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  • From: <david.kimbrough AT charter.net>
  • To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Eden
  • Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 4:34:00 +0000

Eden for Fun

In 2nd Kings 19 King Sennacherib of Assyria sends a message
to King Hezekiah of Judea not trust his God because many
other kingdoms trusted their Gods are were crushed by
Assyria. In verse 12 he lists these nations, Gozan,
Haran, Retzef, and ?the sons of Eden who lived in Tel-
Ashar?.

Haran and Rezaph (probably Rasafa, east of Palmyra) were
both city-states in northwestern Mesopotamia. Haran was
conquored by the Assyrian army in 609 BC. Gozan [ gwzn ]
is referred to as a river in 1st Ch. 5:26 in the land of
the Medes (i.e. ancestors of the Kurds). So this could
also be in upper Euphrates river valley, although the Kurds
live in the highlands around the upper valley as well. It
does seem terribly unreasonable to reason that Tel-Ashar
and the children of Eden [ (dn ] lived in the northwest of
Mesopotamia or the surronding highlands.

In Genesis 2, (dn is placed at the head of four rivers, the
Euphrates [ prt ], the Gihon [ gyxwn ], the Pison [ py#n ],
and the Hiddekel [xdkl ], probably the Tigris. Both the
Tigris and Euphrates have the head waters in the same
region of southern (Kurdish) Turkey. There are of course
other rivers in this region (e.g. Zab, Diyala, or Khabur).
The writer (the DH folks would say this is ?J?) seems to be
thinking again of northern Mesopotamia or the highland
around it.

Question; could there be some connectio between Gihon
[gyxwn] and Gozan [gwzn]?

When Noah?s wooden chest settled down after the flood, it
landed on hry )rrt (the mountains of Ararat), which is not
too terribly far from the head waters of both the Euphrates
and the Tigris, to the north and west of Mesopotamia
(thought by the DH?s a P portion).

In Genesis 11:2 it says ?they? came to the plain of Shinar
?from the east? [mqdm]. Shinar is thought to be Babylon
(today?s Sunni Triangle) so the decendents of Noah
(including Abram) were thought have arrived in Mesopotemia
from the (north) west by this writer (again a proported J
portion). Abram traveled north through Haran before
traveling south to Canaan. In Joshua?s death speech he
reminds the Israelites how their Terah, Nahor, and Abraham
lived ?beyond the river?, i.e. the other side of the
Euphrates.

So it would seem that there is some idea in the OT that
Eden was to the north and west of Mesopotamia.

David Kimbrough
San Gabriel





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