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  • From: "Walter R. Mattfeld" <mattfeld12 AT charter.net>
  • To: "b-hebrew List" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Re: Eden's Four Rivers (article)
  • Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 17:39:48 -0400

Dear Karl,

You are right _all_ proposals om Eden's one river becoming four are in the end only "speculations." I recall some scholars suggesting wadi Batin from Saudi Arabia being the Pishon connecting with the Euphrates near the Shatt al Arab and then the Euphrates itself along with the Tigris empty into the Shatt al Arab, then the Karkun (Gihon according to some) from Iran's Zagros mountains also connects with the Shat al Arab. However these "four" rivers are not coming _out of one river_, they are flowing _into it_ just the "opposite" of Genesis' scenario.

As regards Noah's Flood destroying the Edenic river courses- this is a pretty common understanding since Renaissance among some scholars.

The problem ? A Mesopotamian text of the 2d millennium BCE has the flood at a city called Shuruppak in Sumer, its king, called Ziusudra (also called Atrahasis and Utnapishtim) is warned by his god Enki to build a boat and save himself, family and animals. He does.

Shuruppak has been identified as present day Tell Fara. When excavated a "flood layer" of two feet of clay was found and dated to circa 2900 BCE. It was the _only_ flood deposit found at the city. It appears at the end of Jemdat-Nasr phase and above it lies a new era called Early Dynastic I. The residents of Shuruppak rebuilt their city after the flood but "nearby" rather than directly over the flooded site. Microscopic anaylsis of the aluvial sediment overlying "Jamdet-Nasr" Shuruppak was determined to be caused by a flooding Euphrates, not a world wide flood.

Many scholars who study the Mesopotamian account are struck by the "parallels" between the Shuruppak flood and the Genesis' flood. Both heroes are warned by a god to save themselves by building a boat. The flood occurs at the "end" of a _600_ year cycle for Ziusudra; Noah is _600_ years old (Ge 7:11) when the flood occurs. Both heroes are given seven days notice before the flood's arrival; After the flood both send out birds to find evidence of land appearing above receding waters; both offer a burnt offerings sacrifice after the flood. The god (Enlil) who sent the flood gives the survivors of the flood (on the boat) a blessing; Yahweh gives a blessing to Noah after the flood too. A god (Enlil) swears he will never send another flood to destroy all of mankind; so too Yahweh. The biblical chronology for the Flood suggests for some scholars a date circa 2348 BCE, in the 3rd millennium BCE. Archaeologists dated Shurupakk's flood layer to the 3rd millennium BCE, circa 2900/2800 BCE. Other flood layers have been found at other cities in Sumer, but they are of different periods of time. Not finding any evidence of a flood destroying _all_ the cities of 3rd millennium BCE Sumer, some scholars, understandably, have reservations about the biblical account of a 3rd millennium BCE Flood.

As you are probably aware, some scholars understand the biblical flood is recalling the Shurupakk flood event because of above noted similiarities in the two accounts, Mesopotamian and Biblical. Because they also understand the Shuruppak flood did not encompass the world, they therefore seek the river of Eden and its four "heads" (Hebrew: rasim) somewhere in the confines of a 5th through 3rd millennium BCE Mesopotamia (The world being created by Yahweh ca. 4004 BCE according to the biblical chronology worked out by a Christian scholar Bishop Usher). To date, archaeologists have failed to find evidence of world wide flood in the 5th-3rd millenniums BCE in Mesopotamia, Syria or Canaan. They date some settlements in Sumer to the Ubaid period of circa 4900 BCE, specifically the ancient city of Eridu (modern Abu Shahrein near Ur of the Chaldees), which in Mesopotamian myths was the very first city built by the god Enki. This myth has the world covered in water, then a freshwater stream eurpts from the depths of the ocean, land forms about it and Enki builds the first city Eridu. Of course in the Bible the first city is built by Cain and called Enoch after his son (Ge 4:17). So, it is clear that Genesis' author understands at least _one city_ was engulfed by Noah's 3rd millennium BCE flood, but the archaeological evidence does not support this notion.

I personally favor Shurupakk as the flood being recalled in Genesis, and thus "my interest" in finding a river in a 3rd millennium BCE Mesopotamian context which divides into "four heads". I noted in my article that in the 3rd millennium BCE the Euphrates did divide into four heads or streams as it fanned out over edin-the-plain (Sumer) between Sippar and Nippur (as shown on the archaeological map). If someone knows of any earlier scholarly articles proposing the Euphrates as a "possible" river of Eden that divides into four streams I would be much obliged to receive, off list, a bibliography for my further studies.

Regards, Walter
Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed.
mattfeld12 AT charter.net
www.bibleorigins.net



----- Original Message ----- From: "kwrandolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 4:34 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Eden's four rivers (article)


Walter:

Your admission of "_might_" below underscores the whole problem of
historical reconstruction-too much information has been lost so that
we really don't know.

Another explanation that I have heard is that when Noah and his sons
stepped off their ship, they faced a completely reworked landscape
where all the familiar landmarks were replaced. They named the first
two major rivers they came across by names they were familiar with in
pre-flood geology, but these were not the same rivers. Much the same
way that migrants named new locales after ones that they left, such
as Pittsburg California named after Pittsburg Pennsylvania, or Newark
California after Newark New Jersey, and so forth, so Noah and his
sons reused old names for new locales.

Secondly, wasn't Ur of the Chaldeas a different city than Ur of the
Sumerians? I thought that was a reference found among the Ebla
tablets. Correct me if I am mistaken, but my understanding is that Ur
of the Chaldeans was a city to the north east of Ebla whose ruins
have yet to be found, while Ur of the Sumerians was to the south east.

But without more solid data, all of this is speculation based on too
few facts either way.

Interesting article, by the way.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Walter R. Mattfeld" <mattfeld12 AT charter.net>

For an article arguing that Eden's four rivers arising from one
_might_ be recalling the "four heads" of the Euphrates crossing
"edin-the-floodplain" of ancient Sumer cf. the following url:

http://www.bibleorigins.net/EdensFourRivers.html

Regards, Walter
Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed.
mattfeld12 AT charter.net
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