In Search Of Eden
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Archaeologist David Rohl claims to have found the site described in Genesis as "Eden" in a lush valley beneath an extinct volcano in northern Iran. The Jerusalem Report (February 1, 1999) broke the story in the article -- "Paradise Found." Ten miles from the sprawling Iranian industrial city of Tabriz, to the northwest of Teheran, says British archaeologist David Rohl, he has found the site of the Biblical garden . . . "As you descend a narrow mountain path, you see a beautiful alpine valley, just like the Bible describes it, with terraced orchards on its slopes, crowded with every kind of fruit-laden tree," says Rohl, a scholar of University College, London, The Biblical word gan (as in Gan Eden) means `walled garden,' " Rohl continues, "and the valley is indeed walled in by towering mountains." The highest of these is Mt. Sahand, a snow-capped extinct volcano that Rohl identifies as the Prophet Ezekiel's Mountain of God, where the Lord resides among `red-hot coals' (Ezekiel 28:11-19). Cascading down the once-fiery mountain, precisely echoing Ezekiel, is a small river, the Adji Chay (the name of which also translates in local dialect as 'walled garden'). The locals still hold the mountain sacred, Rohl says, and attribute magical powers to the river's water. In order to make the journey to this most remote location, one must travel from western Iran, north through the Zagros Mountains of Iranian Kurdistan, down Mt. Sahand, and into the fertile Adji Chay valley. The Jerusalem Report article gives a number of geographical locations. What made Rohl look in this location in the first place? One factor was that he read about it in ancient Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets held by the Museum of the Orient in Istanbul. The other factor was the work of the late, little-known British scholar Reginald Walker. The ancient tablets described a 5,000 year-old route to Eden. He has been researching the location since the late 1980's through academic documents. In April 1997 Rohl did something very remarkable to prove his point. He set out from the Iranian town of Ahwaz, near the northern tip of the Persian Gulf, with only his jeep driver for company. According to the article: They traveled north toward Kurdistan through what Rohl calls `lawless' terrain, trusting to luck to avoid the various guerilla factions active in the region. Rohl followed a route, documented in the Sumerian cuneiform epic `Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta,' supposedly taken 5,000 years earlier by an emissary of the Sumerian priest-king of Uruk. The emissary had been dispatched to Aratta, on the plain of `Edin' -- known to Sumerians as a land of happiness and plenty -- to obtain gold and lapis lazuli to decorate a temple that Enmerkar was building in Uruk. The cuneiform epic describes the dutiful emissary's three-month trek on foot via seven passes through the Zagros Mountains, to the foothills of Mt. Sahand -- the southern edge of Rohl's Eden -- and his successful procurement of the required valuable. The Garden described in the Bible places the headwaters of four rivers in it: the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Gihon, and the Pishon. Obviously, the Tigris and Euphrates are well-known rivers, but the other two have been real problems in the past. Rohl has identified them as the Araxes and Uizhun which puts the headwaters of all four rivers in his Eden. Interestingly, the Uizhun, Rohl's equivalent to the Pishon which the Bibles identifies with gold, is known locally as the Golden River, and meanders between ancient gold mines and lodes of lapis lazuli. Making his case even stronger, Rohl says that he has found the "Land of Nod" which the Bible describes as "East of Eden." Nod was Cain's place of exile after the murder of his brother Abel. Today the area is called "Noqdi." But it doesn't end there because a few kilometers south of Rohl's Nod, at the head of a mountain pass, lies the sleepy town of Helabad. Formerly it was known as "Kheruabad," which means "settlement of the Kheru people." He believes that this could be a permutation of the Hebrew word keruvim that is translated as "Cherubs." These people were a tribe of fearsome warriors whose token was an eagle or falcon. Modern scholars have argued that the Genesis stories were just myths and should be looked upon in an allegorical sense. Rohl's discovery is now essentially seeking to push back the start of history all the way to the beginning of the Book of Genesis. Since the Bible scrupulously documents the specifics of the garden's location and its surroundings, says Rohl, why shouldn't we take those descriptions at face value? "I consider the Bible a historical document just like the writings of Herodotus or a text of Rameses II," says Rohl. "It's ridiculous to throw it in the dustbin just because it's a religious text. If so strong a tradition evolves out of the past, it is likely to have a genuine geographical setting."
Comments
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Every archaeologist wants to be discovered more than they want to discover;
that's why there're so many different versions of their findings to yet uncover.
When science ceases its quest to measure the immeasurable it will recover:
all thoughts, words, and deeds designed to lure those who can't see it's over. -
oh god they brock pieces of tablet of DARIUS and stole it dam british museum
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Edin, frequently a Sumerian logogram substitute for Akkadian sera/seri, meaning steppe, is rendered by Professor A. R. George as “the wild” in his English translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh. The below page numbers are from Professor A. R. George. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts. Oxford University Press. 2003. Vol. 1.
I have been informed by an Assyriologist that it is a modern convention that if an ancient text says edin, that one puts this Sumerian word in elipses (edin) to show that it is being used by the ancient scribe as a logogram substitute for Akkadian/Babylonian seri/seru, "the steppe." There is disagreement among scholars about translating into English (edin). George renders "wild," or "wilderness" in his paperback edition printed by Penguin (London). Others render (edin) as "desert," others "steppe" and or "plain." It is the uncultivated land about the cities in ancient Sumer.
p. 223, Speaking of Enkidu's being created of edin's clay by the goddess Aruru:
3. You were born and grew [up] in the seri(edin)
p. 299, Enkidu is accusing the prostitute Shamhat of causing his downfall in edin:
40. [And me] who was pure, you made me weak when I was in the seri(edin)-ia
p. 545, referring to Aruru creating of clay, Enkidu:
103. In the seri(edin) she created Enkidu, the hero,
p. 548, Enkidu is being described as one to be feared by mortal man:
179 a murderous fellow from the midst of the seri(edin).
p. 550, The wild cattle and gazelles run away from Enkidu when he attempts to rejoin them after sex with Shamhat:
198. the animals of the seri(edin) moved away from his person.
p. 551, Shamhat asks Enkidu why wander edin with animals?
208. why do you roam the seri(edin) with the animals?
223. [the one] born in the seri(edin) is mighty, he has strength.’
p. 589
26. [The one who] was born in the seri(edin) was able to give counsel.]
p. 641, Enkidu accuses Shamhat of weakening him so he cannot run with his animal companions who run off:
131. And me who was pure, [you made] me [weak] when I was in the seri(edin).’
p. 651
17. the lion, wild bull, deer, ibex, the herds and animals of the seri(edin)!
p. 657
91. I shall don the skin of a lion and [go roaming the seri(edin)’]
p. 667, Gilgamesh mourns his little brother's death (Enkidu), in fear of dying he wanders Edin:
1. For his friend Enkidu Gilgames
2. was weeping bitterly as he roamed the seri(edin)
3. I shall die, and shall I not then be like Enkidu?
4. sorrow has entered my heart.
5. I became afraid of death, so go roaming the seri(edin),
6. to Uta-napishtim, son of Ubar-Tutu,
7. I am on the road and traveling swiftly.
8.
p. 693
239. I grew [fearful] of death, [and so roam the] seri(edin).
241. so on a distant road [I roam the] seri(edin).
p. 695
260. deer, ibex, the animals and game of the seri(edin),
I understand that Enkidu was recast as Adam, Shamhat as Eve, Sadu the hunter was recast as Yahweh who introduced Eve/Shamhat to Adam/Enkidu. Sumerian Edin was recast as ‘Eden. The Hebrews, probably mishearing edin (a foreign word), misspelled it as ‘eden equating it with Hebrew ‘eden, meaning “delightful,” or “pleasant.”
I suspect that Uruk, rendered by the Sumerian logogram Unug in the Gilgamesh Epic was recast as the city of Enoch in the land of wandering called Nod (‘edin the steppe being recast as Nod); Gilgamesh, who boasted of Unug’s walls was recast as Cain, builder of the city of Enoch. As Cain is also a wanderer fearing death, he is probably modeled after Gilgamesh who wanders edin, fearing death. Gilgamesh regarded Enkidu to be like a brother to him and he mourns his brother’s death, then wanders edin fearing death, recast as Cain wandering Nod, east of Eden, fearing death after his brother Abel’s death. That is to say Enkidu is not only a model for Adam, he is also a model for Abel. The edin Gilgamesh wanders has been recast in the Bible as the land of Nod, meaning “to wander.” -
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A big thank you to Captain Black for honoring my request to allow comments to be posted on this video (16 Dec. 2016)!
In this video David Rohl noted the appearance of the word edin-na in regards to a Sumerian document about a location called Aratta, which he identified with biblical Ararat, where Noah's Ark landed. The problem? The Sumerian word Edin also applies to the floodplain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Mesopotamia which is a flat, non-mountainous plain rather than Ararat which is a mountainous area. The Epic of Gilgamesh mentions that three days into the wilderness from the city of Uruk (Genesis' Erech) is a watering hole where a naked hairy Enkidu drinks with his animal companions, wild bulls and antelope, like them he is a herbivore and eats grass. Gilgamesh has a prostitute sent to this watering hole to entrap Enkidu with sex. His animal companions will reject him after sex with the woman. She is to convince him to accept herself as his new companion in lieu of edin's animals. She succeeds. The wilderness watering hole they met at is usually called in Akkadian (Babylonian) seri/seru. But, seru/seri is not written, instead it is the Sumerian word Edin. So Enkidu meets Shamhat in Edin. She replaces the naked Enkidu's animal companions, he learns from her it is wrong to be naked when she offers him some of her clothes to clothe his nakedness before leaving Edin (she is to facilitate his removal from Edin to live instead at Uruk). Enroute to Uruk, and still in the Edin, they encounter a shepherds' camp. They offer him bread and beer. He balks at consuming these items for he knows only the eating of grass and drinking of water with Edin's herbivore animals. Shamhat steps in and urges Enkidu to consume these items and he submits his will to hers and consumes the bread and beer, and he is thereupon declared by the shepherds to be a human and not a naked hairy wild animal anymore. He is given men's clothes. Sadu the hunter brought Shamhat to edin's watering hole to seduce Enkidu. She was to have sex with him, and supplant edin's herbivore animal companions with herself. Just as Eve was seen to be a more fit companion for Adam than Eden's herbivore animals. Apparently Sadu the hunter was recast as God introducing Eve (recast from Shamhat) to Adam (recast from Enkidu) and edin was recast as Eden. The Gilgamesh epic calls Uruk by its Sumerian name, Unug, which according to Professor Archibald Henry Sayce (Oxford 1887), was recast as biblical Enoch, built by Cain (a recast from Gilgamesh). Professor Morris Jastrow Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, proposed that Adam and Eve were recasts of Enkidu and Shamhat in 1898/1899. Whence a garden in Eden instead of a watering hole in edin? Other Mesopotamian myths have man created in edin (Enkidu is made of edin's clay in the Epic of Gilgamesh). Myths have man created at Eridu, Nippur and Babylon (locations in edin), to be a gardening slave to replace the junior gods as laborers in the city-gardens in Edin. Now all the gods are free of earthly toil for their food. Man the slave, will till Edin's city-gardens and present the harvest in temple for the gods to eat. The gods would never expell man from Edin's gardens for to do so would mean they would have to care for their gardens themselves, backbreaking work making irrigation canals and clearing them of clogging silts. Whence a rebellion in Eden's garden? It was the junior gods who rebelled in the Edins' garden at Nippur and Eridu. They were removed and man was made to toil in their place. The gods were euphemistically called man because, they toiled at hard labor in edin's gardens until man the gardening slave was made to replace them. Edin refers to uncultivated land surrounding Sumer's cities. Sheep, goats and cattle were grazed in the Edin by shepherds. The Edin is a desert-like area with scrub brush, its fertility and trees are a result of man creating irrigation canals for Edin's city-gardens. I cover all this in my book available at Amazon.com titled The Garden of Eden Myth: Its Pre-biblical Origin in Mesopotamian Myths (2010). In short, the Hebrews hve taken motifs and scenarios asociated with Polytheism's Edin and recast all this into a monotheistic Eden. By clicking on my name you can access my YouTube videos on the subject or visit my website, www.bibleorigins.net What about the land of Nod? Nod means to wander, Cain is a wanderer after his brother's death (Abel) and he fears death, he creates the first city called Enoch. Gilgamesh is Cain. How so? Enkidu is called the "little brother" of Gilgamesh (Gilgamesh's mother adopts Enkidu as her son). When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh comes to realize his mortality, and fearing death he wanders the edin. Gilgamesh is praised for building Unug's mighty walls, and after his brother's death (Enkidu), he becomes a wanderer fearing death. The Edin Gilgamesh wandered in in fear of dying, was recast as Nod, and Unug (Uruk) was recast as the city of Enoch.
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