Map of Genesis' Eden in which God planted His Garden
05 November 2006
Updates and Revisions through 05 June 2008
Please click here for this website's most important article: Why the Bible Cannot be the Word of God.
For Christians visiting this website _my most important article_ is:
The Reception of God's Holy Spirit:
Please click here for my Map of the Land of Nod and its city called Enoch built by Cain
Please click here for the article which this map accompanies: "Eden's Four Rivers."
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Although numerous scholars since 1898 have suggested motifs associated with Enkidu and Shamhat have been apparently recast and assimilated to Adam and Eve, I am _unaware_ of anyone _other than myself_ making the association of Eden with the eden/edin logogram used at times _in lieu_ of the Akkadian word seru or tseru appearing in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the naked Enkidu and Shamhat engage in sex and then later clothe themselves before leaving eden/edin to dwell at Uruk. Please note that in the professional literature the Sumerian edin is also rendered as eden.
If someone in the professionally published literature (Journals, Manuscripts, Monographs, or Books) has already remarked on the appearance of the Sumerian logogram eden/edin in the Epic of Gilgamesh _being what is behind_ Eden's appearance in Genesis I would appreciate hearing from you dear reader "to set the record straight" and "give credit where credit is due." Please provide the author's name, publication, date of publication, place of publication and I will be pleased to post this information on this website.
I understand that Genesis' notion of a naked man and woman encountering each other in a garden _in_ Eden is a recast of motifs, concepts, and scenarios originally associated with Enkidu and Shamhat in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Apparently not widely known to many is that the steppe, plain or wild that they meet each other in at a watering hole is _not_ always rendered by the Akkadian word seru, seri, tseru, zeru, ce:ri, ce:ru. Sometimes _in lieu_ of this word a Sumerian logogram is being used, which transliterates into English as either edin or eden depending on the professional scholar's choice of spelling. That is to say the Akkadian scribe is _not_ consistent in always writing out seri (the "uncultivated land" abutting the gods' city-gardens in Sumer), sometimes he reverts to using a Sumerian logogram edin instead of writing out seri (seru). Why? Because the Sumerian logogram edin is a single sign, thus it becomes in effect, a "short-hand way" of writing seri/seru. My thanks to Professor Andrew George for pointing out to me that "steppe" or "wilderness" or "wild" wandered by Enkidu is rendered sometimes as tse-ri, other times by the Sumerian logogram edin in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
I am in agreement with Professors Jastrow (1898), Graves, and Patai (1963) that events associated with Enkidu and Shamhat appear to have been recast and assimilated to Adam and Eve. What these scholars "missed" was that the Sumerian logogram eden/edin sometimes used _in lieu_ of tseru or seru in the Epic of Gilgamesh may preserve the Hebrew `eden (English rendered Eden). Some scholars have suggested that as edin/eden is superficially similar in spelling and sound, that Hebrew `eden meaning "delight" or "place well-watered," came via a _homonym or homophone confusion_ to be a recast of the desolate semi-arid edin/eden. This homonym or homophone confusion strikes me as being very plausible.
A fragment from the Epic of Gilgamesh has been found on a clay tablet at Late Bronze Age Megiddo, so the story was known to the Canaanites who had scribes trained in writing cuneiform. Of interest here are clay tablets from the Egyptian appointed mayor of Jerusalem called Abdu Heba found in the archives of Pharaoh Akhenaten in Egypt warning him all of Canaan has fallen to the Habiru and only Jerusalem is holding out and to send aid before the city falls. We are told that the Jebusites lived in Jerusalem and that Israel intermarried with them. Perhaps it is via Jebusite scribes trained in cuneiform that the Epic of Gilgamesh came to be later recast as Adam and Eve in Eden by the Israelite descendants of the Iron Age I and II intermarriages with cuneiform-literate Jebusites? Did Abdu Heba come to have his name morphed by the Habiru into Jebus or Jebusites?
Please click here and scroll down for examples of the Sumerian logogram edin/eden being used _in_lieu_of_ Akkadain seru or tseru in the Epic of Gilgamesh as transliterated by Professor Andrew George of London, England. Andrew George is a Professor of Babylonian at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, England. He is the author of: The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts. Oxford University Press. Published 2003. 1176 pages with drawings and photos.
Stories or poems about Gilgamesh composed in Sumerian exist from circa 2100 B.C. The Sumerian logogram edin/eden used in lieu of Akkadian seru exists in various Akkadian (Babylonian) recensions of the Epic of Gilgamesh from circa 1700 B.C. to Neo-Babylonian recensions of circa 630-539 B.C.
In 1881 Professor Friedrich Delitzsch shocked the scholarly world of biblical studies by announcing that Genesis' Eden was derived from the Sumerian word edin. This word in Sumerian has two meanings (1) "back," as in a person's back; (2) by analogy: "uncultivated wilderness land" because this land was seen as "backing" or "abutting" the cultivated land surrounding Sumerian cities (that is to say the edin was the equivalent of the Australian "Outback" or "Wilderness," or "the Wild," meaning the plains surrounding the Sumerian cities and their cultivated gardens or fields. Every Sumerian city had its god and a god's garden, which grew an assortment of crops intended to provide food for the god as well as man: dates from date palms, figs from fig trees, apples from apple trees, vegetables like onions, herbs, grain and barley for making bread and beer. The god's gardens were then, in the midst of the edin, "the wilderness." Scholars sometimes _substitute_ the Sumerian word edin with English nouns such as "plain," "desert," or "wilderness." In the scholarly literature edin is also rendered eden, so both spellings are accepted by professionals writing on the subject.
I highly reccomend the following recently released book which is very scholarly and profusely illustrated with a wonderous array of maps in black and white as well as color attempting to locate Paradise on the earth from Early Medieval times to as late as 2002 (Scafi is a lecturer at the University of Bologna, Italy and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London):
Alessandro Scafi. Mapping Paradise, A History of Heaven on Earth. The University of Chicago Press & The British Library, London. 2006. ISBN 0-226-73559-1 Hardbound. 398 pages. Please click here to purchase the book.
The second-place "runner-up" to Scafi's magnificent tome, is for me another fine scholarly work (but with much fewer maps, all are black and white, no color) which traces various ideas about Paradise and its location from Early Medieval times to the 19th century A.D.:
Jean Delumeau. History of Paradise, The Garden of Eden in Myth and Tradition. New York. The Continuum Publishing Company. 1995. translated from the French edition: Une Historie du Parais: Le Jardin des delices. Librarie Artheme Fayard. 1992. Hardbound. 276 pages. Please click here to purchase the book.
For over 100 years some scholars have argued that Genesis' Eden (Hebrew: `eden) is derived from the Sumerian word edin rendered variously as a steppe, plain, desert or wilderness. Please note that older scholarship's edin has in more recent times been also rendered eden (please scroll down for Halloran's rendering of edin as eden). Other scholars have protested this identification claiming that Hebrew 'eden means "delight" or a place "well-watered," and refers to a lush oasis full of fruit-trees _not_ a semiarid desert plain or steppe. My understanding? Both are right! How can this be?
Some of the themes or motifs found in the Book of Genesis regarding the Garden of Eden are to be found in the Mesopotamian myths regarding primeval man, but in a somewhat different format (The 'different format' being a series of "reversals" or "inversions" as noted by Professor Campbell).
The late Professor Campbell in 1964 noted that the Mesopotamian myths understood man was created to till the fields of the gods which he equates with Adam being created to care for God's garden:
"...one of the chief characteristics of Levantine mythology here represented is that of man created to be God's slave or servant. In a late Sumerian myth retold in Oriental Mythology it is declared that men were created to relieve the gods of the onerous task of tilling their fields. Men were to do that work for them and provide them with food through sacrifice. Marduk, too, created man to serve the gods. And here we have man created to keep a garden." (p. 103. "Gods and Heroes of the Levant. Joseph Campbell. The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. New York. Arkana. Viking Penguin. 1964, reprinted 1991)
Campbell also very astutely and penetratingly noted that the Hebrews in the book of Genesis appear to have employed at times "inversions" or "reversals" which "turn about" Mesopotamian beliefs by 180 degrees (emphasis mine):
"No one familiar with the mythologies of the primitive, ancient, and Oriental worlds can turn to the Bible without recognizing COUNTERPARTS on every page, TRANSFORMED, however, TO RENDER AN ARGUMENT CONTRARY TO THE OLDER FAITHS. (p. 9. "The Serpent's Bride." Joseph Campbell. The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. Arkana. New York. Viking Penguin Books. 1964, 1991 reprint)
"The ultimate source of the biblical Eden, therefore, CANNOT have been A MYTHOLOGY OF THE DESERT -that is to say, a primitive Hebrew myth- but was the old PLANTING MYTHOLOGY of the peoples of the soil. HOWEVER, IN THE BIBLICAL RETELLING, ITS WHOLE ARGUMENT HAS BEEN TURNED, SO TO SAY, ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DEGREES...One milllennium later, the patriarchal DESERT NOMADS arrived, and all judgements WERE REVERSED in heaven, as on earth." (pp.103, 105-106. "Gods and Heroes of the Levant." Joseph Campbell. The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. Arkana. A Division of Penguin Books. 1964. 1991 reprint)
Campbell on the Hebrews "inverting" of earlier myths (Emphasis mine):
"The first point that emerges from this contrast, and will be demonstrated further in numerous mythic scenes to come, is that in the context of the patriarchy of the Iron Age Hebrews of the first millennium B.C., THE MYTHOLOGY ADOPTED FROM THE EARLIER NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CIVILIZATIONS of the lands they occupied and for a time ruled BECAME INVERTED, TO RENDER AN ARGUMENT JUST THE OPPOSITE TO THAT OF ITS ORIGIN." (p. 17. "The Serpent's Bride." Joseph Campbell. The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. New York. Arkana & Viking Penguin. 1964. Reprinted 1991)
Genesis portrays Adam as NAKED, placed in a God's garden, his companions at first are wild animals, he is a vegetarian and his animal companions are herbivores thus offering no harm to him, then a naked woman is presented and he forsakes his animals for womankind's companionship in a place called Eden.
In the Mesopotamian myths naked man (Enkidu of the Epic of Gilgamesh) and his herbivore companions (gazelles) roam a wilderness called in Sumerian edin. In this edin, at a watering hole, he meets a naked woman (Shamhat) and she supplants his animal friends as a more suitable companion. Both are naked and have sex, then before leaving edin's watering hole they clothe themselves, just as a naked Adam and Eve are clothed before leaving eden's garden. The Mesopotamian myths also have man being made for the express purpose of caring for the gods' city-gardens located in edin the plain, just as God placed Adam in his garden in Eden to care for it. How did edin, a semiarid desert plain become Hebrew `eden a lush well-watered oasis or God's garden of fruit-trees?
I understand the Hebrews DELIBERATELY MISSPELLED EDIN/EDEN BY ADDING AN "AYIN" ( ` ) TO IT TRANSFORMING IT INTO `EDEN. Why? They apparently objected to the Mesopotamian notions about man's creation and the gods' exploitation of him. They offered a nobler image of man and God. Of note is another Hebrew misspelling: A Syrian city-state called Bit-Adini in Neo-Assyrian being rendered as Beth-Eden "House of Delight" (2 Kings 19:12). The Sumerian edin was a place of danger to naked primeval man. Yes, he was portrayed as a vegetarian (eating grass) and his companions were herbivore gazelles who posed no threat to him, but other accounts reveal carnivores roamed this edin: bears, lions, leopards, hyenas, wolves and poisonous snakes.
I understand the Hebrews, objecting to the gods' creating man and abandoning him to wander edin in fear of his life, changed the story line. God loved man and sought to fellowship with him, he put him in a garden full of herbs and fruits to eat instead of grass to feed on. In refuting, denying and challenging the Mesopotamian myths Genesis has _all_of the animals of Eden (edin), including the carnivores (like lions) eating "every green plant for food" (Ge 2:30) thus posing no danger to Adam. Genesis denies that God's garden is a city-garden surrounded by the uncultivated steppe called edin as in the Mesopotamian myths. Instead, cities are not made until _after_ the expulsion from the garden in Eden. The Mesopotamian myths have the cities made by the gods and equipped with city-gardens _before_ man's creation, all of which Genesis denies, having man make cities, not the gods.
Genesis portrays God creating a garden in a location called Eden. He creates man and places him in his garden to care for it. Man is told he may eat of the garden's seed-bearing herbs and fruits from trees (Ge 1:29; 2:9, 16). Some Catholic scholars date the creation of the Garden of Eden based on the Bible's internal chronology to circa 5199 B.C. or 4004 B.C. according to some Protestant scholars. This research on Eden's garden and its trees can be broken down into basically three phases historically speaking:
(1) As demonstrated by archaeology the earliest known "gardens" are associated with the Neolithic "New Stone Age" villages found in the foothills of the Taurus and Zagros mountain ranges which border Mesopotamia (Modern Turkey, Iraq, and Iran), which date from the 12 to the 5th millenniums B.C. Eventually man leaves the rain-fed foothills and begins to create villages with irrigated gardens in the northern reaches above Baghdad in the Mesopotamian plain, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers providing the water for his village-gardens. (2) Mesopotamian myths apparently concocted in the 3rd millennium B.C. most probably by city-dwellers in the southern Mesopotamian flood plain, claim the gods discovered for themselves how to domesticate plants and animals, created cities to live in and invented irrigated city-gardens; tiring of all this toil, they later create man to care for their city-gardens, harvesting the produce to feed the gods in the cities' temples. The first city and its city-garden created by the gods is Eridu in the southern Mesopotamian plain according to the myths. Archaeology reveals Eridu is no older than circa 5900 B.C. or 4900 B.C. These myths in effect _deny, refute, and challenge_ (1) the "archaeological reality" that the gods _did not_ create the world's first irrigated gardens, Neolithic man did, in the mountainous foothills, not the southern Mesopotamian flood plain (Ancient Sumer and Akkad). (3) The Hebrew Bible's book of Genesis _denies, refutes and challenges_ (1) and (2): God did not create a city for himself to live in nor did he create a city-garden to provide food for himself, nor did he create man to harvest and prepare the garden's produce in order to have man feed God. He made the Garden of Eden to provide food for man and situated it in the midst of a region called Eden instead of the Mesopotamian region known to the Sumerians as the Edin (the uncultivated flood plain or steppeland that the Tigris and Euphrates flow through). All this is to say that the southern Mesopotamian city-dwellers were wrong about the origins of the gods' irrigated city-gardens, and Genesis too is wrong in portraying like the southern Mesopotamian myths, a God creating a garden and then creating a man to work in it.
Wyse and Winkleman (1989) on the archaeologically attested evolution of irrigated gardens in Mesopotamia:
"During the 7th millennium farming villages, hitherto confided to the Zagros mountains, began to appear in the rain-fed north Mesopotamian plain. Within a few centuries the development of irrigation allowed settlement to spread into central Mesopotamia, ultimately reaching the rich alluvial lands of the south, where the first cities were to eventually emerge."
(p. 98. "Mesopotamia: Towards Civilisation." Elizabeth Wyse & Barry Winkleman, et. al. Past Worlds, Atlas of Archaeology. Ann Arbor, Michigan. Borders Press in association with HarperCollins. [1989] 1999)
Professor Saggs (1989) on the Garden of Eden being a folk explanation for the origins of agriculture:
"Yet there was a source to hand which, rightly read, could have given hints on the earliest stages of civilization. That source is the Bible. Within its earliest chapters are several references to man's very early cultural history. The story of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden is a case in point. Whatever religious interpretation one puts upon it, on the cultural level, it is a folk-memory of the beginnings of agriculture. With that stage, mankind no longer dwelt idyllically in parkland, feeding on wild fruits; man had begun toilsome tillage for the cultivation of cereals:
"Cursed is the ground for thy sake;
in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Thorns and thistles shall bring it forth to thee;...
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.(Genesis 3:17-18)."
(pp. 1-2. "Pushing back the Frontiers." H.W.F. Saggs. Civilization Before Greece and Rome. New Haven, Connecticut. Yale University Press. 1989)
According to Mesopotamian myths the gods created cities and city-gardens for their sustenance _before_ creating man. Because they tired of the grievous burdensome work in excavating and clearing irrigation canals to provide water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for the city-gardens the lesser gods called the Igigi rebel at two Sumerian cities Eridu and Nippur. This revolt over the grievous labor by the Igigi causes the senior gods or Anunnaki, Enki and Enlil, to create man and impose upon him the burdensome, back-breaking labor required to care for thier city-gardens, giving the Igigi everlasting freedom from toil. _Genesis denies, refutes and challenges this notion_. Toil in a god's garden is _not_ back-breaking and burdensome, it is only _after_ God expells man from his garden that agricultural toil becomes burdensome! The Hebrews have "inverted or reversed" the Mesopotamian storyline, that man's toil in a god's garden was, _from the very start_ back-breaking and burdensome! The Mesopotamian myths have no knowledge of the gods ever expelling man from their gardens because then they would have to care for their gardens themselves, an onerous task that they dreaded. The gods did _not_ create man as an "act of love" to have someone to commune and fellowship with as taught by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, they created man to be their agricultural slave in order to ruthlessly exploit him, having him toil in the hot sun caring for their gardens by making and clearing irrigation canals, planting seed, hoeing weeds, briars and brambles, harvesting the crops and preparing them for the table to feed the gods (the Anunnaki and Igigi) in their city-temples. Man's lot in life according to the Mesopotamian myths is to bear the burdensome, grievous, back-breaking agricultural toil of the Igigi for all eternity in the gods' city-gardens located in edin-the-steppe of Mesopotamia.
Professor George on the Igigi gods being likened to "_man_" and enduring grievous work, rebelling and man being made as their replacement to bear their _grievous_ work (Note: I understand that the Hebrews have taken this notion of the gods' hard work being likened to "man" and made a "man" (Adam) the gardener who rebelled and was removed from a God's garden):
"Another masterpiece of Babylonian literature known from late in the Old Babylonian period is the great poem of Atramhasis, 'When the gods were man', which recounts the history of mankind from the Creation to the Flood. It was this text's account of the Flood that the poet of Gilgamesh used as a source for his own version of the Deluge myth. It also provided a striking model for the story of Noah's Flood in the Bible."
(p. xx. "Introduction." Andrew George. The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian. London. Penguin Books. 1999, 2003)
"We know from many ancient Mesopotamian sources, in Sumerian and in Akkadian, that the Babylonians believed the purpose of the human race to be the service of the gods. Before mankind's creation, the myth tells us, the cities of lower Mesopotamia were inhabited by the gods alone and they had to feed and clothe themselves by their own efforts. Under the supervison of Enlil, the lord of the earth, the lesser deities grew and harvested the gods' food, tilled the soil and, most exhaustively, dug the rivers and waterways that irrigated the fields. Even the Tigris and Euphrates were their work. Eventually the labour became too much for them and they mutinied. The resourceful god Ea (called Enki in the poem of Atramhasis) devised first the technology to produce a substitute worker from raw clay and then the means by which this new being could reproduce itself. The first humans were duly born from the whomb of the Mother Goddess and alloted their destiny, 'to carry the yoke, the task imposed by Enlil, to bear the soil-basket of the gods'."
(p. xxxvii. "Introduction." Andrew George. The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian. London. Penguin Books. 1999, 2003)
Professor Sayce (1912) understood that Eden was the Babylonian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and the "garden of Eden" was watered by these rivers and was principally a plantation of fruit trees:
"The Babylonian plain was called the Land of Eden by its inhabitants -Eden signifying a plain in the primitive language of Babylonia. It was in this plain that the garden was situated. It was not a garden in our sense of the term. The word signified what we would now call a plantation mainly of fruit trees...It was thus the annual flood of the Babylonian rivers which irrigated Paradise."
(p. 145. Professor Sayce, John Jackson, L. W. King, F. R. Maunseh & William Willcocks. "The Garden of Eden and its Restoration: Discussion." The Geographical Journal. Vol. 40. No. 2 (August 1912). pp. 145-148)
Genesis 2:8,10 TANAKH
"The LORD God planted a garden _IN_ Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom He had formed."
A river issues _FROM_ EDEN to water the garden, and it then divides and becomes four branches."
(TANAKH, The Holy Scriptures. Philadelphia & New York. The Jewish Publication Society. 1958. Year of the Creation: 5748)
Professor Kitchen (2003) made an important observation regarding Eden and its garden, that Eden is a region in which lies God's garden, and that it is more correct to say a "garden _in_ Eden" rather than a "garden _of_ Eden":
"Then, in 2:38, we enter the ever intriquing "Garden of Eden." Very strictly, it is not "the garden of Eden" at all, but "a garden in Eden." It has to be grasped very clearly that the garden was simply a limited area within a larger area "Eden," and two are not identical, or of equal area. A realization of this simple but much neglected fact opens the way to a proper understanding of the geography of Eden and its environment. Thus, out of "greater Eden," a river flowed into the garden (2:10), "to water the garden"; and at that point ("there" in Hebrew, sham) it was divided into four "heads."
(p. 428. "In Eden." K. A. Kitchen. On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan & Cambridge, United Kingdom. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2003)
Maisels on the Sumerian term edin meaning "uncultivated steppe" a place where shepherds often grazed their herds (emphasis mine):
"The wool and meat requirements were met by continuous movements from the periphery of Mesopotamia to the temple centres, funnelled largely through Drehem (Cavot 1969:103-13) to supplement the state herds kept on both the alluvial fallow and upon the surrounding non-cultivable (edin) steppelands (Adams 1981:148). Steppe, stubble, and riparian verdure were, however, systematically linked in the ecology of pastoral nomadism, tribally organized. To the plains 'steppe nomads came in the spring, mountain nomads in the autumn' (Rowton 1980:294)."
(p. 186. "The Institutions of Urbanism." 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)
The Mesopotamians NEVER called their city-gardens created originally by the gods for their own sustenance _before_ man's creation, edin. The cities and their gardens LAY IN THE EDIN, or WERE SURROUNDED BY THE EDIN, or WERE IN THE MIDST OF THE EDIN, THE 'UNCULTIVATED' STEPPE. The Sumerians distinguised two types of steppeland, highlands called an-edin and lowlands called ki-edin.
Below, a map (after Van Zeist 1969:37) showing the "steppeland" through which the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flow. The steppe is rendered in fine stippling or tiny dots extending from near the Persian Gulf (on the viewer's right) to northern Syria (viewer's left) to Beersheba in the Negev and the north shore of the Gulf of Aqabah. Maisels and other scholars render 'uncultivated' steppe as Sumerian edin (edin being later replaced by the Babylonian/Akkadian term seru), from whence some scholars have suggested the biblical Eden derives its name in Genesis. So the below map and its stipples reveals what Edin/Edinu (Eden?) looks like. It is a very large area and Israel's patriarchs are described in the Bible as wandering this area as shepherds in the migrations from Ur, south of Babylon, to Haran, Damascus, Transjordan, Beersheba and the Negev. That is to say Israel's patriarchs were shepherds of edin-the-steppe. (cf. p. 52. map titled "Natural or Climax Vegetation of the Eastern Mediterranean." 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)
According to the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel God's Garden of Eden lies atop a "mountain" (Ez 31:1-9), _not_ in the midst of a semi-arid plain called in Sumerian the edin. What's going on here?
Archaeology has revealed that the "earliest" irrigated gardens began in the Neolithic Age or "New Stone Age" in the mountains surrounding the Mesopotamian plain. In the cities of Mesopotamia were found tall temple-structures or "towers" called Ziggurats, meaning "to be high" and understood by some scholars to be "artifical mountains," perhaps recalling for the plain-dwellers that their gods were originally worshipped in the mountains where appear the regions' earliest villages and irrigated gardens. It is my understanding that Ezekiel's notion of a God's Garden of Eden being atop a mountain is an "echo" of this archaeologically attested fact. Ezekiel also speaks of the Garden's Cedar Trees, which for me is an "echo" of the Cedar forest atop a Lebanese mountain in the Epic of Gilgamesh guarded by Huwawa, who, for me, was recast as Ezekiel's Cherub driven out by God from the mountain garden ( Ez 28:11-16). I understand Enkidu is one of several characters behind Adam and like Adam he had access to forbidden trees, not to eat of them but to cut them down for wood. The Hebrews have recast the story, please click here for my article on the pre-biblical origins of the Cherubim who guarded the Garden of Eden's Tree of Life.
According to the Epic of Gilgamesh the Hunter took Shamhat the priestess-harlot from Uruk on a three days' journey into the wilderness to a watering hole to await the arrival of Enkidu and his companions the gazelles to slake their thirst. An average day's hike is roughly 15 to 25 miles a day, so the watering hole should be some 45 to 75 miles from Uruk, in the steppe. The below map shows several "seasonal" waterholes in the high plain (Sumerian an edin) south of Erech (Sumerian Unug, Akkadian Uruk, Arabic Warka), any which of, could have been envisoned by the ancient Mesopotamian author as the watering hole that Enkidu's confrontation with the Hunter and Shahat occurred at. In other words, I understand that one of these watering holes was later morphed into Genesis' Garden in Eden.
Professor Blenkinsopp of Notre Dame University (1992) on motifs and concepts drawn from the Atrahasis Flood myth and the Epic of Gilgamesh by Genesis' author:
"...just as Genesis 1-11 as a whole corresponds to the structure of the Atrahasis myth, so the garden of Eden story has incorporated many of the themes of the great Gilgamesh poem." (pp. 65-6. "Human Origins, Genesis 1:1-11:26." Joseph Blenkinsopp. The Pentateuch, An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible. New York. Doubleday. 1992. ISBN 0-385-41207-X)
I understand that Enkidu and Shamhat have been recast by the Hebrews into Adam and Eve _in agreement with_ Professors Graves and Patai (cf. pp. 78-79, 81. "The Fall of Man." Robert Graves & Raphael Patai. Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis. New York. Greenwich House. 1963, 1964, reprint of 1983) and the watering hole they encountered each other at has been transformed into Genesis' Garden _in_ Eden. What "baffled" me for the longest time was, how did the encounter of Enkidu (Adam) and Shamhat (Eve) at a watering hole in the Akkadian seru ("steppe") come to be morphed later by the Hebrews into the Hebrew word `eden?
Graves and Patai on Adam and Eve as recasts of Enkidu and Shamhat the harlot-priestess (noting also that Adapa of Eridu is being fused to Enkidu and recast as Adam):
"Some elements of the Fall of Man myth in Genesis are of great antiquity; but the composition is late...The Epic of Gilgamesh, the earliest version of which can be dated about 2000 B.C., describes how the Sumerian love-goddess Aruru created from clay a noble savage named Enkidu, who grazed with gazelles, slaked his thirst beside wild cattle...until a priestess sent to him by Gilgamesh initiated him into the mysteries of love...he was now shunned by the wild creatures; and the priestess therefore covered his nakedness, using part of her own garment, and brought him to the city of Uruk...Another source of the Genesis Fall of Man is the Akkadian myth of Adapa...The fervent love between Enkidu and the priestess, though omitted from the Genesis story, has been preserved by a Talmudic scholiast who makes Adam wish for death rather than be parted from Eve."
(pp. 78, 79 & 81. "The Fall of Man." Robert Graves & Raphael Patai. Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis. New York. Greenwich House. 1963, 1964, reprint 1983)
The Sumerian word for uncultivated steppeland is edin. The Epic of Gilgamesh although written in Akkadian which renders "steppe" as seru or seri, states unequivocally that Shamhat saw Enkidu at the watering hole as a wild man of "edin" (the steppe). How is it that the watering hole is described as being in _the edin_ instead of being in _the seru_? Akkadian scribes were trained in both Sumerian and Akkadian, they frequently used Sumerian LOGOGRAMS (cuneiform signs) as "substitutes" for Akkadian words. Hence Enkidu "the wild man of the steppe" was written using the Sumerian logogram (EDIN)! The scribe knew upon seeing this logogram that it was synonymous with the Akkadian word seru or seri, meaning steppe.
Professor Speiser on Enkidu's arrival at the watering hole in the steppe (steppe in Sumerian being edin, Akkadian
seru), where wait Shamhat the harlot-priestess of Uruk and the Hunter (Note: the below bold print is transcribed by Heidel, which follows, into Akkadian):
"The creeping creatures came, their heart DELIGHTING in water.
But as for him, Enkidu, born in the hills-
With the gazelles he feeds on grass,
With the wild beasts he drinks at the watering-place,
With the creeping creatures his heart DELIGHTS in water-
The lass beheld him, the savage-man,
The barbarous fellow from the depths of the steppe:
"There he is, O lass, FREE THY BREASTS,
Bare thy bosom that he may possess thy ripeness!
Be not bashful! Welcome his ardor!
As soon as he sees thee, he will draw near to thee.
Lay aside thy cloth that he may rest upon thee.
Treat him, the savage, to a woman's task! Reject him will his wild beasts that grew up on his steppe,
As his love is drawn unto thee."
The lass FREED HER BREASTS, bared her bosom,
And he possessed her ripeness.
She was not bashful as she welcomed his ardor..."
(p. 44. E. A. Speiser. "The Epic of Gilgamesh." James B. Pritchard. Editor. The Ancient Near East, An Anthology of Texts and Pictures. Princeton, New Jersey. Princeton University Press. 1958. paperback)
Heidel on Enkidu's heart "delighting" with the water of the watering hole in edin the steppe, Hebrew 'eden means "delight." Please note that Enkidu in the below verse is described in 1946 as a savage man from the depths of the steppe and that Heidel in his 1949 article on Sadu rendered "steppe" as Akkadian seru and Sumerian edin (emphasis mine):
"The animals came to the water, and their hearts were glad.
And as as for him, (for) Enkidu, whose birthplace is the open
country,
(Who) eats grass with the gazelles,
Drinks with the game at the drinking-place,
(Whose) heart DELIGHTS with the animals at the water,
Him, the wild(?) man, the prostitute saw,
The savage man from the depths of the steppe."
(p. 21. "The Epic of Gilgamesh." Alexander Heidel. The Epic of Gilgamesh and Old Testament Parallels. Chicago & London. University of Chicago Press. 1946, 1949, reprint of 1993)
Heidel reproduces the above words (which I have rendered above in bold print) from Spieser's translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh ("he" is in reference to Enkidu):
"...while on Tablet I. 4:7, he is called
itlu (GURUS) sag-ga-sa-a sa-qa-bal-ti seri (EDIN):
"The savage man from the midst of the seru."
(cf. p. 233. Alexander Heidel. "A Special Usage of the Akkadian Term Sadu." pp. 233-235. The Journal of Near Eastern Studies. Vol. 8. No. 3. July 1949)
My thanks to Robert M. Whiting, PhD. of Helsinki, Finland, a professional Assyriologist (Managing Editor of the world-renown Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, The Assyrian State Archives Series) for explaining to me that Heidel's 1949 transcription reveals that the scribe actually wrote the word "steppe" using the Sumerian LOGOGRAM (EDIN), and that modern scholars "read" (EDIN) as a substitution for seru. Heidel's transcription also reveals that the Akkadian word itlu was actually written as (GURUS) another Sumerian LOGOGRAM. Whiting explained that the use of Sumerian logograms is quite common in Akkadian compositions.
Whiting's explanation solved the mystery for me of how _seru_ the "steppe" came to become Hebrew `eden, I realized that the Hebrews had apparently morphed the Sumerian logogram (EDIN), used in lieu of seru in the Epic of Gilgamesh, into 'eden! Hebrew `eden means DELIGHT, and we are told when Enkidu appeared at the watering hole in EDIN, his heart's DELIGHT was its water. So, I understand the Hebrews took this notion of a primal naked man's DELIGHT over water and morphed EDIN's watering hole into Hebrew `eden, a place of DELIGHT (The Mystery solved at long last, after some 3000 years!). In other words, the story of Enkidu and Gilgamesh began as Sumerian tales, and the steppe Enkidu wandered, in Sumerian was rendered edin, and the Sumerian logogram edin appearing in the Akkadian written Epic of Gilgamesh is perhaps a vestige of the archaic Sumerian rendering which came to "read" as seru. Another example of Hebrew "morphing" of foreign words is the city-state appearing in Neo-Assyrian annals as Bit Adini, in the Hebrew Bible it is "morphed" into Beth-Eden ("House of Delight"), while Babylon or Akkadian Babel meaning the "gate of god" (bab= gate, il=god) was "morphed" into balal meaning "confusion." The Chaldeans, Neo-Assyrian Kaldu, were "morphed" into the Kasdim. Neo-Assyrian Urartu was morphed into Ararat by the Hebrews.
Eden from Strongs' Concordance Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary (James Strong. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. Waco, Texas. Word Books. 1977):
5727
'adan, aw-dan'; a primitive root; to be soft or pleasant; fig. and reflex. to live voluptuously: delight self.
5729
`eden, eh'den; from 5727; pleasure: Eden, a place in Mesopotamia: -Eden.
5730
'eden. ay'den: or (fem.) 'ednah; from 5727; pleasure: delicate, delight, pleasure.
5731
'Eden, ay'den; the same as 5730 (masc.): Eden, the region of Adam's home: - Eden.
Special Update 13 November 2007 on the appearance of the word EDIN in the Epic of Gilgamesh:
Yesterday (12 November 2007) as I was musing to myself over Heidel's 1949 transcription of Akkadian seru, seri being rendered by the Sumerian logogram (EDIN), I wondered to myself _just how many times_ does edin, (EDIN), EDIN, appear in this composition?
That is to say was Heidel's transcription the _one and only occurrence_ of this word in the Epic of Gilgamesh?
I sent an e-mail to Professor Andrew George who had recently authored one of the most comprehensive studies of the Epic of Gilgamesh in its various recensions and posed this question to him. He very graciously replied within 24 hours that EDIN appears _innumerable_ times throughout the 12 clay tablets that make up the Epic of Gilgamesh and he referred me to his own research posted on the internet.
This research is divided into the 12 tablets of the Epic and consists of English transliterations of the Akkadian words appearing in the Gilgamesh texts by verse and line numbers. Professor George provides several recensions for any given verse revealing the variations. To read this research one will need to first download a version of Adobe Acrobat reader for reading PDF files
Using the "Find" key from the Adobe Acrobat Reader I plugged in the word edin and I came up with some 74 "hits" for EDIN for the 12 tablets which contain the Epic of Gilgamesh (these 74 "hits" include the various recensions). The Sumerian logogram EDIN appears in various forms (with various suffixes)such as: EDIN-ki, EDIN-su, EDIN-ia, and EDIN-ka.
My thanks to Professor George for directing me to his published research on the internet.
Please click here to access Professor George's English transliteration of the Akkadian words and their appearance in various recensions of the Epic of Gilgamesh, showing the Sumerian logogram EDIN.
EDIN ("read" as Akkadian seru, seri, tseri) apparently has two meanings. Firstly, it means "back" or "upper side," and secondly, by analogy, the uncultivated steppe land that abuts the cultivated and watered lands was envisioned as "the back," (the backland or hinterlands, the wilderness, or the wilds where roamed wild animals: antelope, onagers, lions, and shepherds with goats and sheep).
Professor George alerted me that in his English translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, he rendered EDIN as "the wild" (cf. Andrew George. The Epic of Gilgamesh. London. Penguin Books. 1999, 2000, 2003).
I have gone through my copy of the aforementioned book and noted "the wild" appears some 74 times! Enkidu is described as born in "the wild," being like a panther of "the wild," and being like an ass of "the wild," while Gilgamesh is described as wandering "the wild" mourning Enkidu's death, slaying and eating the beasts of "the wild" (wild bulls, bears, hyenas, panthers, cheetahs, jackals. wild asses, onagers). Siduri the barmaid and later Uta-napishtim (of Dilmun) asks him why he wanders "the wild" seeking immortality. Gilgamesh wandering about _in_ "the wild" or EDIN after Enkidu's death seeks immortality and Genesis has Adam _in_ an Eden failing to attain immortality and facing death like Gilgamesh and Enkidu. That is to say, Genesis' Eden is associated with the themes of life and death, immortality and mortality; the EDIN wandered by Enkidu and Gilgamesh is _also_ associated with the same motifs or themes.
I have Reginald Campbell Thompson's Epic of Gilgamesh, Text, Transliteration and Notes (Oxford University Press. 1930) and should alert my readers that he does _not_ render steppe with the Sumerian logogram edin (EDIN), instead he renders steppe as seri. In other words you will _not_ find the word EDIN "anywhere" in Thompson's English transliteration of this epic.
If you "want to see" the Sumerian logogram _EDIN_ in the Epic of Gilgamesh you will have to access Professor George's on-line transliteration mentioned above!
Andrew George is a Professor of Babylonian at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, England. He is the author of: The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts. Oxford University Press. Published 2003. 1176 pages with drawings and photos.
Please click here for a Cylinder Seal from ancient Ebla in Syria showing _what I believe_ is a half-naked Shamhat whose BARED BREASTS in the Epic of Gilgamesh (cf. the above verses) enticed Enkidu to have sex with her, and a naked Enkidu tearing up the Hunter's rope snares set for edin's wild animals. According to the storyline Enkidu was too powerful a savage for the Hunter to confront; Gilgamesh tells him he can "entrap" the savage with the naked Harlot-Priestess of Uruk, his animals companions will forsake him after he has had sex with her. Thus will "end" Enkidu's efforts to tear apart the Hunter's traps set for edin's wild animals.
Naked Enkidu's encounter with a naked woman in the Sumerian edin or "steppe" was never completely lost when Akkadian came to replace Sumerian as a literary language. Enkidu's association with the seru/seri in the form of a Sumerian logogram (EDIN) kept alive the connection down through the centuries.
Vanstiphout's below article is of interest here in that it reveals that two Sumerian logograms are being used by the Akkadian scribe to render the Akkadian belet seri, "lady of the desert/steppe" (line 20) as Gasan.Edin (gasan = lady, edin = desert/steppe = "the lady of edin"):
"20. ...beletseri (GASAN.EDIN) mi-lik-kunu lis-pu-uh..."
(p. 52. H. L. J. Vanstiphout. "A Note on the Series "Travel in the Desert." (Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Jan. 1977), pp. 52-56)
Halloran on Sumerian logograms, note that he renders Sumerian edin alternately as eden:
"A logogram is a reading of a cuneiform sign which represents a word in the spoken language. Sumerian scribes invented the practice of writing in cuneiform on clay tablets sometime around 3400 B.C. in the Uruk/Warka region of southern Iraq. The language that they spoke, Sumerian, is known to us through a large body of texts and through bilingual cuneiform dictionaries of Sumerian and Akkadian, the language of their Semitic successors, to which Sumerian is not related. These bilingual dictionaries date from the Old Babylonian period (1800-1600 B.C.), by which time Sumerian had ceased to be spoken, except by the scribes. The earliest and most important words in Sumerian had their own cuneiform sign, whose origins were pictographic, making an initial repertoire of about a thousand signs of logograms." (John A. Halloran. Sumerian Lexicon. Version 3.0) http://www.sumerian.org/sumerian.pdf
Halloran on Sumerian logogram edin or eden:
edin, eden: noun: steppe, plain; grazing land between the two long rivers.
an-edin: high plain (high + steppe)
bar-edin-na: edge of the desert (side + steppe + genitival a (k) )
Ottoson (1986) renders other scholars' Sumerian edin as eden, arguing it probably has no relationship to the Hebrew `eden:
"The etymology of the word `eden is usually connected with the Akkadian edinu, "steppe", and the expression gan be `eden will then stand for "the garden on the steppe". The term Eden is used as a geographical designation but is also associated with the Hebrew noun for "enjoyment". There are strong reasons to believe Eden has nothing to do with the Sumerian eden and the rare Akkadian edinu. Several instances of the root `dn are found in the Old Testament and it always has the meaning of "abundance, plenty and lushness". This sense of the root has mostly been understood as transferred or figurative..."
(p. 177. Magnus Ottoson [Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden], "Eden and the Land of Promise." pp. 177-188, in John Adney Emerton, Editor, Congress Volume 40. Papers read at the Congress of the International Organization for the study of the Old Testament held August 24-29, 1986 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Published by Brill in the Netherlands. 1988)
I understand that Enkidu's animal companions, the gazelles, who rejected his companionship after his having mated with Shamhat for six days and seven nights, became in the Hebrew recasting Adam possessing only animal companions who were _not_ a fit helpmeet or companion until God introduced a naked Eve to him. That is to say the Hunter who brought Shamhat to the watering hole, having her disrobe and enticing Enkidu with her voluptuous naked body, has been recast as Yahweh-Elohim who brought a naked Eve to Adam. Why was Genesis' Adam drawn from Enkidu? Adam is presented as "primal man," he has NO father or mother, he is a CREATED being. Enkidu is a type of "primal man" like Adam, he too has NO father or mother, he was CREATED like Adam by a deity, the goddess Aruru making him of a pinch of clay which she then cast upon edin the steppe to roam with wild animals for companions. Enkidu is "created" and placed _in the edin_ to roam naked with wild animals for companions and Adam is "created" and placed _in Eden_ to roam naked with wild animals.That is to say a GODDESS created naked primal man NOT a god, the Hebrews have reversed/inverted the myth! For further details please click here.
Nancy K. Sandars on Enkidu's curse of the Harlot-priestess and the Hunter who brought her to entrap him, comparing Enkidu to Christianty's notion of the "Fall" of Adam, but in "reverse":
"...Enkidu, the 'natural man', reared with wild animals, and as swift as a gazelle. In time Enkidu was seduced by a harlot from the city, and with the loss of innocence an irrevocable step was taken towards taming the wild man. The animals now rejected him, and he was led on by stages learning to wear clothes, eat human food, herd sheep, and make war on the wolf and the lion, until at length he reached the great civilized city of Uruk. He does not look back again to his old free life until he lies on his death bed, when a pang of regret catches hold of him and he curses all the educators. This is the 'Fall' in reverse, a felix culpa shorn of tragic development; but it is also an allegory of the stages by which mankind reaches civilization, going from savagery to pastoralism and at last to the life of the city."
(p. 30. "Introduction." N. K. Sandars. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England. Penguin Books. 1960, reprint of 1969)
Besides Shamhat there is a second protagonist behind Eve, Inanna the patron-goddess of Shamhat at Uruk. Inanna is the goddess of whores and prostitutes and hymns at ancient Nippur (Sumerian Nibru) reveal she bore the Sumerian epithet nin edin "the lady of edin" and Inanna edin "Inanna of edin." In one account this "lady of edin" descends to the earth with her brother Utu the sun-god _to eat of various trees inorder to acquire sexual knowledge_ to perform her "conjugal duites" with her new husband, Dumuzi, who lived in the edin as a shepherd who bore the Sumerian title mulu edin "the lord of edin." After Adam and Eve eat of a tree's fruit, Adam later "KNOWS" Eve (has "sex" with her), just as Inanna "the lady of edin" has sex with her husband Dumuzi after eating of a tree. Please click here for more details.
A "second" protagonist lies behind Adam, Adapa of Eridu. This location lies just east of Ur of the Chaldees where lived Abraham, Terah and Nahor. In agreement with Graves and Patai (1963) I understand that a number of motifs, concepts and events originally associated with Adapa and Enkidu have been fused together and associated with Adam. Adapa was warned by his god Ea (Enki) _in_ Eridu_ not to consume the "bread and water of death" to be offered him by Anu in heaven. Adapa OBEYED his lying god and thus forfeited a chance to obtain immortality for himself and mankind. I understand the Hebrews have recast these motifs having a man (Adam) DISOBEY his God's warning not to eat and thus losing a chance to obtain immortality for himself and mankind. The below map shows Uruk (Erech), Ur, and Eridu (Abu Shahrayn). Please click here for further details.
According to some Mesopotamian myths Enki made man of clay at Eridu to work in his city-garden, replacing the Igigi gods who objected to the working conditions, they having to build and clear irrigation canals and ditches for the city-gardens as well as plant seed, hoe weeds, harvest crops and present the produce to Enki in his Temple. Please click here for the details.
Quite clearly the Mesopotamians understood man had been created at Eridu (Sumerian Eridug) and at Nippur (Sumerian Nibru) to work in a god's city-garden (Enki of Eridu and Enlil of Nippur), relieving the Igigi gods of this onerous labor. Genesis does not portray God's garden as being associated with a city, it lies by itself in a wilderness called Eden.
Professor Frymer-Kensky on the gods creating man to grow their food for them:
"The gods themselves, says the Akkadian-language Atrahasis Epic, had once worked to grow their own food. Tiring of this, they created human beings who could do the work for them."
(p. 245. Note 26. 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)
The watering hole in edin the steppe where a naked Enkidu was separated from his animal companions by a naked Shamhat is _not_ presented in Mesopotamian myths as a god's garden. Shamhat calls the watering hole a "place of desolation" and urges Enkidu to accompany her back to Uruk, leaving his animal companions of edin. We are told however that when Enkidu and the gazelles arrived at the watering hole that the water was their "heart's DELIGHT." I understand that this motif of a naked man and his animal companions DELIGHTING in the water of the watering hole of edin was morphed by the Hebrews into the Hebrew word 'eden, meaning "DELIGHT" according to some scholars while others prefer it to mean "a place well-watered."
Professor Foster (Yale University) on Shamhat, a city-dweller, characterizing the edin's watering hole as A PLACE OF DESOLATION (Emphasis mine):
"You are handsome, Enkidu, you are become like a god,
Why roam the steppe with wild beasts?
Come, let me lead you to ramparted Uruk...
The place of Gilgamesh...
COME AWAY FROM THIS DESOLATION, BEREFT EVEN OF SHEPHERDS."
(p. 13. "Tablet II." Benjamin R. Foster. The Epic of Gilgamesh. New York & London. W. W. Norton & Company. 2001. [A Norton Critical Edition])
I understand that the Hebrews' ancestors as "shepherds and tent-dwellers of edin the steppe" (Abraham wanders edin the steppe with sheep, goats and cattle from Ur to Haran, Damascus and Canaan) took the creation of man myths concocted by Mesopotamia's city-dwellers and recast them in order to refute, deny and challenge them. Why? The City-dwellers portrayed the edin steppelands as a place of desolation, fit only for wild animals, and tent-dwelling thieves, brigands and cut-throats. They despised and feared the nomadic tent-dwellers and regarded them as a threat to their way of life. In defense of their way of life (grazing their flocks in the edin steppelands) the Hebrews probably recast the city-dwellers' myths, having a place of desolation (Enkidu's watering hole) become a God's lush garden _in_ the edin, and having the world's first murderer, Cain, founding the first city thereby mocking city life as depraved, cities being full of murderers and thieves. God's heart's delight was not a city-garden it was the remote edin where roamed the wild animals and naked man (Enkidu).
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."
