of Chicago Press and The British Library. 2006. (Please click here to purchase Scafi's book).
The land of Nod and its city of Enoch, built by Cain is understood to be a later Hebrew recast of much earlier Mesopotamian myths which are ultimately, probably Sumerian, recalling man as a wanderer creating cities for the gods to dwell in, within Sumer in Lower Mesopotamia as per Professor Jacobsens' (cf. above) "Eridu Genesis myth." That is to say Sumer has been transformed by the Hebrews into the Land of Nod, "the land of wanderers." In Sumerian myth the "first city" is Eridu in Sumer. In Hebrew myth the "first city" is Enoch in the Land of Nod. I agree with Sayce that Sumerian Unug/Unuk has been recast as Enoch, but Eridu as the "first city" is also fused and recast with Unug to become Enoch.
Paradoxically however, Sumer is also Eden, and its city-gardens have been recast as a God's Garden in Eden, Eden being derived from the Sumerian edin (the uncultivated steppeland or plain) surrounding Sumer's cities and their city-gardens. So the Sumerian edin is not only Eden it is also the "land of Nod" and in effect ancient Sumer!
My research into the pre-biblical origins of the Garden in Eden and the Land of Nod reveals that several _contradicting_ strands exist which have been fused together and recast by the Hebrews. Although Jacobsen's (above) "Eridu Genesis myth" portrays man the wanderer creating cities for the gods to dwell in, other _contradicting_ myths have the cities of Sumer being created and occupied by the gods alone _before_ man's creation!
If _my_ above suppositions here are correct then truly it can be said that "Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction!"
I am not the first toplace the land of Nod in Lower Mesopotamia. As noted above, Professor Sayce in 1887 identified the city of Enoch with Sumerian Unug, thereby suggesting that the land of Nod was in this area.
Genesis has the world's first city being created by Cain in the land of Nod and this notion that a _man_ is the creator of the world's first city is bolstered or supported somewhat by the Eridu Genesis myth which portrays the goddess Nintur directing man the wanderer to build the world's first city, Eridu, in Sumer, for the god Enki.
Professor Jastrow of the University of Pennsylvania had by 1914 realized that many of Genesis' motifs were ultimately related to and derived from Lower Mesopotamia and Babylonia but obviously modified and transformed. The big question for him was by what processes did the Hebrews come to differ from the Babylonians in their religious beliefs?
Jastrow:
"The problem involved in a comparison between the Hebrew civilisation and the Euphratean culture, as we may briefly designate the Babylonian-Assyrian civilization...is to determine the point of separation between the two that lead to such totally different issues. Why is it -we may properly ask- that with agreement in regard to many traditions, with religious ideas and practices that at one time bore a close resemblance to one another, with a general view of life, of divine government, of the fate of man after death, of practical ethics at the outset not sharply differentiated from one another, the courses taken by Hebrew and Babylonian traditions were so dissimilar. For it is to the different courses taken by this common stock of traditional ideas and practices that the contrast no less striking than the points or resemblance that once existed between the two civilisations...Our comparative study will be directed chiefly towards an elucidation of the ultimate differences that arise between Hebrew and Babylonian points of view despite earlier and very noticeable points of agreement...Gradual growth involves survivals, that is to say, indications of older views and customs carried over into later periods. Evolution means not only transformations through historical processes, but a mixture of old and new. It will therefore be also part of my purpose to trace the process of growth in both Hebrew and Babylonian traditions and to show in how far older views were replaced, how far they survived, and how, combined with new thought, they gave rise to new religious practices."
(pp. 4-5. "Relations between Hebrews and Babylonians." Morris Jastrow, Jr. Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions, The Haskell Lectures delivered at Oberlin College in 1913. New York. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1914)
In answer to Jastrow's question my research suggests that it was Abraham who changed the Lower Mesopotamian concepts. He began life as a polytheist so he would have been intimately familiar with Mesopotamian myths and their motifs. Being an accursed nomadic tent-dwelling shepherd of the edin steppelands, he probably recast the city-dwellers myths via a series of brilliantly orchestrated inversions and reversals. Nomadic tent-dwelling shepherds were not cut-throats and thieves and cursed by God, the city-dwellers were the accursed. They dared to build a tower of Babel (ziggurat) _in their city_ and brought down upon themselves God's anger, he scattering them and changing their language into a babel of tongues. That is to say God's favor was with humble shepherds who dwelt in tents in the edin, not city-dwellers! When the Hebrew God finally agreed to dwell among men, it was in a tent, the Holy Tabernacle among humble tent-dwelling nomadic shepherds at Mount Sinai _not_ in a temple in the midst of a city as in Mesopotamian beliefs. So, I see Genesis' motifs as having been framed by nomadic tent-dwelling shepherds who recast the Lower Mesopotamian city-dweller's origins of man and the gods myths in such a way as to _repudiate, deny and challenge_ the notion that tent-dwellers are the accursed of God, it is the arrogant city-dwellers who are the accursed. The city-dweller's notions about why man was created and why his demise was later sought in a flood are also challenged and denied via a series of inversions and reversals. In essence, the nomadic tent-dwelling shepherds of the edin are challenging point-by-point many of the city-dweller's myths. The shepherds have the "correct" view of why man was made and his end sought in a flood, the city-dwellers have it all wrong!
Professor Crawford on the animosity between nomadic herders and settled urbanites or agriculturalists (Emphasis mine):
"However, in essence the population can be divided into those people in permanent settlements, who relied primarily on agriculture and stock rearing for their subsistence, and those who wandered between settlements with their herds of sheep and goats...conflicts arose between the groups, and THE URBAN DWELLERS TENDED TO DESPISE THE NOMADS AS UNCOUTH BARBARIANS."
(p. 12. "Pastoralists and farmers." Harriet Crawford. Sumer and the Sumerians. Cambridge, United Kingdom. Cambridge University Press. 1991, 2004)
Professor Frymer-Kensky on Israel's religion being indebted to Mesopotamian concepts, and its challenging via "counterpoints" some of its notions:
"Many Israelite ideas about justice, society, and even religion developed from and in counterpoint to Mesopotamian ideas."
(p. 83. Tikva Frymer-Kensky. In the Wake of the Goddesses, Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. Ballantine Books. 1993. First Edition by Freepress 1992)
I realize that the above may be confusing for the reader:
We are dealing with several issues which are entangled or snarled up in Mesopotamian vs. Hebrew concepts due to the Hebrews' recasting and refuting of the earlier Mesopotamian notions:
(1) The pre-biblical notions of the Mesopotamians regarding the founding of the world's first city and the possibility of its being founded by wanderers and shedders of human blood; (2) The biblical transformation, recasting, and reinterpretation of the earlier Mesopotamian motifs and notions regarding the origin of cities, the first city being founded by Cain, a wanderer and shedder of human blood.
The Mesopotamian myths _contradict_ themselves regarding the founding of the world's first city, Sumerian Eridug (Akkadian: Eridu). Some accounts have the Anunnaki god Enki (Ea) creating the city with the assistance of the Igigi gods. Another account, the so-called Eridu Genesis myth, has the goddess Nintur taking naked man from his wild animal companions and his aimless wandering of animal trails in the edin to build cities for the gods to dwell in. The first city man the wanderer creates is Eridu and it is presented to Enki (Ea).
Other myths reveal the Mesopotamians feared the inhabitants of the lawless edin which surrounded their cities. They regarded these inhabitants as murderers. So two Mesopotamian concepts appear to be fused together: (1) Cities are created by wanderers of the edin where dwell murderers and shedders of human blood; (2) The first city (Eridu) is founded by the Anunnaki god Enki (Ea), who as an Anunnaki was himself once upon a time a naked wanderer of the edin, eating plants with his mouth like a sheep _and_ he is responsible for the slaying of two gods, Apsu at Eridu and We-ila at Nippur.
So, the Mesopotamian notion of the first city being created by a wandering murderer appears to be what was recast into Cain the wandering murderer founding the first city.
The Bible suggests Nod is _east of_ Eden. Eden probably is referring to the Garden of Eden whose cherubbim are stationed at its eastern entrance to bar man's return. Here is where the problems begin.
For the Mesopotamians the land of the murdering wanderers is the edin, the uncultivated steppeland or plain and this stretches from Eridu to Haran, embracing both Upper and Lower Mesopotamia.
But Genesis _sets a boundary to Nod_, it is east of the Garden in Eden.
So, to find the Bible's land of Nod, we have to first pinpoint the most likely location for the Bible's Garden in Eden.
For some commentators the Bible suggests that an un-named river rises in Eden, waters God's garden, then later subdivides into four streams.
There is some confusion on how to interpret Genesis' statement regarding the "river of Eden" and its four streams, do the streams divide after leaving the garden or does the division of one river into four streams occur within the garden? What is mean by "THERE"? The land of Eden? or the garden of Eden?
Genesis 2:10, RSV
"A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and THERE it divided and became four rivers."
The Jewish scholar Yahuda (1934) thought the splitting of the four rivers occured _after_ leaving the garden of Eden:
"It must first be emphasized that in Genesis 2:10 there is no mention of four rivers flowing through paradise. Quite on the contrary, it is expressly stated that "a river went out of Eden to water the garden," which can only mean one river. The four rivers mentioned immediately afterwards actually have nothing to do with paradise itself. The whole passage (Genesis 2:10-14) does not refer to paradise, but to the relation of the four rivers to that one river of paradise. All that this passage meant to convey was that the one river of paradise gave origin to the four greatest world streams, thus representing paradise as the source of prosperity and fertility for the whole earth...As already stated, the text of the Paradise story does not say a single word which suggests that the four rivers were within the paradise "to water the garden." The Hebrew text of Genesis 2:10 does not mean that the division of the one river into four was effected within the area of paradise. What it means to convey is that those rivers came forth from that one river after it had left the garden."
(pp. 164-165; 168. "The Story of Paradise." Abraham S. Yahuda. The Accuracy of the Bible, the stories of Joseph, the Exodus and Genesis Confirmed and Illustrated by the Egyptian Monuments and Language. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1934)
The Jewish scholar Cassuto seems to agree with Yahuda (1944):
"...we are told that a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and thereafter it divided into four big rivers..."
(p. 77. Umberto Cassuto. A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Vol. 1. [From Adam to Noah]. Jerusalem. The Hebrew University. 1944-1968 in Hebrew; 1961-1989 in English. ISBN 965-223-480-X)
If the Hebrew Eden is recalling the Sumerian/Akkadian edin-the-steppe, the problem becomes finding a river in "edin-the-steppe" of Mesopotamia that becomes four rivers!
The Bible denies the Mesopotamian notion that there many gods and goddesses, it denies that there exist many city-gardens of the gods in the edin, there is only _one_ God, Yahweh-Elohim, and thus there is only _one_ God's garden in Eden not many gods' and goddesses' gardens in edin.
The Lower Mesopotamian myths understand that the Euphrates and Tigris rivers provide water for the gods' city-gardens via canals and irrigation ditches. Genesis denies this. The Tigris and Euphrates along with the Pishon and Gihon do _not_ water God's garden. They are subdivisions of the un-named stream that watered God's garden. That is to say _after_ the un-named river leaves God's garden (according to Yahuda), it subdivides into the Euphrates and Tigris.
We are told the Garden is watered by one stream that later becomes four streams. Where in Mesopotamia does one river subdivide into four? The answer: The Euphrates is single stream from Mari to the vicinity of Sippar. Upon reaching the latter location the great floodplain of Lower Mesopotamia is encountered and here the single river subdivides into three major streams who are joined by a fourth stream the Tigris, near Sippar. So edin's four streams have been identified.
The Garden in Eden _watered by one stream_ then, is probably Mari and the land of Nod, "east of Eden" (east of the Garden in Eden) becomes the great floodplain of Lower Mesopotamia.
But we have yet another "marker" from Genesis to pinpoint the land of Nod with greater precision, the city of Enoch founded by Cain. It is presented in Genesis as the world's _first city_ and in Mesopotamian myth the _first city_ is Eridu in the land of Sumer. So the "Land of Nod" is ancient Sumer, and it lies _east of_ Mari! The word Enoch appears to preserve Sumerian Unug (Uruk), a larger and more important city, economically speaking, than Eridu . These two sites may have been fused together to become the city of Enoch in the "Land of Nod." Alternately, Enoch might be a morphing of Enki who founded Eridug/Eridu.
Below, a map showing the kingdom of the Babylonian king Hammurabi (ca. 1792-1750 B.C.) in a light shade of purple. Some scholars have suggested that the king of Shinar, Amraphel (Ge 14:1,9), a contemporary of Abraham, is Hammurabi. This map shows the Euphrates from Mari (viwer's far left), my proposal for the location of the Garden in Eden, to Uruk and Eridu (viewer's far right), my proposals for Enoch in the "land of Nod" I note that this map shows the Euphrates as a single stream from Mari (destroyed by Hammurabi) to Sippar as a single stream. Near Sippar the Euphrates subdivides into four streams: (1) Sippar to Borsippa and Diblat; (2) Sippar to Agade and Diblat; (3) Sippar to Kutha, Adab and Larsa; (4) Sippar to Mashkan-Shapir. I have argued that Abraham of Ur of the Chaldees, originally a practicing polytheist and worshipper of edin's gods and goddesses abandoned polytheism and, transforming the Mesopotamian myths, recognized only one God as associated with the edin, Yahweh-Elohim of the Garden in Eden. If Amraphel is Hammurabi and a contemporary of Abraham then in Abraham's world one river did indeed subdivide into four streams in the edin/Eden (cf. p. 120. map titled "Hammurabi's Kingdom." Michael Roaf. Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Near East. Oxford, England. An Equinox Book. 1990. Reprinted by Facts on File, New York, 1990).
Please click here for a wall mural found at Mari in the days of Abraham and Hammurabi showing two trees guarded by fabulous winged beasts, perhaps the prototypes behind Genesis' Cherubim who guard the Garden in Eden. The Mari archives reveal individuals bearing the theophoric yawi as part of their names and mention is also made of Haran. Abraham later dwelt at Haran and the one God he came to know was called Yahweh. Please click here for the yawi names found at Mari in Upper Mesopotamia and at Kish in Lower Mesopotamia. Please click here for maps showing the Tigris joining the Euphrates near Sippar circa the 6th-2nd millenniums B.C.
The importance of the Euphrates to "Southern Mesopotamia" according to Saggs, Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages, University College, Cardiff, Wales (emphasis mine in bold print and CAPITALS):
"North and south Mesopotamia differ in climate and in natural resources. The north has stone and various minerals, and much of it enjoys rainfall normally sufficient to grow crops of corn [wheat]. Southern Mesopotamia, beginning at about Hit on the Euphrates and north of Baghdad on the Tigris, comprises the delta of the two rivers. Everywhere the soil is alluvial silt, stone is wholly lacking until well out into the western desert, and the rainfall, at less than 150 mm (6 inches) per year, is inadequate to support permanent vegetation cover. However, because of the rivers the region is not totally arid. The river friinges are well watered and productive, with belts of willow and poplar and dense thickets of tall grass, rushes and tamarisk and other undergrowth. Between Nasariyah on the Euphrates and Amara on the Tigris there is a vast region of marsh, with beds of giant reeds, and lakes full of fish and water birds. Wherever canals are cut from the rivers for irrigation, vegetation can be lush. But such luxuriance is the exception, and today the greater part of the region is, unless irrigated, desert except for a brief carpet of verdu from spring storms...The ruins of most of the earliest cities lie in regions which are now markedly arid, and one may wonder how civilization could begin in such adverse conditions. In fact it did not; EVERY CITY OF SOUTH MESOPOTAMIA ORIGINALLY LAY ON A MAJOR CHANNEL OR STREAM OF THE EUPHRATES, which has since shifted...Finds of Paleolithic stone tools in north Iraq proves the existence of humans there from about 100,000 B.C., and small camps or settlements from about 9000 B.C. show the early stages of change from total dependence on hunting and gathering, towards the domestication of animals and exploitation of cereal plants. We do not know when the first humans arrived in south Mesopotamia. Archaeology can trace farming settlements there only from the mid-sixth millennium, but it could have been the haunt of hunters, fishers and nomadic pastoralists many millennia earlier, without their leaving evidence traceable by present archaeological techniques.
Because of the behavior of the Euphrates over the preceding millennia, the first human comers would have found a region much more inviting and less arid than now. Besides several major channels of the Euphrates (THERE WERE STILL AT LEAST THREE IN THE THIRD MILENNIUM), there would have been many more minor streams and ditches, and swamps like the present southern marshlands. Such conditions produced more vegetation than now, so that the region was not only highly favourable for hunting, fishing and cattle rearing, but also offered easy possibilities for any settlers who broght with them a tradition of growing grain crops; they had only to sow their grain on the dry levees of former river-banks, and it would produce crops with minimal further attention until harvest. As population increase called for bigger harvests, the settlers could easily increase the area of cornland [wheat-land] by digging ditches to drain strips of wet land, and using those ditches -primitive canals- to bring water to further strips of land which were otherwise too dry. These were the small beginnings, but they began the process which over the millennia gave the world such great ancient cities, known from the Bible, as Uruk (Erech of Genesis 10:10), Ur of the Chaldees and Babylon." (pp. 8-9. "The Rediscovery of Babylonia." H. W. F. Saggs. Peoples of the Past: Babylonians. Berkeley, California. University of California Press. 2000 [The Trustees of the British Museum, London]. ISBN 0-520-20222-8)
Saggs' description of Southern Mesopotamia as being pretty much an arid region with the exception of the water from the Euphrates, recalls to my mind Genesis' description of the earth as arid and without water until God provided a river to water his garden. Saggs also noted that ancient cities of this region received their water for their gardens of the gods principally from one source, a river, the Euphrates. In Genesis it is a river that waters God's garden. In the temple of Solomon at Jerusalem the walls were decorated with Cherubim and Palm Trees (1 Kings 6:32, 35; 7:36), I note that Date Palm plantations or orchards line the banks of the Euphrates and its streams or channels throughout this region. Date Palms also appear on a wall mural at ancient Mari on the Euphrates guarded by fabulous winged beasts. Archaeologists have found the remnants of the canals and irrigation ditches about Mari which made these Date Palm plantations possible.
Also of interest is Saggs' comment about the Euphrates possessing THREE channels or streams in the third millennium BCE (However his map, cf. below, shows FOUR channels or stream beds). Factoring this in with Roaf's, Pollock's and Leick's observation that in the 4th milllennium BCE the Euphrates split from the Tigris, we have four streams crossing the floodplain in antiquity. Are these the four edenic streams recalled in Genesis? When the Tigris is factored in with the Euphrates' three channels (due to the latter's discharge into the former) we have the four rivers of Eden (edin).
Below, Professor Saggs' map shows that _all_ of the cities of ancient Akkad and Sumer with the exception of Larak drew their water from ONE RIVER, the Euphrates and its channels. To the degree that Genesis understands ONE RIVER waters God's garden in Eden, and some Mesopotamian myths state that the gods made man to tend and till their gardens which they had planted next to their cities (built before man's creation), AND Sagg's observation that ALL the cities of Southern Mesopotamia derived their water from ONE RIVER, the Euphrates, I see the below FOUR channels or streams (dotted lines) as recalling the Edenic river dividing into four streams (Note: He shows the "modern-day course" of the Euphrates and Tigris in solid lines). The four ancient river beds of the Euphrates' channels on the below map: Stream 1: Sippar, Agade, Babylon, Borsippa, Dilbat, Isin; Stream 2: Agade, Kish, Nippur; Stream 3: Kutha, Tell Abu Salabikh, Adab; Stream 4: Kutha, Tello/Girsu, Lagash, Surghul/Nina (For the map cf. p. 181. H. W. F. Saggs. Peoples of the Past: Babylonians. Berkeley, California. University of California Press. 2000 [The Trustees of the British Museum, London]. ISBN 0-520-20222-8)
Although Saggs' map shows the Euphrates subdividing into four streams or channels he has noted that as many as
_six channels_ (perhaps even more?) existed in ancient times:
"In southern Mesopotamia...most settlements were associated with the Euphrates. The Euphrates had at least six major channels, some of them further subdivided, and some flowing into lakes or disappearing into marshes..."
(p. 37. "City-States and Kingdoms." H.W.F. Saggs. Civilization Before Greece and Rome. New Haven & London. Yale University Press. 1989)
Below, the Euphrates near Sippar subdividing into four streams (violet lines) circa 3200-2400 B.C. (p. 80. Map titled: "Distribution of Pottery Styles in the 3rd Millennium." Michael Roaf. Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Near East. Oxford, England. An Equinox Book. 1990. Reprinted by Facts on File, New York, 1990).
Below, a close-up of the above map, I note that this map shows the Euphrates as a single stream from Mari (destroyed by Hammurabi) to Sippar as a single stream. Near Sippar the Euphrates subdivides into four streams: (1) Sippar to Borsippa and Diblat; (2) Sippar to Agade and Diblat; (3) Sippar to Kutha, Adab and Larsa; (4) Sippar to Mashkan-Shapir.
I understand that the Garden in Eden and its Land of Nod are later Hebrew recastings of earlier Mesopotamian notions about the edin being a place of danger for man, a land possessing wandering tent-dwelling nomads some of whom are characterized as being murderers.
Mesopotamian myths reveal that the first city was Eridu in Lower Mesopotamia and it was built according to one myth by the God Enki with the help of the Igigi gods. Another account, the Eridu Genesis myth, contradicts this story and has man the wanderer being taken from the edin by the goddess Nintur to build Eridu which is then presented to Enki. Enki as an Anunnaki god is portrayed in one myth as being once upon a time a naked wanderer of edin, eating plants with his mouth like a sheep and in another myth he is responsible for "the shedding of blood" of his fellow-gods, Apsu at Eridu and We-ila at Nippur. So, like man, he is a wanderer and a shedder of blood; either way, the world's first city, be it Enoch or Eridu, is founded by a wanderer and shedder of blood, be it a man or a god.
I have argued that these concepts were recast by the Hebrews into Cain the wanderer and shedder of blood building the world's first city, Enoch, named in honor of his son. Enoch could refer to the Sumerian city of Unug (Uruk) as proposed in 1887 by Professor Sayce, or Eridu. If it is Eridu, then perhaps the founder of Eridu, Enki has been morphed into Enoch? Enki's Sumerian epithet, Nudimmud ("creator") might have been morphed into Nod, which is associated with the world's first city. The Bible denies that there are gods and goddesses, there is only one God, Yahweh-Elohim. The Bible denies that cities were built by the gods for them to dwell in before man was created. According to the Bible man created cities not gods and the first city was built by Cain in the Land of Nod and named Enoch after his son who apparently also dwelt in this location. The Mesopotamian myths have the first city being built either by or for Enki. In the latter case the goddess Nintur directs man to build Eridug _for_ Enki, while in the Bible it is another man, Cain who builds the first city for Enoch to dwell in. Because the Bible denies the existence of other gods in recasting the Mesopotamian myths about the world's first city being built for the god Enki, the Bible made this god into a "man": Enoch. That is to say, if there are no other gods but Yahweh, it simply will not do to have the world's first city occupied by a god called Enoch, it has to be occupied by a _man_ called Enoch. If Enoch's name is a morphing of Enki's then Eridug/Eridu probably is what lies behind Genesis' first city Enoch and accordingly the Land of Nod is in effect the great floodplain of Lower Mesopotamia that Eridug/Eridu lies in, a region once called Sumer. So Sumer is the land of Nod.
The un-named river which arose in Eden and watered Yahweh's garden and later split into four streams has been identified as the Euphrates from Mari to Sippar. Near Sippar this stream becomes four streams as noted on the above map
