Genesis' "Tree of Life" is a Date Palm?
20 May 2009
Below, a drawing of an Assyrian "Sacred Tree," a highly stylized Date-Palm (?) with a stylized border of vines (?) about it from the Assyrian palace at Nimroud (ancient Calah of the Bible). Perhaps this is a possible prototype behind Genesis' "Tree of Life" in the Garden of Eden? Palmtrees decorated the Temple of Solomon's walls in association with Cherubim (1 Kings 6:32 and Ezekiel 41:18-20). Eden's Tree of Life was guarded by Cherubim too (Genesis 3:22-24).
Date-Palms are an important food source in Oasis villages; perhaps this is why it became the "Tree of Life."? (For the below drawing cf. p. 44. Austen Henry Layard. A Popular Account of the Discoveries at Nineveh. London. John Murray. 1852)
Gertrude Bell in a letter to her father (12 June 1916) mentions the lush gardens near the Euphrates and in particular Date Palms "wreated" in grape vines, heavy with grapes. I note that the below Neo-Assyrian highly stylized Palm Tree is surrounded by an intricate and stylized series of interlocking vines.
Could this art form be recalling the fact that in Lower Mesopotamia the practice in antiquity was "to wreate" Date Palms with vines bearing grapes? (Emphasis is mine):
"We went first to Suq al Shuyukh, which lies on a southern channel of the Euphrates, and spent 24 hours there. There is a very charming political oficer, Mr Edwards, whom I had already met in Basrah - quite young but as clever as he can be - and a very interesting head man of the town with whom I had two long talks, learning much of town and desert. Suq, like every other place at this time of year, is hemmed in by waters, but the gardensS along the river are protected by low bunds and their fertility is incredible. Date, orange, nectarine, fig, and pomengranate shoulder each other; the vines, now heavily grape-laden, wreate from palm to palm, and the ground beneath is covered with melons, gourds, cucumbers and tomatoes. You must see to believe. It was so lovely - and also so amusing - that I left with immense regret, but I knew I ought to get back to my work at Basrah. We came very quickly into the Hammar Lake - the water has run down a good deal since I passed up and the world is beginning to reappear in places."
Wright (1882) on date palms being wreathed in grapevines according to a 5th century A.D. eyewitness account:
"Though Herodotus did not know of vinevards, Zosimus, writing in the fifth century of our era, notices (as mentioned by Delitzsch) that in that country, even where no buildings are seen, palm-tree woods extend in every direction, the trees being encircled by vines whose hanging clusters covered their crowns."
(p. 567. Charles H. H. Wright. "The Site of Paradise, an ancient problem solved by modern scholarship." in James Knowles, editor. The Nineteenth Century, A Monthly Review. Volume XII. July-December 1882. London. Kegan Paul, Trench and Company) Note: Wright cites extensively from Professor Franz Delitzsch's Wo Lag das Paradise? Leipzig, 1881, which attempted to identify Genesis' Garden of Eden with a location in Lower Mesopotamia.
Please click here for a map showing Delitzch's proposal for location of the Garden of Eden.
My own research suggests that the Garden of Eden is a myth based on a reworking of earlier Mesopotamian myths and combines motifs associated with several different locations. The principal location however is ancient Eridu in the land of Sumer. Here, a man called Adapa is allowed to obtain godly forbidden knowledge but denied immortality. His god, Ea, warns him in Eridu, "not to eat or he will die," the food to be offered him in heaven by the god Anu. For me, Eridu has become the Garden of Eden where a similar warning was given to Adam; Adapa has become Adam, Ea becomes Yahweh-Elohim who gave Adam the warning "do not eat or you will die," and Anu who offered Adapa the "forbidden food of death" becomes Eden's Serpent. Please click here for the story and satellite photos of Eridu and vicinity.
