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109-496: Local folklore holds Qurnah to have been the site of the Garden of Eden and the location of a city built by general Seleucus Nicator I. An ancient tree is celebrated locally and shown to the tourists as the actual Tree of Knowledge of the Bible . The tree died some time ago and replacement trees were planted. The tomb of Ezra is also described to be nearby and found further upstream on

218-708: A reed boat from al Qurnah to show that migration between Mesopotamia with the Indus Valley civilization was possible. The voyage proved complicated because of the wars in the region and the vessel was eventually lost off Djibouti . After the First Gulf War (1991), the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein diverted river water away from the local marshes causing them to become completely desiccated . The wetlands have since shrunk to 58% of their pre- drainage area and are projected to drop below 50%. This loss has also been

327-558: A Messiah of David (i.e. a descendant). From these ideas, Second Temple Judaism would later emerge, whence Christianity , Rabbinic Judaism , and Islam . Although the specific process by which the Israelites adopted monotheism is unknown, the transition was a gradual one and was not totally accomplished during the First Temple period. It is unclear when the worship of Yahweh alone began. The earliest known portrayals of Yahweh as

436-500: A Tree of Death. Horon also spreads around a poisonous fog, Adam is sent from the mountain to restore life on earth, Horon takes the shape of a large serpent and bites him, which leads to Adam and his wife losing their immortality. However, John Day argues that these stories are not explicitly attested in the Ugaritic texts but are reconstructed on the basis of speculative and dubious suppositions. The word "paradise" entered English from

545-516: A garden that he planted "eastward in Eden": And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The man was free to eat from any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil , which was taboo . Last of all, God made a woman ( Eve ) from

654-560: A letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king's orchard ( pardes ), that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city". In these examples, pardes clearly means 'orchard' or 'park', but in the Jewish apocalyptic literature and in the Talmud paradise gains its associations with the Garden of Eden and its heavenly prototype,

763-557: A meaning also present in the New Testament . Italian historian Mario Liverani argues that the Garden of Eden was modeled on Persian royal gardens, while John Day argues that linguistic and other evidence indicates that the yahwistic Eden story was composed before the Persian period. US archaeologist Lawrence Stager posits that the biblical Eden narrative drew from aspects of Solomon's palace and temple compound and Jerusalem . In

872-586: A mountain sanctuary in the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges . Some religious groups have believed the location of the garden to be local to them, outside of the Middle East. Some early leaders of Mormonism held that it was located in Jackson County, Missouri . The 20th-century Panacea Society believed it was located at the site of their home town of Bedford , England, while preacher Elvy E. Callaway believed it

981-406: A pledge of eternal life," but man was only able to dwell there for a short time because he soon fell from grace. In the poem, the Garden of Eden is both human and divine: while it is located on earth at the top of Mt. Purgatory, it also serves as the gateway to the heavens . Much of Milton's Paradise Lost occurs in the Garden of Eden. The first act of Arthur Miller's 1972 play Creation of

1090-513: A result of Turkish and Iranian damming of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The UN has reported that the combined volume of these rivers has been reduced by 60%. These developments are said to have made the area more vulnerable to degradation and desertification . The river front Qurnah Tourist Hotel was built during the Ba'athist period to encourage tourism for the region. Majnoon Island near Al-Qurnah

1199-448: A rib of the man to be a companion for the man. In Genesis 3, the man and the woman were seduced by the serpent into eating the forbidden fruit , and they were expelled from the garden to prevent them from eating of the tree of life, and thus living forever. Cherubim were placed east of the garden, "and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way of the tree of life". Genesis 2:10–14 lists four rivers in association with

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1308-705: A shared connection. Doeg the Edomite , for example, is depicted as having no problem in worshiping Yahweh and is shown to be at home in Jewish sanctuaries. Unlike the chief god of the Ammonites ( Milcom ) and the Moabites ( Chemosh ), the Tanakh refrains from explicitly naming the Edomite Qōs. Some scholars have explained this notable omission by assuming that the level of similarity between Yahweh and Qōs would have made rejection of

1417-472: A similarity Plutarch used to argue that Jews worshipped a hypostasized form of Bacchus–Dionysus. In his Quaestiones Convivales , Plutarch further notes that the Jews hail their god with cries of " Euoi " and " Sabi ", phrases associated with the worship of Dionysus. According to Sean M. McDonough , Greek speakers may have confused Aramaic words such as Sabbath , Alleluia , or even possibly some variant of

1526-450: A variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses , such as El , Asherah , and Baal . In later centuries, El and Yahweh became conflated, and El-linked epithets, such as ʾĒl Šadday ( אֵל שַׁדַּי ‎), came to be applied to Yahweh alone. Some scholars believe that El and Yahweh were always conflated. Characteristics of other deities, such as Asherah and Baal, were also selectively "absorbed" in conceptions of Yahweh. Over time,

1635-587: A walled enclosure was not preserved in most Iranian usage, and generally came to refer to a plantation or other cultivated area, not necessarily walled. For example, the Old Iranian word survives as pardis in New Persian, as well as its derivative pālīz (or jālīz ), which denotes a vegetable patch. The word entered the Hebrew language with the meaning of pardes ( פַּרְדֵּס ), 'orchard', appearing thrice in

1744-537: Is 'walled (enclosure)', from pairi- 'around' (cognate with the Greek περί and the English peri- , of identical meaning), and -diz , "to make, form (a wall), build" (cognate with the Greek τεῖχος , 'wall'). The word's etymology is ultimately derived from a Proto-Indo-European root , *dheigʷ , 'to stick and set up (a wall)', and *per , 'around'. By the 6th/5th century BCE, the Old Iranian word had been borrowed into

1853-475: Is a center for oil production of the giant Majnoon Oilfield . The area was built out of sand dunes and mud to create pathways for oil pipelines. The island was held by Iranian army during the Iran-Iraq war before Iraqi chemical weapons were deployed. As of the start of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq , conditions of the city were already reportedly woeful. Cracked pavements and bullet holes in local properties,

1962-636: Is a paradisaical abode of the immortals, where sickness and death were unknown. The garden of the Hesperides in Greek mythology was also somewhat similar to the Jewish concept of the Garden of Eden, and by the 16th century a larger intellectual association was made in the Cranach painting. By studying late-13th-century BCE clay tablets from Ugarit , Hebrew Bible scholars M.J.A. Korpel and J.C. de Moor reconstructed close Canaanite parallels, which they posit as being

2071-571: Is created from the love of Elohim and Eden, but evil later is brought into the universe when Elohim learns of the existence of the Good above him and ascends trying to reach it. One of oldest depictions of Garden of Eden is made in Byzantine style in Ravenna , while the city was still under Byzantine control. A preserved blue mosaic is part of the mausoleum of Galla Placidia . Circular motifs represent flowers of

2180-405: Is divided into seven compartments. The compartments are not described, though it is implied that each compartment is greater than the previous one and is joined based on one's merit. The first compartment is for Jewish martyrs, the second for those who drowned, the third for "Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai and his disciples," the fourth for those whom the cloud of glory carried off, the fifth for penitents,

2289-584: Is exemplified by Adam and his spouse in the Quran (Q. 7:23 "Our Lord! We have wronged ourselves. If You do not forgive us and have mercy on us, we will certainly be losers"), in contrast to Iblis (Satan) who blames God for leading him astray (Q. 15:37). Followers of the Latter Day Saint movement believe that after Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden they resided in a place known as Adam-ondi-Ahman , located in present-day Daviess County, Missouri . It

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2398-543: Is in the Egyptian demonym tꜣ šꜣsw Yhwꜣ , " YHWA (in) the Land of the Shasu " ( Egyptian : 𓇌𓉔𓍯𓄿 Yhwꜣ ) in an inscription from the time of Amenhotep III (1390–1352 BCE), the Shasu being nomads from Midian and Edom in northern Arabia. Although it is still uncertain whether a relationship exists between the toponym yhwꜣ and theonym YHWH , the dominant view is that Yahweh

2507-667: Is it which goeth toward the east of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates . Suggestions for the location of Eden include the head of the Persian Gulf , as argued by Juris Zarins , in southern Mesopotamia where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers run into the sea; and in the Armenian Highlands or Armenian National Plateau. British archaeologist David Rohl locates it in Iran , and in

2616-621: Is mentioned as the ruler of Jerusalem and probably also of Judah. In 587/6 BCE Jerusalem fell to the Neo-Babylonians , Solomon's Temple was destroyed, and the leadership of the community were deported. The next 50 years, the Babylonian exile , were of pivotal importance to the history of Israelite religion. As the traditional sacrifices to Yahweh (see below) could not be performed outside Israel, other practices including sabbath observance and circumcision gained new significance. In

2725-661: Is recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants that Adam blessed his posterity there and that he will return to that place at the time of the final judgment in fulfillment of a prophecy set forth in the Bible. Numerous early leaders of the Church, including Brigham Young , Heber C. Kimball , and George Q. Cannon , taught that the Garden of Eden itself was located in nearby Jackson County, but there are no surviving first-hand accounts of that doctrine being taught by Joseph Smith himself. LDS doctrine

2834-457: Is unclear as to the exact location of the Garden of Eden, but tradition among Latter-Day Saints places it somewhere in the vicinity of Adam-ondi-Ahman, or in Jackson County. The 2nd-century Gnostic teacher Justin held that there were three original divinities, a transcendental being called the Good, an intermediate male figure known as Elohim and Eden who is an Earth-mother . The world

2943-408: The 9th century BCE , there are indications of rejection of Baal worship associated with the prophets Elijah and Elisha . The Yahweh-religion thus began to separate itself from its Canaanite heritage; this process continued over the period from 800 to 500 BCE with legal and prophetic condemnations of the asherim , sun worship and worship on the high places , along with practices pertaining to

3052-522: The Akkadian language as pardesu , 'domain'. It subsequently came to indicate the expansive walled gardens of the First Persian Empire , and was later borrowed into a number of languages: into Greek as παράδεισος ( parádeisos ), 'park for animals', cf. Anabasis , the most famous work of Xenophon ; into Aramaic as pardaysa , 'royal park'; and into Hebrew (see below). The idea of

3161-708: The French paradis , inherited from the Latin paradisus, paradisum , from the Greek parádeisos ( παράδεισος ). The Greek, in turn, was derived from an Old Iranian form, itself from the Proto-Iranian *parādaiĵah- , 'walled enclosure', which was derived from the Old Persian 𐎱𐎼𐎭𐎹𐎭𐎠𐎶 (p-r-d-y-d-a-m, /paridaidam/ , whence from the Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌⸱𐬛𐬀𐬉𐬰𐬀 , pairi-daêza- . The literal meaning of this word

3270-559: The Greek Magical Papyri , under the names Iao , Adonai , Sabaoth , and Eloai . In these texts, he is often mentioned alongside traditional Graeco-Roman deities and Egyptian deities . The archangels Michael , Gabriel , Raphael , and Ouriel and Jewish cultural heroes such as Abraham , Jacob , and Moses are also invoked frequently. The frequent occurrence of Yahweh's name was likely due to Greek and Roman folk magicians seeking to make their spells more powerful through

3379-682: The Late Bronze Age , if not somewhat earlier. While the Israelites held him as their national god , their religion—known as Yahwism , involving the worship of Yahweh among a broader Semitic pantheon —was still essentially polytheistic or, according to some accounts, monolatristic . However, during and after the Babylonian captivity in the 6th century BCE, the Israelite religion gradually evolved into Judaism and Samaritanism , which are both strictly monotheistic and thus regard Yahweh as God in

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3488-560: The Negev and Beersheba , both in the territory of Judah. Shiloh , Bethel , Gilgal , Mizpah , Ramah and Dan were also major sites for festivals, sacrifices, the making of vows , private rituals, and the adjudication of legal disputes. Yahweh-worship was thought to be aniconic , meaning that the god was not depicted by a statue or other image. This is not to say that he was not represented in some symbolic form, and early Israelite worship probably focused on standing stones , but according to

3597-798: The Qurnah Disaster , including a Japanese expedition in 1971-2, were largely unsuccessful. The town experienced the Battle of Qurna during the Mesopotamian Campaign of World War I , when the British defeated Ottoman troops who had retreated from Basra in 1914. The Battle of Qurna secured the British front line in Southern Mesopotamia , thereby protecting Basra and the oil refineries at Abadan in Persia (now Iran). In 1977, Thor Heyerdahl sailed

3706-514: The Septuagint (3rd–1st centuries BCE), the Greek παράδεισος ( parádeisos ) was used to translate both the Hebrew פרדס ( pardes ) and גן ( gan ), meaning 'garden' (e.g. Genesis 2:8 , Ezekiel 28:13 ): it is from this usage that the use of paradise to refer to the Garden of Eden derives. In the New Testament paradise becomes the realm of the blessed (as opposed to the realm of

3815-660: The Tanakh : in the Song of Solomon ( 4:13 ), Ecclesiastes ( 2:5 ), and Nehemiah ( 2:8 ). The word pardes occurs three times in the Hebrew Bible, but always in contexts other than a connection with Eden: in the Song of Solomon 4:13 : "Thy plants are an orchard ( pardes ) of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard"; Ecclesiastes 2:5 : "I made me gardens and orchards ( pardes ), and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits"; and in Nehemiah 2:8 : "And

3924-671: The Terrestrial Paradise , is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2–3 and Ezekiel 28 and 31. The location of Eden is described in the Book of Genesis as the source of four tributaries. Various suggestions have been made for its location: at the head of the Persian Gulf , in southern Mesopotamia where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers run into the sea; in Armenia , and even in Jackson County, Missouri . Others theorize that Eden

4033-634: The creator-god of all the earth is first elaborated by the Second Isaiah , a 6th-century BCE exilic work whose case for the theological doctrine rests on Yahweh's power over other gods, and his incomparability and singleness relative to the gods of the Babylonian religion. Benjamin D. Sommer argues that the distinction between polytheism and monotheism has been greatly exaggerated. The centre of Yahweh's worship lay in three great annual festivals coinciding with major events in rural life: Passover with

4142-448: The "lower Gan Eden" ( gan meaning garden). The second is envisioned as being celestial, the habitation of righteous, Jewish and non-Jewish, immortal souls, known as the "higher Gan Eden". The rabbis differentiate between Gan and Eden. Adam is said to have dwelt only in the Gan , whereas Eden is said never to be witnessed by any mortal eye. According to Jewish eschatology ,

4251-620: The Biblical texts the temple in Jerusalem featured Yahweh's throne in the form of two cherubim , their inner wings forming the seat and a box (the Ark of the Covenant ) as a footstool, while the throne itself was empty. There is no universally accepted explanation for such aniconism , and a number of scholars have argued that Yahweh was in fact represented prior to the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah late in

4360-672: The Eden narrative shows parallels with aspects of Solomon’s Temple and Jerusalem , attesting to its nature as a sacred place. Mentions of Eden are also made in the Bible elsewhere in Genesis, in Isaiah 51:3, Ezekiel 36:35, and Joel 2:3; Zechariah 14 and Ezekiel 47 use paradisical imagery without naming Eden. The name derives from the Akkadian edinnu , from a Sumerian word edin meaning ' plain ' or ' steppe ' , closely related to an Aramaic root word meaning ' fruitful, well-watered ' . Another interpretation associates

4469-472: The Garden of Eden was located in modern-day Xinjiang . Scholars have identified and proposed connections to similar concepts from ancient religions and mythologies, and have studied the post-scriptural evolution of the concept in religion and arts. A number of parallel concepts to the biblical Garden of Eden exist in various other religions and mythologies. Dilmun in the Sumerian story of Enki and Ninhursag

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4578-663: The Israelites, and there is no consensus on its etymology, with ehyeh ašer ehyeh (" I Am that I Am "), the explanation presented in Exodus 3:14, appearing to be a late theological gloss invented at a time when the original meaning had been forgotten, although some scholars dispute this. Lewis connects the name to the Amorite element yahwi- ( ia-wi ), found in personal names in Mari texts, meaning "brings to life/causes to exist" (e.g. yahwi-dagan = " Dagon causes to exist"), commonly denoted as

4687-426: The Jerusalem temple was always meant to be the central or even sole temple of Yahweh, but this was not the case. The earliest known Israelite place of worship is a 12th-century BCE open-air altar in the hills of Samaria featuring a bronze bull reminiscent of Canaanite Bull-El (El in the form of a bull) and the archaeological remains of further temples have been found at Dan on Israel's northern border, at Arad in

4796-591: The Jews , the first-century Jewish historian Josephus identifies the Pishon as what "the Greeks called Ganges " and the Geon (Gehon) as the Nile . In Ezekiel 28:12–19, the prophet Ezekiel the "son of man" sets down God's word against the king of Tyre: the king was the "seal of perfection", adorned with precious stones from the day of his creation, placed by God in the garden of Eden on

4905-506: The Lebanon is an alternative placement in Phoenician myth (as in Ez 28,13, III.48) of the Garden of Eden", and there are connections between paradise, the Garden of Eden and the forests of Lebanon (possibly used symbolically) within prophetic writings. Edward Lipinski and Peter Kyle McCarter have suggested that the garden of the gods , the oldest Sumerian analog of the Garden of Eden, relates to

5014-405: The Midianites/Kenites) inside Israel and through their association with the earliest political leaders of Israel. Christian Frevel argues that inscriptions allegedly suggesting Yahweh's southern origins (e.g. "YHWH of Teman") may simply denote his presence there at later times, and that Teman can refer to any southern territory, including Judah. Alternatively, some scholars argue that YHWH worship

5123-507: The Quran), four interpretations of the location of the garden prevailed among early Muslims: According to T. O. Shanavas however, contextual analysis of Quranic verses suggests the Garden of Eden could not have been in Paradise and must have been on earth. (For example, a sahih hadith reports Muhammad said: "Allah says: I have prepared for my righteous servants that which has neither been seen by eyes, nor heard by ears, nor ever conceived by any man." i.e. no man has ever seen Paradise. Since Adam

5232-414: The Second Temple period, speaking the name of Yahweh in public became regarded as taboo . When reading from the scriptures, Jews began to substitute the divine name with the word adonai (אֲדֹנָי‬), meaning " my Lord ". The High Priest of Israel was permitted to speak the name once in the Temple during the Day of Atonement , but at no other time and in no other place. During the Hellenistic period ,

5341-412: The World and Other Business is set in the Garden of Eden. Yahweh Yahweh was an ancient Levantine deity who was venerated in Israel and Judah . Though no consensus exists regarding his origins, scholars generally contend that he is associated with Seir , Edom , Paran and Teman , and later with Canaan . His worship reaches back to at least the Early Iron Age , and likely to

5450-418: The absence of Yahweh from Canaan, his links with Edom and Midian in the biblical stories, and the Kenite or Midianite ties of Moses , but its major weaknesses are that the majority of Israelites were firmly rooted in Palestine , while the historical role of Moses is problematic. It follows that if the Kenite hypothesis is to be maintained, then it must be assumed that the Israelites encountered Yahweh (and

5559-496: The biblical account, the Quran mentions only one tree in Eden, the tree of immortality, from which God specifically forbade Adam and his spouse. Some exegesis added an account, about Satan , disguised as a serpent to enter the Garden, repeatedly told Adam to eat from the tree, and eventually both Adam and his spouse did so, resulting in disobeying God. These stories are also featured in the hadith collections, including al-Tabari . Quranic verses Q. 2:35–38, are believed to tell

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5668-476: The biblical narrative of an Israel vacillating between periods of "following other gods" and periods of fidelity to Yahweh. Some scholars date the start of widespread monotheism to the 8th century BC E, and view it as a response to Neo-Assyrian aggression. In an inscription discovered in Ein Gedi and dated around 700 BCE, Yahweh appears described as the lord of "the nations", while in other contemporary texts discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei (near Lachish) he

5777-475: The birthing of lambs , Shavuot with the cereal harvest , and Sukkot with the fruit harvest. These probably pre-dated the arrival of the Yahweh religion, but they became linked to events in the national mythos of Israel: Passover with the exodus from Egypt, Shavuot with the law-giving at Mount Sinai , and Sukkot with the wilderness wanderings. The festivals thus celebrated Yahweh's salvation of Israel and Israel's status as his holy people, although

5886-415: The conclusion that infant sacrifice , whether to the underworld deity Molech or to Yahweh himself, was a part of Israelite/Judahite religion until the reforms of King Josiah in the late 7th century BCE. Sacrifice was presumably complemented by the singing or recital of psalms , but again the details are scant. Prayer played little role in official worship. The Hebrew Bible gives the impression that

5995-426: The construction of the Temple in 957 BCE to its destruction in 586 BCE, exilic for the period of the Exile from 586 to 539 BCE (identical with Neo-Babylonian above), post-Exilic for later periods and Second Temple period from the reconstruction of the Temple in 515 BCE until its destruction in 70 CE. There is almost no agreement on Yahweh's origins. His name is not attested other than among

6104-424: The cursed) among those who have already died, with literary Hellenistic influences. The same usage as in the Septuagint also appears in Arabic and in the Quran as firdaws فردوس . In the Talmud and the Jewish Kabbalah , the scholars agree that there are two types of spiritual places called "Garden in Eden". The first is rather terrestrial, of abundant fertility and luxuriant vegetation, known as

6213-474: The dead and other aspects of the old religion. Features of Baal, El, and Asherah were absorbed into Yahweh, and epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone. In this atmosphere a struggle emerged between those who believed that Yahweh alone should be worshipped, and those who worshipped him within a larger group of gods; the Yahweh-alone party, the party of the prophets and Deuteronomists , ultimately triumphed, and their victory lies behind

6322-490: The dwelling place of Adam . The Quran refers frequently over various Surah about the first abode of Adam and his spouse (told to be Hawwa or Eve, Quran never named her), including surat Sad , which features 18 verses on the subject (38:71–88), surat al-Baqara , surat al-A'raf , and surat al-Hijr although sometimes without mentioning the location. The narrative mainly surrounds the resulting expulsion of Adam and his spouse after they were tempted by Iblis (Satan). Despite

6431-404: The earlier agricultural meaning was not entirely lost. His worship presumably involved sacrifice, but many scholars have concluded that the rituals detailed in Leviticus 1–16, with their stress on purity and atonement , were introduced only after the Babylonian exile , and that in reality any head of a family was able to offer sacrifice as occasion demanded. A number of scholars have also drawn

6540-409: The earliest Biblical literature, Yahweh has characteristics of a storm god typical of ancient Near Eastern myths, marching out from Edom or the Sinai desert with the heavenly host of stars and planets that make up his army to do battle with the enemies of his people Israel: Yahweh, when you went out of Seir,     when you marched out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled,

6649-498: The early Persian period. They saw the messiah in Zerubbabel , a descendant of the House of David who seemed, briefly, to be about to re-establish the ancient royal line, or in Zerubbabel and the first High Priest, Joshua (Zechariah writes of two messiahs, one royal and the other priestly). These early hopes were dashed (Zerubabbel disappeared from the historical record, although the High Priests continued to be descended from Joshua), and thereafter there are merely general references to

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6758-409: The existence of other deities was denied outright, and Yahweh was proclaimed the creator deity and the sole divinity to be worthy of worship. During the Second Temple period , openly speaking the name of Yahweh in public became regarded as a religious taboo, and Jews instead began to substitute other Hebrew words , primarily ăḏōnāy ( אֲדֹנָי‬ ‎, lit.   ' My Lords ' ). By

6867-567: The full range of his attributes. If humans were not to live on earth, God could not express his love, forgiveness, and power to his creation. Further, if humans were not to experience suffering, they could neither long for paradise nor appreciate its delights. Khwaja Abdullah Ansari (1006–1088) describes Adam and his spouse's expulsion as ultimately caused by God. Nonetheless, despite the paradoxical notion that man has no choice but to comply to God's will, this does not mean that humans should not blame themselves for their "sin" of complying. This

6976-447: The garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden motifs most frequently portrayed in illuminated manuscripts and paintings are the "Sleep of Adam" ("Creation of Eve"), the "Temptation of Eve" by the Serpent, the " Fall of Man " where Adam takes the fruit, and the "Expulsion". The idyll of "Naming Day in Eden" was less often depicted. Michelangelo depicted a scene at the Garden of Eden on the Sistine Chapel ceiling . For many medieval writers,

7085-442: The garden of Eden: Pishon , Gihon , Tigris (Hiddekel in Hebrew), and the Euphrates (Perath in Hebrew). It also refers to the land of Cush —translated/interpreted as Ethiopia , but thought by some to equate to Cossaea , a Greek name for the land of the Kassites . These lands lie north of Elam , immediately to the east of ancient Babylon, which, unlike Ethiopia, does lie within the region being described. In Antiquities of

7194-403: The garden; and from thence it was parted, and became four heads. The name of the first is Pishon ; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah , where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon ; the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Tigris ; that

7303-530: The gods of a subjected people, some have assumed the coin simply depicts the surrender of a Judean who was called "Bacchius", sometimes identified as the Hasmonean king Aristobulus II , who was overthrown by Pompey's campaign. In any event, Tacitus , John the Lydian , Cornelius Labeo , and Marcus Terentius Varro similarly identify Yahweh with Bacchus–Dionysus. Jews themselves frequently used symbols that were also associated with Dionysus such as kylixes , amphorae , leaves of ivy , and clusters of grapes ,

7412-450: The higher Gan Eden is called the "Garden of Righteousness". It has been created since the beginning of the world, and will appear gloriously at the end of time. The righteous dwelling there will enjoy the sight of the heavenly chayot carrying the throne of God. Each of the righteous will walk with God, who will lead them in a dance. Its Jewish and non-Jewish inhabitants are "clothed with garments of light and eternal life, and eat of

7521-518: The higher Gan Eden. For some Christians, especially in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Eden is considered a reality outside of empirical history that affects the entire history of the universe as seen in the idea of an atemporal fall which separates humanity's current reduced form of time from the divine life enjoyed in Eden. This idea of an atemporal separation from Eden has been most recently defended by theologians David Bentley Hart , John Behr , and Sergei Bulgakov as well as having roots in

7630-429: The holy mountain as a guardian cherub. However, the king sinned through wickedness and violence, and so he was driven out of the garden and thrown to the earth, where now he is consumed by God's fire: "All those who knew you in the nations are appalled at you, you have come to a horrible end and will be no more." (Ezekiel 28:19). The location of Eden is described in Genesis 2:10–14: And a river went out of Eden to water

7739-422: The image of the Garden of Eden also creates a location for human love and sexuality , often associated with the classic and medieval trope of the locus amoenus . In the Divine Comedy , Dante Alighieri places the Garden at the top of Mt. Purgatory . Dante, the pilgrim, emerges into the Garden of Eden in Canto 28 of Purgatorio . Here he is told that God gave the Garden of Eden to man "in earnest, or as

7848-576: The invocation of a prestigious foreign deity. A coin issued by Pompey to celebrate his successful conquest of Judaea showed a kneeling, bearded figure grasping a branch (a common Roman symbol of submission) subtitled BACCHIVS IVDAEVS , which may be translated as either "The Jewish Bacchus " or "Bacchus the Judaean". The figure has been interpreted as depicting Yahweh as a local variety of Bacchus, that is, Dionysus . However, as coins minted with such iconography ordinarily depicted subjected persons, and not

7957-515: The latter difficult. Other scholars hold that Yahweh and Qōs were different deities from their origins, and suggest that the tensions between Judeans and Edomites during the Second Temple period may lie behind the omission of Qōs in the Bible. It has been argued that Yahweh was originally described as one of the sons of El in Deuteronomy 32:8–9 , and that this was removed by a later emendation to

8066-481: The life of a newborn child rather than the universe. This conception of God was more popular among ancient Near Easterners but eventually, the Israelites removed the association of yahwi- to any human ancestor and combined it with other elements (e.g. Yahweh ṣəḇāʾōṯ ). Hillel Ben-Sasson states there is insufficient evidence for Amorites using yahwi- for gods, but he argues that it mirrors other theophoric names and that yahwi- , or more accurately yawi , derives from

8175-623: The looting of the local hospital and the poor condition of the tree of knowledge made the return of tourism to the area challenging. The local economic, environmental and social conditions in Al-Qurnah district have since been described as fragile. Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions , the Garden of Eden ( Biblical Hebrew : גַּן־עֵדֶן ‎ , romanized:  gan-ʿĒḏen ; Greek : Εδέμ ; Latin : Paradisus ) or Garden of God ( גַּן־יְהֹוֶה ‎ , gan- YHWH and גַן־אֱלֹהִים ‎ , gan- Elohim ), also called

8284-458: The lower Gan Eden in order to reach the higher Gan Eden. The way to the garden is the Cave of Machpelah that Adam guards. The cave leads to the gate of the garden, guarded by a cherub with a flaming sword. If a soul is unworthy of entering, the sword annihilates it. Within the garden is a pillar of fire and smoke that extends to the higher Gan Eden, which the soul must climb in order to reach

8393-472: The monarchic period: to quote one study, "[a]n early aniconism, de facto or otherwise, is purely a projection of the post-exilic imagination". Other scholars argue that there is no certain evidence of any anthropomorphic representation of Yahweh during the pre-exilic period. Yahweh is frequently invoked in Graeco-Roman magical texts dating from the 2nd century BCE to the 5th century CE, most notably in

8502-524: The name with a Hebrew word for ' pleasure '; thus the Vulgate reads paradisum voluptatis in Genesis 2:8, and the Douay–Rheims Bible , following, has the wording "And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure". The second part of the Genesis creation narrative , Genesis 2:4–3:24, opens with YHWH - Elohim (translated here "the L ORD God") creating the first man ( Adam ), whom he placed in

8611-524: The national god. Yahweh filled the role of national god in the kingdom of Israel (Samaria) , which emerged in the 10th century BCE; and also in Judah , which may have emerged a century later (no "God of Judah" is mentioned anywhere in the Bible). During the reign of Ahab , and particularly following his marriage to Jezebel , Baal may have briefly replaced Yahweh as the national god of Israel (but not Judah). In

8720-456: The origin of the biblical creation myth from the first chapters of Genesis including the Garden of Eden and Adam narrative. Their reconstructed texts talk about the creator deity El , who lived in a vineyard or garden together with his wife Asherah on Mount Ararat . Another god, Horon , tries to depose El and when thrown down from the mountain, he transforms the Tree of Life from the garden into

8829-444: The principal deity to whom "one owed the powers of blessing the land" appear in the teachings of the prophet Elijah in the 9th century BCE. This form of worship was likely well established by the time of the prophet Hosea in the 8th century BCE, in reference to disputes between Yahweh and Baal. The early supporters of this faction are widely regarded as being monolatrists rather than true monotheists ; they did not believe Yahweh

8938-454: The river Tigris. In 1855, Al Qurnah was the site of the Qurnah Disaster , in which local tribes attacked and sank a convoy of a ship and rafts carrying 240 cases of antiquities discovered by Victor Place's mission to Khorsabad , Rawlinson 's to Kuyunjik and Fresnel 's to Babylon . The loss of priceless antiquities was a notable disaster for those researching the antiquities of the region. Subsequent efforts to recover antiquities lost in

9047-442: The root hwy in pa'al, which means "he will be". One scholarly theory is that "Yahweh" originated in a shortened form of ˀel ḏū yahwī ṣabaˀôt , "El who creates the hosts", which Cross considered to be one of the cultic names of El. However, this phrase is nowhere attested either inside or outside the Bible, and the two gods are in any case quite dissimilar, with El being elderly and paternal and lacking Yahweh's association with

9156-561: The same deity in the text, based on contextual analysis. The late Iron Age saw the emergence of nation states associated with specific national gods : Chemosh was the god of the Moabites, Milcom the god of the Ammonites, Qōs the god of the Edomites, and Yahweh the god of the Israelites. In each kingdom the king was also the head of the national religion and thus the viceroy on Earth of

9265-466: The scriptures were translated into Greek by the Jews of the Egyptian diaspora . Greek translations of the Hebrew scriptures render both the tetragrammaton and adonai as kyrios (κύριος), meaning "Lord". The period of Persian rule saw the development of expectation in a future human king who would rule purified Israel as Yahweh's representative at the end of time —a messiah . The first to mention this were Haggai and Zechariah , both prophets of

9374-465: The semantic equivalent of the Akkadian ibašši- DN; though Frank Moore Cross emphasized that the Amorite verbal form is of interest only in attempting to reconstruct the verbal root of the name "Yahweh", and that attempts to take yahwi- as a divine epithet should be "vigorously" argued against. In addition, J. Philip Hyatt believes it is more likely that yahwi- refers to a god creating and sustaining

9483-538: The singular sense—that is, as the supreme being of the universe and without any equals. In the oldest examples of biblical literature , Yahweh possesses attributes that were typically ascribed to deities of weather and war , fructifying the Land of Israel and leading a heavenly army against the nation's enemies. The early Israelites may have leaned towards polytheistic practices that were otherwise common across ancient Semitic religion , as their worship apparently included

9592-450: The sixth for youths who have never sinned; and the seventh for the poor who lived decently and studied the Torah. In chapter two, Legends of the Jews gives a brief description of the lower Gan Eden. The tree of knowledge is a hedge around the tree of life, which is so vast that "it would take a man five hundred years to traverse a distance equal to the diameter of the trunk". From beneath

9701-479: The sky also dropped.     Yes, the clouds dropped water. The mountains quaked at Yahweh's presence,     even Sinai at the presence of Yahweh, the God of Israel. ... From the sky the stars fought.     From their courses, they fought against Sisera . ( Book of Judges 5:4–5, 20, WEB World English Bible , the Song of Deborah .) Alternatively, parts of

9810-433: The storm and battles. Even if the above issues are resolved, Yahweh is generally agreed to have a non-causative etymology because otherwise, YHWH would be translated as YHYH. It also raises the question of why the Israelites would want to shorten the epithet. One possible reason includes the co-existence of religious modernism and conservatism being the norm in all religions. The oldest plausible occurrence of Yahweh's name

9919-503: The storm god imagery could derive from Baal. From the perspective of the Kenite hypothesis , it has also been suggested that the Edomite deity Qōs might have been one and the same as Yahweh, rather than a separate deity, with its name a title of the latter. Aside from their common territorial origins, various common characteristics between the Yahwist cult and the Edomite cult of Qōs hint at

10028-637: The story of Adam disobeying God's command and eating the Forbidden Fruit, and of God ordered him out of the Garden. One translation (the Clear Quran) that indicates that the Garden of Eden was in Heaven goes: Quranic verses describe Adam was being expelled from al-Jannah , "the garden", which is the commonly used word for paradise in Islam. However, according to Ibn Kathir (d. 1372) and Ar-Razi (d. 1209), (exegetes of

10137-607: The term. Rabbinic sources suggest that, by the Second Temple period , the name of God was officially pronounced only once a year, by the High Priest , on the Day of Atonement . After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE , the original pronunciation of the name was forgotten entirely. Philip King and Lawrence Stager place the history of Yahweh into the following periods: Other academic terms often used include First Temple period, from

10246-564: The text: When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,  when he divided up humankind, he set the boundaries of the peoples,  according to the number of the heavenly assembly. For the Lord's allotment is his people,   Jacob is his special possession. ( Book of Deuteronomy 32:8-9, New English Translation , Song of Moses ) Nonetheless, some scholars argue that El Elyon ("the Most High") and Yahweh are theonyms for

10355-594: The time of the Jewish–Roman wars —namely following the Roman siege of Jerusalem and the concomitant destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE—the original pronunciation of Yahweh's name was forgotten entirely. Additionally, Yahweh is invoked in the Aramaic -language Papyrus Amherst 63 from ancient Egypt , and also in Jewish or Jewish-influenced Greco-Egyptian magical texts from the 1st to 5th centuries CE. The god's name

10464-479: The tree of life" (Enoch 58,3) near to God and his anointed ones. This Jewish rabbinical concept of a higher Gan Eden is opposed by the Hebrew terms gehinnom and sheol , figurative names for the place of spiritual purification for the wicked dead in Judaism, a place envisioned as being at the greatest possible distance from heaven . Some modern Orthodox Jews believe that history will complete itself and

10573-409: The trees flow all the world's waters in the form of four rivers: Tigris, Nile, Euphrates, and Ganges. After the fall of man, the world was no longer irrigated by this water. While in the garden, though, Adam and Eve were served meat dishes by angels and the animals of the world understood human language, respected mankind as God's image, and feared Adam and Eve. When one dies, one's soul must pass through

10682-434: The ultimate destination will be when all mankind returns to the Garden of Eden. In the 1909 book Legends of the Jews , Louis Ginzberg compiled Jewish legends found in rabbinic literature . Among the legends are ones about the two Gardens of Eden. Beyond Paradise is the higher Gan Eden, where God is enthroned and explains the Torah to its inhabitants. The higher Gan Eden contains three hundred and ten worlds and

10791-493: The vicinity of Tabriz , but this suggestion has not been adopted by mainstream academia. Others theorize that Eden was merely a region of "considerable size" in Mesopotamia , where its native inhabitants still exist in cities such as Telassar , based on verses such as Isaiah 37:12. Or that it encompassed the entire Fertile Crescent. According to Terje Stordalen, the Book of Ezekiel places Eden in Lebanon. "[I]t appears that

10900-457: The writing of second Isaiah , Yahweh was no longer seen as exclusive to Israel, but as extending his promise to all who would keep the sabbath and observe his covenant. In 539 BCE Babylon in turn fell to the Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great , the exiles were given permission to return (although only a minority did so), and by about 500 BCE the Second Temple was built. Towards the end of

11009-590: The writings of several early church fathers, especially Origen and Maximus the Confessor . The term jannāt ʿadni ("Gardens of Eden" or "Gardens of Perpetual Residence") is used in the Quran for the destination of the righteous. There are several mentions of "the Garden" in the Quran, while the Garden of Eden, without the word ʿadn , is commonly the fourth layer of the Islamic heaven and not necessarily thought as

11118-425: Was a man, he could not have seen paradise, therefore he could not have lived there.) Islamic exegesis does not regard Adam and his spouse's expulsion from paradise as punishment for disobedience or a result from abused free will on their part. Instead, ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (1292–1350) writes, God's wisdom ( ḥikma ) destined humanity to leave the garden and settle on earth. This is because God wants to unfold

11227-448: Was from the southern region associated with Seir , Edom, Paran and Teman . There is considerable although not universal support for this view, but it raises the question of how Yahweh made his way to the north. An answer many scholars consider plausible is the Kenite hypothesis , which holds that traders brought Yahweh to Israel along the caravan routes between Egypt and Canaan . This ties together various points of data, such as

11336-540: Was no distinction in language or material culture between Canaanites and Israelites. Scholars accordingly define Israelite culture as a subset of Canaanite culture. In this view, the Israelite religion consisted of Canaanite gods such as El, the ruler of the pantheon , Asherah , his consort, and Baal . However, Israel Knohl argues that there is no evidence of any anthropomorphic figurines or cultic statues in Israel during this period, suggesting monotheistic practice. In

11445-830: Was on the Apalachicola River in Florida, near the town of Bristol . Some suggested that the location is in Jerusalem . On his third voyage to the Americas in 1498, Christopher Columbus thought he may have reached the Earthly Paradise upon first seeing the South American mainland. In his book The Creation, the Garden of Eden and the Origin of the Chinese , Tse Tsan-tai argued that

11554-665: Was rooted in the indigenous culture of the Kingdom of Israel and was promoted in the Kingdom of Judah by the Omrides . Frevel suggests that Hazael 's conquests in the Kingdom of Israel forced the two kingdoms to cooperate, which spread YHWH worship among Judean commoners. Previously, YHWH was viewed as the patron god of the Judean state . In the Early Iron Age, the modern consensus is that there

11663-536: Was the entire Fertile Crescent or a region of "considerable size" in Mesopotamia , where its native inhabitants still exist in cities such as Telassar . Like the Genesis flood narrative , the Genesis creation narrative and the account of the Tower of Babel , the story of Eden echoes the Mesopotamian myth of a king, as a primordial man, who is placed in a divine garden to guard the tree of life . Scholars note that

11772-412: Was the only god in existence, but instead believed that he was the only god which the people of Israel should worship. Finally, in the national crisis of the Babylonian exile , the followers of Yahweh went a step further and outright denied that the other deities aside from Yahweh even existed, thus marking the transition from monolatrism to true monotheism. The notion that Yahweh is to be worshipped as

11881-526: Was written in paleo-Hebrew as 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 ( יהוה ‎ in block script ), transliterated as YHWH ; modern scholarship has reached consensus to transcribe this as "Yahweh". The shortened forms Yeho -, Yahu -, Yah - and Yo - appear in personal names and in phrases such as " Hallelu jah !" The sacrality of the name, as well as the Commandment against " taking the name 'in vain'  ", led to increasingly strict prohibitions on speaking or writing

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