Eden

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

Garden of, the residence of our first parents in their state of purity and blessedness. The word Eden in the Hebrew denotes "pleasure" or "delight:" whence the name has been given to several places which, from their situation, were pleasant or delightful. Thus the Prophet   Amos 1:5 , speaks of an Eden in Syria, which is generally considered to have been in the valley of Damascus, where a town called Eden is mentioned by Pliny and Ptolemy, and where the tomb of Abel is pretended to be shown. This has in consequence been selected by some as the site of the garden of Eden. By others, the garden has been placed on the eastern side of mount Libanus; and by others again, in Arabia Felix, where traces of the word Eden are found. But the opinion which has been most generally received on this subject is that which places the garden on the Lower Euphrates; between the junction of that river with the Tigris and the gulf of Persia. This is Dr. Well's opinion; in which he is supported by Huetius, Grotius, Marinus, and Bochart. To this it is replied, that, according to this scheme, the garden was intersected by a great branch of the Euphrates, in the lower and broadest part of its course; which will give it an extent absolutely irreconcilable with the idea of Adam's "dressing" it by his own manual labour, or even of overlooking it: beside that all communication would be cut off between its different parts by a stream half a mile in width. Its local features, too, if in this situation, must have been of the most uninteresting kind; the whole of that region, as far as the sight can reach, being a dead, monotonous, sandy, or marshy flat, without a single undulation to relieve the eye, or give any of the beauties which the imagination involuntarily paints to itself as attendant on a spot finished by the hand of God as the residence of his creatures in a state of innocence; whose minds may be supposed to be tuned to the full enjoyment of the grand and beautiful in nature. How different will be the aspect and arrangement of this favoured spot, if it be placed where only, according to the words of Moses, it can be placed; namely, at the heads or fountains of the rivers described, instead of their mouths.

The country of Eden, therefore, according to others, was some where in Media, Armenia, or the north of Mesopotamia; all mountainous tracts, and affording, instead of the sickening plains of Babylonia, some of the grandest, as well as the richest scenery in the world. A river or stream rising in some part of this country, entered the garden; where it was parted into four others, in all probability, by first falling into a basin or lake, from which the other streams issued at different points, taking different directions, and growing into mighty rivers; although at their sources in the garden, they would be like all other rivers, mere brooks, and forming no barrier to a free communication between the parts of the garden. Dr. Wells, in order to support his hypothesis of the situation of Eden on the lower parts of the Euphrates and Tigris, after giving these rivers a distribution which has now no existence, makes the Pison and Gihon to be parts of the Tigris and Euphrates themselves: an arrangement at perfect disagreement with the particular description of Moses; beside, that the Gihon thus called, instead of compassing the whole land of Cush, can only be said to skirt an extreme corner of it. It appears, indeed, that in the time of Alexander, the Euphrates pursued a separate course to the sea; or, at least, that a navigable branch of it was carried in that direction: in the mouth of which, at Diridotis, Nearchus anchored with his fleet. But what reliance can be placed on the ever shifting channels of a river flowing through an alluvial soil, and over a perfect level divertible at the pleasure of the people inhabiting its banks? Or, what theory can be founded on their distribution, which will not be as unstable as the streams them selves? This very channel, so essential to the hypothesis which places Eden in this situation, was annihilated by the Orcheni, a neighbouring people; who directed the stream to water their own land, and thus gave it a shorter course into the Tigris, which it has ever since preserved. But it is only the lower parts of the Euphrates and Tigris, as they creep through the plains of Babylonia, which are thus inconstant: higher up in their courses, they flow over more solid strata, and in deeper valleys, unchanged by time. It is here that their conformity with the Mosaic account is to be sought; and it is here that they may be found, in the exact condition in which they were left by the deluge, and, indeed, according to Moses, in which they existed before that event. It is true, that the heads of the four rivers, above described, cannot now be found sufficiently near, to recognize thence the exact situation of paradise; but they all arise from the same mountainous region; and the springs of the Euphrates and Tigris, as already mentioned, are even now nearly interwoven. Mr. Faber supposes the lake Arsissa to cover the site of Eden; and that the change which carried the heads of the rivers to a greater distance from it, was occasioned by the deluge. But it is far more probable that this change, if we may infer from the account given by Moses that the courses of all the streams remained unaltered by the flood, may have taken place at man's expulsion from the garden: when God might choose to obliterate this fair portion of his works, unfitted for any thing but the residence of innocence; and to blot at once from the face of the earth, like the guilty cities of the plain, both the site and the memorial of man's transgression,—an awful event, which would add tenfold horrors to the punishment.

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

("delight".) ("Paradise",) the Septuagint translation of "garden," a park and pleasure ground. From the Zendic Pairidaeza , a hedging round. In N.W. Mesopotamia an Eden is mentioned near the Tigris ( 2 Kings 19:12;  Isaiah 37:12;  Ezekiel 27:23). Another, in Coelosyria, near Damascus ( Amos 1:5). The primitive Eden was somewhere in the locality containing the conjoined Euphrates and the Tigris (or Hiddekel) which branch off northward into those two rivers, and southward branch into two channels again below Bassera, before failing into the sea, Gihon the E. channel, and Pison the W. Havilah, near the W. channel, would thus be N.E. Arabia; and Cush (or Ethiopia), near the E. channel, would be Kissia, Chuzestan, or Susiana. The united rivers are called the Shat-el-Arab. Eden, was but a temporary nursery for the human family: from there people, if they had remained innocent, would have spread out in every direction until the whole earth became "the garden of the Lord."

God's purpose, though deferred, will, in His own time, be realized by the Second Adam, the Lord Jesus from heaven. The rivers are named as they were after the flood, which must have altered the face of the ancient Eden. The four took their rise in it, as their center, which is not true of the present Tigris ("arrow") and Euphrates ("the good and fertile".) Armenia's highlands are the traditional cradle of the race; thence probably, from Eden as their source, flowed the two eastern rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, and the two western ones through the regions answering to Arabia and Egypt. Man was to dress and keep the garden, for without human culture, grain and other plants will degenerate. As nature was made for man, his calling was to ennoble it, and to make paradise, which though so lovely, was susceptible of development, a transparent mirror of the Creator's glory.

It was designed also as the scene of man's own spiritual development by its two trees, of life and of knowledge. Here also the "beasts of the field," i.e. that live on its produce (game and tame cattle, as distinguished from "beasts of the earth"), were brought to him to develop that intellect which constitutes his lordship and superiority to the brutes. His inner thought in observing their natures found expression in names appropriate. The Paradise regained can never be lost by those who overcome through the Lord Jesus ( Revelation 2:7;  Revelation 22:14). The traditions of almost all nations have preserved the truth, in some form, that there was an original abode of man's innocence; the Greek and Latin garden of the Hesperides; the Hindu golden Mount Meru; the Chinese enchanted gardens; the Medo-Persian Ormuzd's mountain Albordj (compare  Ezekiel 28:13;  Joel 2:3).

The Hindus' tradition tells of a "first age of the world when justice, in the form of a bull, kept herself firm on her four feet, virtue reigned, man free from disease saw all his wishes accomplished, and attained an age of 400 years." In the Teutonic Edda, Fab. 7, etc., corruption is represented as suddenly produced by strange women's blandishments who deprived men of their pristine integrity. In the Tibetan, Mongolian, and Singhalese traditions, a covetous temper works the sad change. The Babylonians, Egyptians, and Chinese had the tradition of man's life once reaching thousands of years. The Greeks and Romans made it from 800 to 1,000 years.

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

A province in Asia, in which was Paradise. "The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed,"  Genesis 2:8 . The topography of Eden is thus described: "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison," etc.

This obscure passage has received many different explanations and applications, none of which are fully satisfactory; and now it is impossible to say with certainty where Eden lay. Most writers have sought for it in some elevated and central region, the heights of which would give rise to various rivers flowing off in different directions through lower grounds to their outlets. Such a region exists in the high lands of Armenia, west of Mount Ararat and 5,000 feet above the sea. Here, within a circle but a few miles in diameter, four large rivers rise: the Euphrates, and Tigris, or Hiddekel, flowing south into the Persian Gulf; the Araxes, flowing northeast into the Caspian Sea; and the Phasis, or the Halys, flowing northwest into the Black Sea. This fourth river may have been the Pishon of Eden; and the Araxes may well be the Gihon, since both words mean the same, and describe its dart-like swiftness. This elevated country, still beautiful and fertile, may have been the land of Eden; and in its choicest portion, towards the east, the garden may once have smiled.

Another location of Eden is now preferred by many interpreters-near the spot where the Euphrates and Tigris from a junction after their long wanderings, a hundred and twenty miles north of the Persian gulf, and where the river Ulai flows in from the northeast. This region may have been greatly changed by the lapse of many thousand years, and may now bear little resemblance to the luxuriant and beautiful plain of primeval times. Yet long after the flood the plain of Shinar in the same region attracted the admiration of the sons of Cush,  Genesis 10:8-10;  11:2 . As two of the rivers of Eden bear the familiar names of the Euphrates and Tigris, it seems probable that it was in one or the other of the regions above named. Wherever it was, it is there no more since the fall and the curse. The first chapters of the Bible show Paradise withdrawn from man's view, and no pilgrimage can discover it upon earth. The last chapters of the Bible restore to our view a more glorious and enduring Paradise: "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life."

Holman Bible Dictionary

adan

“Eden” appears twenty times in the Old Testament but never in the New Testament. Two usage's refer to men ( 2 Chronicles 29:12;  2 Chronicles 31:15 ). Twice the name is used to designate a city or region in the Assyrian province of Thelassar ( Isaiah 37:12;  2 Kings 19:12 ).  Ezekiel 27:23 mentions a region named Eden located on the Euphrates.   Amos 1:5 refers to the ruler of Damascus as holding the scepter of the house of Eden.

The fourteen remaining appearances relate to the idyllic place of creation. In Genesis ( Genesis 2:8 ,Genesis 2:8, 2:10 ,Genesis 2:10, 2:15;  Genesis 3:23-24;  Genesis 4:16 ) the reference is to the region in which a garden was placed. Though details seem precise, identification of the rivers which flow from the river issuing forth from Eden cannot be accomplished with certainty. The Euphrates and the Tigris can be identified, but there is no agreement on the location of the Pishon and the Gihon.

 Joel 2:3 compares Judah's condition before its destruction with Eden. In   Isaiah 51:3 and   Ezekiel 36:35 , Eden is used as an illustration of the great prosperity God would bestow on Judah. These exilic prophets promised that the nation God restored after the Exile would be like Eden's garden. Ezekiel also refers to the trees of Eden ( Ezekiel 31:9 ,Ezekiel 31:9, 31:16 ,Ezekiel 31:16, 31:18 ) and calls Eden the garden of God ( Ezekiel 28:13 ). See Paradise .

Robert Anderson Street

Smith's Bible Dictionary

E'den. (Pleasure).

1. The first residence of man, called in the Septuagint (LXX) Paradise . The latter is a word of Persian origin, and describes An Extensive Tract Of Pleasure Land, Somewhat Like An English Park; and the use of it suggests a wider view of man's first abode than a garden. The description of Eden is found in  Genesis 2:8-14.

In the eastern portion of the region of Eden was the garden planted. The Hiddekel, one of its rivers, is the modern Tigris; the Euphrates is the same as the modern Euphrates. With regard to the Pison and Gihon, a great variety of opinion exists, but the best authorities are divided between

(1) Eden as in northeast Arabia, at the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris, and their separation again, making the four rivers of the different channels of these two, or

(2), and most probably, Eden as situated in Armenia, near the origin of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and in which same region, rise the Araxes (Pison of Genesis) and the Oxus (Gihon of Genesis).

2. One of the marts which supplied the luxury of Tyre with richly-embroidered stuffs. In  2 Kings 19:12 and  Isaiah 37:12, "the sons of Eden" are mentioned with Gozan, Haran and Rezeph as victims of the Assyrian greed of conquest. Probability seems to point to the northwest of Mesopotamia as the locality of Eden.

3. Beth-Eden , "House Of Pleasure"; probably the name of a country residence, of the kings of Damascus.  Amos 1:5.

4. A Gershonite Levite, son of Joah, in the days of Hezekiah.  2 Chronicles 29:12. (B.C. 727).

5. Also a Levite, probably identical with the preceding, Eden, 4 .  2 Chronicles 31:15.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

The garden of Eden (that is 'delights'), in which dwelt Adam and Eve for the short time before they sinned. In it God made to grow every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food: in it also was the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Genesis 2:8-15 . A fruitful place is described as being like the garden of Eden.  Isaiah 51:3;  Ezekiel 36:35;  Joel 2:3 . The fall of Pharaoh, under the figure of an exalted tree, is said to comfort the trees of Eden, which is called the 'garden of God,' etc.  Isaiah 51:3;  Ezekiel 28:13;  Ezekiel 31:9,16,18 . The trees of Eden having been planted by God, they are in this last passage used as a symbol for the various nations placed by God in the earth, Israel being the centre.  Deuteronomy 32:8 . Adam was put in the garden to dress and to keep it; but on his fall he was driven out and cherubim were placed to keep the way of the tree of life.  Genesis 3:23,24 .

A river ran out of Eden to water it, and then divided into four. Only two of these can be identified, the Euphrates, and the Hiddekel denoting the Tigris. There are no others to be found to make up the four, and all efforts to find out where the garden of Eden was situated have utterly failed. It belonged to the time of innocence, and as that has gone, the earthly paradise has long ceased to exist. See PARADISE.

People's Dictionary of the Bible

Eden ( Ç'Den ), Pleasantness. 1. The home of Adam and Eve before their fell.  Genesis 2:15. Its site has not been fixed. Two of its rivers are identified, the Euphrates, and the Hiddekel or Tigris; the others are disputed. Some say Gihon was the Kile and Pison the Indus. The best authorities agree that the "garden of Eden eastward" was somewhere in the highlands of Armenia, or in the valley of the Euphrates, but its precise location cannot be determined. The Bible begins with a beautiful picture of Eden, the paradise of innocence on earth, and closes with an equally beautiful picture of the more glorious paradise of the future, with its river of life and tree of life.  Revelation 22:2. 2. A region conquered by the Assyrians,  2 Kings 19:12;  Isaiah 37:12; probably in Mesopotamia, near modern Balis, and same as the Eden of  Ezekiel 27:23. 3. The house of Eden.  Amos 1:5. See Beth-eden.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

Son of Joah, and one of the Levites who assisted in reforming the public worship of the sanctuary in the time of Hezekiah ( 2 Chronicles 29:12 ).

Copyright Statement These dictionary topics are from M.G. Easton M.A., DD Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition, published by Thomas Nelson, 1897. Public Domain.

Bibliography Information Easton, Matthew George. Entry for 'Eden'. Easton's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ebd/e/eden.html. 1897.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

EDEN .   2 Chronicles 29:12;   2 Chronicles 31:15 , a Levite, or possibly two. It is not certain that Eden is the true form of the name: LXX [Note: Septuagint.] has Jodan in the first, Odom in the second passage. When it transliterates Eden elsewhere it is usually in the form Edem .

J. Taylor.

Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types

 Genesis 2:15 (c) Here is a type of the condition of bliss and blessing that is the portion of the consecrated, trusting Christian in this life and of the eternal richness of the next life.

Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary

The garden of our first parents. Eden, means delights. ( Genesis 2:8)

King James Dictionary

E'DEN, n. Heb. pleasure, delight. The country and garden in which Adam and Eve were placed by God himself.

Webster's Dictionary

(n.) The garden where Adam and Eve first dwelt; hence, a delightful region or residence.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Copyright StatementThese files are public domain. Bibliography InformationMcClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Eden'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/e/eden.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

ē´d ' n ( עדן , ‛ēdhen , "delight"; Ἔδεμ , Édem ):

(1) The land in which "Yahweh God planted a garden," where upon his creation "he put the man whom he had formed" ( Genesis 2:8 ). In the Assyrian inscriptions ı̀dinu (Accadian, êdin ) means "plain" and it is from this that the Biblical word is probably derived. Following are the references to Eden in the Bible, aside from those in Gen 2 and 3:  Genesis 4:16;  Isaiah 51:3;  Ezekiel 28:13;  Ezekiel 31:9 ,  Ezekiel 31:16 ,  Ezekiel 31:18;  Ezekiel 36:35;  Joel 2:3 . The Garden of Eden is said to be "eastward, in Eden" Gen ( Joel 2:8 ); where the vegetation was luxurious ( Joel 2:9 ) and the fig tree indigenous ( Joel 3:7 ), and where it was watered by irrigation. All kinds of animals, including cattle, beasts of the field and birds, were found there ( Joel 2:19 ,  Joel 2:20 ). Moreover, the climate was such that clothing was not needed for warmth. It is not surprising, therefore, that the plural of the word has the meaning "delights," and that Eden has been supposed to mean the land of delights, and that the word became a synonym for Paradise.

The location of Eden is in part to be determined from the description already given. It must be where there is a climate adapted to the production of fruit trees and of animals capable of domestication, and in general to the existence of man in his primitive condition. In particular, its location is supposed to be determined by the statements regarding the rivers coursing through it and surrounding it. There is a river ( nāhār ) ( Genesis 2:10 ) which was parted and became four heads ( ro'shı̄m ), a word which ( Judges 8:16;  Job 1:17 ) designates main detachments into which an army is divided, and therefore would more properly signify branches than heads, permitting Josephus and others to interpret the river as referring to the ocean, which by the Greeks was spoken of as the river ( ōkeanós ) surrounding the world. According to Josephus, the Ganges, the Tigris, the Euphrates and the Nile are the four rivers, being but branches of this one river. Moreover, it is contended by some, with much show of reason, that the word perāth translated Euphrates is a more general term, signifying "the broad" or "deep" river, and so may here refer to some other stream than the Euphrates, possibly to a river in some other region whose name is perpetuated in the present Euphrates, as "the Thames" of New England perpetuates the memory of the Thames of Old England. In ancient times there was a river Phrath in Persia, and perhaps two. It is doubtful whether the phrase "eastward, in Eden" refers to the position with reference to the writer or simply with reference to Eden itself. So far as that phrase is concerned, therefore, speculation is left free to range over the whole earth, and this it has done.

1. Central Asia

Columbus when passing the mouth of the Orinoco surmised that its waters came down from the Garden of Eden. It is fair to say, however, that he supposed himself to be upon the East coast of Asia. The traditions of its location somewhere in Central Asia are numerous and persistent. Naturalists have, with Quatrefages, pretty generally fixed upon the portion of Central Asia stretching East from the Pamir, often referred to as the roof of the world, and from which flow four great rivers - the Indus, the Tarim, the Sur Daria (Jaxartes), and the Ainu Daria (Oxus) - as the original cradle of mankind. This conclusion has been arrived at from the fact that at the present time the three fundamental types of the races of mankind are grouped about this region. The Negro races are, indeed, in general far removed from the location, but still fragments of them both pure and mixed are found in various localities both in the interior and on the seashore and adjacent islands where they would naturally radiate from this center, while the yellow and the white races here meet at the present time in close contact. In the words of Quatrefages, "No other region of the globe presents a similar union of extreme human types distributed round a common center" ( The Human Species , 176).

Philology, also, points to this same conclusion. On the East are the monosyllabic languages, on the North the polysyllabic or agglutinative languages, and on the West and South the inflectional or Aryan languages, of which the Sanskrit is an example, being closely allied to nearly all the languages of Europe. Moreover, it is to this center that we trace the origin of nearly all our domesticated plants and animals. Naturally, therefore, the same high authority writes, "There we are inclined to say the first human beings appeared and multiplied till the populations overflowed as from a bowl and spread themselves in waves in every direction" (ibid., 177). With this conclusion, as already said, a large number of most eminent authorities agree. But it should be noted that if, as we believe, there was a universal destruction of antediluvian man, the center of dispersion had in view by these naturalists and archaeologists would be that from the time of Noah, and so would not refer to the Eden from which Adam and Eve were driven. The same may be said of Haeckel's theory that man originated in a submerged continent within the area of the Indian Ocean.

2. The North Pole

Dr. William F. Warren has with prodigious learning attempted to show that the original Eden was at the North Pole, a theory which has too many considerations in its support to be cast aside unceremoniously, for it certainly is true that in preglacial times a warm climate surrounded the North Pole in all the lands which have been explored. In Northern Greenland and in Spitzbergen abundant remains of fossil plants show that during the middle of the Tertiary period the whole circumpolar region was characterized by a climate similar to that prevailing at the present time in Southern Europe, Japan, and the southern United States (see Asa Gray's lectures on "Forest Geography and Archaeology" in the American Journal of Science , Cxvi , 85-94, 183-196, and Wright, Ice Age in North America , 5th edition, chapter xvii). But as the latest discoveries have shown that there is no land within several hundred miles of the North Pole, Dr. Warren's theory, if maintained at all, will have to be modified so as to place Eden at a considerable distance from the actual pole. Furthermore, his theory would involve the existence of "Tertiary man," and Thus extend his chronology to an incredible extent, even though with Professor Green (see Antediluvians ) we are permitted to consider the genealogical table of Gen 5 as sufficiently elastic to accommodate itself to any facts which may be discovered.

3. Armenia

Much also can be said in favor of identifying Eden with Armenia, for it is here that the Tigris and Euphrates have their origin, while two others, the Aras (Araxes) emptying into the Caspian Sea and the Choruk (thought by some to be the Phasis) emptying into the Black Sea, would represent the Gihon and the Pishon. Havilah would then be identified with Colchis, famous for its golden sands. But Cush is difficult to find in that region; while these four rivers could by no possibility be regarded as branches of one parent stream.

4. Babylonia

Two theories locate Eden in the Euphrates valley. Of these the first would place it near the head of the Persian Gulf where the Tigris and Euphrates after their junction form the Shatt el - 'Arab which bifurcates into the eastern and the western arm before reaching the Gulf. Calvin considered the Pishon to be the eastern arm and the Gihon the western arm. Other more recent authorities modify theory by supposing that Gihon and Pishon are represented by the Karum and the Kerkhah rivers which come into the Shatt el-'Arab from the east. The most plausible objection to this theory is that the Biblical account represents all these branches as down stream from the main river, whereas this theory supposes that two of them at least are up stream. This objection has been ingeniously met by calling attention to the fact that 2,000 years before Christ the Persian Gulf extended up as far as Eridu, 100 miles above the present mouth of the river, and that the Tigris and the Euphrates then entered the head of the Gulf through separate channels, the enormous amount of silt brought down by the streams having converted so much of the valley into dry land. In consequence of the tides which extend up to the head of the Gulf, the current of all these streams would be turned up stream periodically, and so account for the Biblical statement. In this case the river ( nāhār ) would be represented by the Persian Gulf itself, which was indeed called by the Babylonians nar marratum , "the bitter river." This theory is further supported by the fact that according to the cuneiform inscriptions Eridu was reputed to have in its neighborhood a garden, "a holy place," in which there grew a sacred palm tree. This "tree of life" appears frequently upon the inscriptions with two guardian spirits standing on either side.

The other theory, advocated with great ability by Friedrich Delitzsch, places Eden just above the site of ancient Babylon, where the Tigris and Euphrates approach to within a short distance of one another and where the country is intersected by numerous irrigating streams which put off from the Euphrates and flow into the Tigris, whose level is here considerably lower than that of the Euphrates - the situation being somewhat such as it is at New Orleans where the Mississippi River puts off numerous streams which empty into Lake Pontchartrain. Delitzsch supposes the Shatt el - Nil , which flows eastward into the Tigris, to be the Gihon, and the Pallacopas, flowing on the West side of the Euphrates through a region producing gold, to be the Pishon. The chief difficulties attending this theory pertain to the identification of the Pishon with the Pallacopas, and the location of Havilah on its banks. There is difficulty, also, in all these theories in the identification of Cush (Ethiopia), later associated with the country from which the Nile emerges, Thus giving countenance to the belief of Josephus and many others that that river represented the Gihon. If we are compelled to choose between these theories it would seem that the one which locates Eden near the head of the Persian Gulf combines the greater number of probabilities of every kind.

(2) A L evite of the time of Hezekiah ( 2 Chronicles 29:12;  2 Chronicles 31:15 ).

Literature

Dawson Modern Science in Bible Lands  ; Friedrich Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? (1881); Sayce, HCM , 95ff; Hommel, Anc. Hebrew Tradition , 314; William F. Warren, Paradise Found , 1885.

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

E . place of delight), Paradise, the original spot referred to by tradition wholly uncertain, though believed to have been in the Far East, identified in Moslem tradition with the moon.

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

E´den [PARADISE]