The Origins of the Biblical Garden of Eden

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Notes

According to the Documentary hypothesis, the name " Sinai " is only used in the Torah by the Jahwist and Priestly source, whereas Horeb is only used by the Elohist and Deuteronomist

Horeb is thought to mean " glowing/heat ", likely descriptive of the red color of lunar eclipses associated with fire, while Sinai may have derived from the name of Sin, the Sumerian deity of the moon, and thus Sinai and Horeb would be referring to the moon

cf e-kur VS the Kur ( underworld ) and Enki's defeat of the underworld ( Mirroring Jesus conquering hell and death in the New Testament ), covered in thread on the measurement of the Talent ( See thread )

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Notes

Atrahasis


" For 3,6oo years they bore the excess "

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Notes

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In the Sumerian texts and in the Love Lyrics of Nabû and Tašmetu the man takes his bride to his garden

The garden and the Edubba - which is equated with the garden in the latter text - are the places where wisdom is received

Hence, the adorning of the bride precedes her elevation, which in turn precedes entering the garden, i.e., the union between the bride and the groom. These texts are using imagery similar to the gnostic treatise Exegesis on the Soul where the adorned bride is taken to heaven by her brother-consort; here, the garden is used as the symbol for heaven (= Garden of Paradise) and the union with the divine. As the Dumuzi-Inanna love songs depict the king as the owner of the garden, it therefore implies that one of the king’s duties was to be a gardener. This task can be seen as a parallel to that of the shepherd, to be guiding people on the right track. By being the gardener, the king was leading his people to the garden - to paradise.

As a comparison, according to Ephrem the Syrian (ca. 306-373 CE), the initial garden of paradise was originally designed for Adam/man, and was once even inhabited by the first human couple, but was then lost. This garden is simultaneously the present paradise, reopened to Adam/mankind through Christ’s words to the thief on Golgotha (Luke 23:43), but also the final paradise of eternal joy and pleasure (e.g., in Ephrem’s Hymns on Paradise 7). In Ephrem’s view, paradise was planted as a perennial “Garden of Pleasure” (5.14.6), even as a “Garden of Life” (e.g., 2.13.1; 4.6.3; 7.1.7). To this paradise, the “Bridal Chamber of Chastity” (gnwnˀ dnkpwtˀ), Adam/man is elevated to serve as a king and the supreme lord (13.3).

This Garden of Paradise as the final place for the righteous people is also alluded to in a Middle Assyrian poem Šalmaneser I (LKA 15) where Ištar leads Dumuzi’s cattle, also depicted as “their sons,” to the shepherd. He is to let them graze in his abundant pasture, described with the imagery of a verdant garden. Cattle is obviously used as a metaphor for people: they are the innocent souls following Ištar, the Soul and their mother, who are guided by her to the savior king, who will shepherd them in a garden akin to a pasture full of well-being.


melammu-project.eu/database/gen_html/a0001395.html




Hebrew

Gen 2:8

And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

גן gan {gan} ; TWOT - 367a AV - garden 42; 42 n m/f 1) garden, enclosure 1a) enclosed garden 1a1) (fig. of a bride) 1b) garden (of plants) n pr loc 1c) Garden of Eden


cf. the 6th blessing of the wedding in Sheva Brachot ( Mentions the garden, adam and eve )


In Jewish weddings, a minimum of 2 witnesses are required ( cf 2 witnesses thread in mod forum )

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Notes

cf

www.academia.edu/3131801/Old_Babylonian_Mathematical_Procedure_Texts

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