Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - [b-hebrew] Four Rivers of Eden - Somewhere Up North

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: <tladatsi AT charter.net>
  • To: <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>, <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Four Rivers of Eden - Somewhere Up North
  • Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 0:50:25 -0400

Christopher,

I think you make some very good points but I am not sure
that I agree with you one point. While the modern reader
with access to accurate maps can discern that the four
rivers do not in fact have a common source, I doubt the
ancient reader or author would have known that. Rather
than intentionally creating a *never-never land* the author
seems rather to be pointing to a real place that is
completely inaccessable to the reader. No 1st millenium
Judean or Israelite is going to trek into the lands of the
wild Medes (Kurds) to find either Eden or the sources of
these rivers. It was perceived as a real place, *far, far,
away*.

Also there is clearly some historical kernal to this story.
2nd King 19 reports that king of Assyria brags of defeating
the "sons of Eden" somewhere near Haran in the northern
edge of Mesopotemia. Abram travels through this area on
his journey from Ur to Canaan.

When the flood ends, Noah finds his box has landed in the
mountains near Ararat, near the headwaters of both Tigris
and Euphrates. This can't be a coincidence.

In Joshua 24, Joshua makes several references to the
ancestors living *beyond the flood*, i.e. the Euphrates.
It is traditionally thought to think that Joshua was
looking eastward toward Ur (which is on the same side of
Euphrates as Sechem is). However if one looks northward
from Sechem the Euphrates is there as well (it has a
northwestern orientation) and across the Euphrates is Haran
and beyond that the highlands of the Medes the headwaters
of the Tigris and Euphrates.

It would seem that there was a general belief that the
Israel and Judea came from somewhere *up north*.

Jack Tladatsi




  • [b-hebrew] Four Rivers of Eden - Somewhere Up North, tladatsi, 05/13/2005

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page