Is It Possible That The Garden Of Eden Is Located In Israel

The story of the Garden of Eden has posed more questions than answers for both scholars and people of faith. Did the Garden of Eden really exist? Where was it located? Most importantly, what was the biblical author's purpose?

Rather than trying to solve all these riddles, this article attempts to interpret the Garden of Eden as sacred space, comparing its features with those of other sacred places. This article disputes the common view that biblical descriptions of the Solomonic Temple were influenced by the Garden of Eden imagery; instead, it demonstrates that some features of Jerusalem and the Temple were incorporated into the Garden of Eden story.

While many biblical scholars have hypothesized that the Garden of Eden story has Mesopotamian roots, this article describes how the author of the Eden narrative tries to present the Garden of Eden as an Israelite sacred place geographically, historically, and religiously.

The Garden of Eden as Sacred Space

Historians of religion have shown that the most basic element of a sacred place is a manifestation of the holy. Even a single appearance of the deity can turn an ordinary place into a sacred site.¹ Following this line of thought, the author of the Eden narrative indicates the sanctity of the Garden of Eden by referring to the "presence of the Lord God" (Gen 3:8).² In the Yahwist's anthropomorphic account of God, we read that God is "moving about in the garden at the breezy time of day" (Gen 3:8). The same Hitpael verb, halakh, is used to describe God's actions in the Israelite camp in Deuteronomy 23:15 and God's presence in the sanctuary in Leviticus 26:12 and 2 Samuel 7:6.³ Just as the camp and the sanctuary are considered holy because God is present in these places, Yahweh's presence in the Garden makes it a sacred space.

According to Genesis 2:10–14, a river flowed through Eden that watered the Garden and then split into four branches that divided the surrounding land: the Pishon flowed around the land of Havilah, the Gihon around the land of Cush, the Tigris flowed east of Assyria, and the Euphrates. Historians have identified and located the latter two, but there is no consensus on the precise locations of the former two rivers. Due to our limited knowledge of ancient geography, it seems unlikely that they will ever be identified with absolute certainty. Rather than focusing on the geographical locations of the rivers, I would like here to point out the use of the number four. Four usually symbolizes geographical totality in biblical and other ancient Near Eastern literature. The "four corners" of the earth in Isaiah 11:12 refer to the four points of the compass and, by extension, the whole world. In one of Zechariah's prophetic visions, the four horses that patrol the world appear (1:8). Likewise, the "four heavenly winds" are frequently mentioned to denote the concept of wind spreading over the entire world (Jer 49:36; Ezek 37:9; Zech 2:10; 6:5). Therefore, the four river branches that flow out of Eden may be an indication that Eden was the center of the universe; according to historians of religion like Mircea Eliade, this is one of the most important characteristics of sacred space.⁴

The geographic alignment of the Garden also speaks to the author's understanding of it as sacred space. The entryway to the Garden was on the east side (Gen 3:24). This east–west alignment is one of the basic architectural elements of Israelite sacred buildings. Archaeologists have discovered that the major Israelite sacred sanctuaries—such as the Bull Site, Arad, and Tel Dan—all have an eastern entryway.⁵ In addition, both the Tabernacle and the Jerusalem Temple were oriented toward the east, with entrances on the east side.⁶ The fact that the Garden of Eden had an entrance on the eastern side may thus be understood as another aspect of its sacredness.⁷

The sacredness of the Garden of Eden is not just demonstrated through its geography. The very plants speak to its nature as a sacred space. Trees—like the mythical trees found in the Garden of Eden—are closely associated with theophany. Many ancient sacred places, both those of the Israelite religion and other ancient religions, are described as having sacred trees through which divine power manifests.⁸ Genesis 12:6–7 reports that when Abram arrives at Shechem, he experiences a theophany at the Oak of Moreh and builds an altar there (12:7). The Lord again appears to him by the oaks of Mamre in Genesis 18:1. Trees, in these stories, are the place of God's self-disclosure. The characteristic biblical remark "under every green tree" (Deut 12:2; 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 17:10; Isa 57:5; Jer 2:20; 3:6, 13; Ezek 6:13) demonstrates that a leafy tree was a hallmark of Israelite cultic sites. This practice was closely associated with the goddess Asherah, and there was a close connection between the deep-rooted tradition of the tree of life and the concept of the life-giving goddess. The asherim, possibly stylized trees, were one of the main components of biblical high places, or bamoth. Therefore, the presence of sacred trees in the Garden of Eden—such as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life—indicates that the Garden was considered a sacred place.

The Garden of Eden and the Solomonic Temple

Now let us examine how the author of the Garden of Eden story borrowed some of the elements commonly associated with the Solomonic Temple. There are many mythic and iconographic elements that associate the Temple with the Garden of Eden. In the Temple, there were two huge olivewood cherubim, overlaid with gold, with their wings touching each other (1 Kgs 6:23–30). The term cherub refers to a hybrid creature that has a human head with the body of a lion and the wings of an eagle. As composite animals, cherubim were thought to participate in both the divine and human realms. Thus, they guarded the boundaries between sacred and profane areas to protect the sacred spaces from trespasses. Images of cherubim decorated the gold-plated doors to the inner sanctuary of the Solomonic Temple (1 Kgs 6:31–32). Their role as guardian animals was to safeguard the inner sanctuary, the most sacred space on earth. Similarly, having banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, Yahweh placed cherubim at the entrance of the Garden to guard the way to the Tree of Life.

The First Temple also featured carved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers on the walls of the sanctuary (1 Kgs 6:29), but the Bible does not describe how these figures were composed. It is fortunate, therefore, that we get some hints from Ezekiel's vision of the new Temple, where he describes the ornamentation on the walls of the Temple building as including palm trees between cherubim with two faces: a human face turned toward the palm tree on the one side and the face of a young lion turned toward the palm tree on the other side (Ezek 41:18–19).⁹ The scene appears to have been composed of a continuous presentation of the sequence of palm trees and cherubim. Hence, there is an apparent analogy between such an iconographic motif: a sacred tree protected by cherubim on each side on the walls of the Temple, and the Tree of Life guarded by cherubim at the entrance to the Garden of Eden.

I suspect that the author's description of cherubim in the Garden of Eden story was mediated by the iconographic representations of trees and cherubim in the Solomonic Temple.¹⁰ We know that composite creatures such as cherubim and lamassu were featured in ancient temples and palaces in Syria and Mesopotamia.¹¹ The Solomonic Temple appears to have adopted this tradition. Therefore, it is more likely that the Garden of Eden narrative was inspired by the Temple tradition than that the biblical description of the Temple was inspired by the Garden of Eden. The author of the Genesis narrative may have attempted to present the Garden as the Israelite center of the world by associating it with the Temple, the dwelling place of God and the center of the universe.

It is also important to note the fact that on the Temple's porch stood two pillars, named Jachin and Boaz. They were each 18 cubits high and crowned with a five-cubit high capital, making each 23 cubits tall in total (1 Kgs 7). Since the temple itself stood 30 cubits high, we can assume that these pillars were freestanding and did not support any roof.¹² The two columns were extraordinarily elaborate, and the capitals were decorated with a rich floral design. Therefore, many scholars maintain that Jachin and Boaz were symbolic or ornamental rather than structural or functional.¹³

These pillars may have inspired the story of the two trees in the Garden. Scholars have been baffled by the presence of two different trees at the center of the Garden. While Genesis 2:9 locates the Tree of Life at the center of the Garden, Genesis 3:3 instead places the other tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, at its center. Therefore, some commentators hold that an originally independent tradition, that of the Tree of Life, was fused with the story of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the current biblical Garden narrative.¹⁴

This merger was triggered, in my view, by the observation that not one, but two tree-like pillars stood at the Temple. From ancient times, the Temple has been considered the center of the world, serving as an axis mundi where the divine and human spheres converge.¹⁵ The Solomonic Temple is the locus of communication between God and Isaiah (Isa 6). In addition, the new Temple in Ezekiel's vision represents the point where terrestrial and subterranean realms intersect both horizontally and vertically with the life-giving stream issuing from below the Temple threshold. This stream waters the entire land, turning it into a paradise (Ezek 47:1–12). Thus, the presence of twin pillars at the center of the world may have contributed to the idea of two mythical trees at the center of the Garden.

Archaeology also shows the connection between the Temple's pillars and the trees in the Garden of Eden. Some shrines from the tenth and ninth centuries BCE, excavated from Tell el-Far'ah and Transjordan, have an entrance flanked by two stylized trees.¹⁶ Given the fact that recent studies tend to favor the late date of the Yahwist source,¹⁷ these model shrines demonstrate that the iconographic motif of two trees is older than the composition of the Garden narrative. This, in turn, supports the interpretation that the two mythological trees in the Garden narrative may have been influenced by the presence of the two tree-like pillars in the Temple, and not vice versa.

The mention of Gihon in Gen 2:13 (see below), the eastern entryway of the Garden, the appearance of cherubim, and the twin tree-like pillars all confirm the direction of literary dependence. These are best explained by the Jerusalem tradition's influence on the Garden narrative rather than the other way around. Thus, it would be misleading to argue, as most scholars do, that the Solomonic Temple replicated the Garden of Eden.¹⁸ Instead, I believe the opposite can be said: some features of Jerusalem and the Temple were incorporated into the Garden of Eden tradition.

The Garden of Eden as an Israelite Sacred Place

As described above, Eden was seen as the source of the four rivers that watered the entire world. One of these rivers was the Gihon, a word that means "the bursting forth one" or "the gusher." Because the Bible describes Gihon as flowing around the entire land of Cush, which in some biblical texts refers to the land of Nubia in the south of Egypt (2 Kgs 19:9), it has often been identified as the Nile. An alternative theory links Cush with the Kuššû mentioned in Nuzi texts, where Kuššû refers to the Kassites who ruled Babylonia from the 16th century to the middle of the 12th century bce.¹⁹

However, there is another way to approach the symbolic significance of the river Gihon. There is another Gihon—this one an important water source in Jerusalem. Apart from these two biblical references, this name is not found anywhere else in the glossary of ancient Near Eastern geographical names,²⁰ which strongly suggests a connection between Eden's Gihon and the Gihon spring in Jerusalem.

Habakkuk 3, one of the oldest and most difficult texts in the Hebrew Bible, sheds light on this issue. This passage contains a series of toponyms ending in -ān, such as Teman and Paran in verse 3 and Cushan and Midian in verse 7. It is possible that Cushan is a variant of Cush designed to create "a poetic effect, with the opening and closing bicolons of vv 3–7."²¹ Habakkuk 3:7 seems to equate Cushan with the land of Midian. In fact, we have Egyptian texts that mention Kushu as the name of a region in southern Transjordan. This is the place where the Midianites were active.²² Therefore, the place name Kushu in the Egyptian texts may have been related both to the Cushan mentioned in Habakkuk 3:7 and the land of Cush where the river Gihon flowed.

In Numbers 12, while the people of Israel are in Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron accuse Moses of marrying a Cushite woman. The people were in the middle of their journey from Sinai to Kadesh, so Hazeroth was thus probably located in southern Transjordan. Therefore, the Cushite woman whom Moses took as his wife was more than likely a local woman from that region. Nubia, the other proposed location for Cush, was too far from Hazeroth, therefore here the term Cushite seems to equate with Midianite, strengthening the association of Cush with Midian.²³

Why is all this important? Scholars have long hypothesized that Yahwism originated within the Midianites. The earliest biblical traditions are preserved in archaic Hebrew poetry; passages such as Judges 5:4, Deuteronomy 33:2, and Habakkuk 3:3 locate the genesis of Yahwism within Midianite territory. These pieces of biblical evidence are very much in line with the long-cherished "Midianite Hypothesis" which maintains that Moses was introduced to Yahwism through his father-in-law, Jethro, a Midianite priest, presumably for the cult of Yahweh.

Taking all of the above into account, it is possible to read Genesis 2:13 in a different light. Both Gihon and Cush are names connected with important Israelite religious heritage: Gihon is the life-giving water source in Jerusalem and Cush is the home of Yahwism, the very foundation of Israel's faith. The Yahwistic author of the Eden narrative may be endeavoring to display Eden's sacred nature by tying it to Jerusalem, the holiest place on earth. At the same time, the author, who was well versed in the tradition of Israel's sojourn in the southern Transjordan, found in Cush, the place Yahwism originated, a sort of kernel of Israel's early religious history and used Cush in his description of Eden's rivers.

But what did the Yahwistic writer hope to achieve through this literary borrowing? Many commentators point to the Mesopotamian roots of the Garden narrative.²⁴ Judging from the allusions to the Tigris and the Euphrates, Eden's location in the east (meaning that it was located east of Palestine, i.e. in Mesopotamia), and the Hebrew word 'ēd, or "stream" (a term probably derived from Sumerian id, "the cosmic river") (Gen 2:6),²⁵ a Mesopotamian tradition did indeed lie behind the biblical descriptions of the Garden of Eden.

By employing elements familiar from descriptions of Jerusalem and the Temple, the author of the Genesis Eden narrative may have attempted to attenuate the Mesopotamian flavor of the inherited Garden material and present the Garden of Eden as belonging to the Israelite religious tradition. As a result of literary accretions, especially Gihon and Cush, the Garden of Eden, which may have been somewhere between the two great rivers of Mesopotamia, has been geographically relocated closer to Israelite territory and has come to symbolically represent the center of the world.

The narrator's contemporary readers, who were familiar with the city of Jerusalem and the Temple, would have immediately noticed the parallels between the Garden and Jerusalem and the Temple and would have recognized the Garden of Eden, the place where God's creative activity and the history of humankind had begun, as an Israelite sacred place.

Garden Imagery in Exilic Literature

With the addition of some features from Jerusalem and the Solomonic Temple, especially Gihon and Cush, the Garden of Eden tradition comes to represent Israelite sacred space and a spiritual home for the Israelites. As such, the story of Eden drew the attention of the prophets and poets who were active during the exilic period, when the Israelites lost their home and the Temple.

The association of sacred waters with life and fecundity is well attested in both the Eden narrative and ancient Near Eastern mythology;²⁶ the most well-known example is the Ugaritic description of El's dwelling place at the "source of the two rivers, in the midst of the fountains of the double-deep" (KTU 1.2 III 4; 1.3 V 6; 1.4 IV 19).²⁷ This theme of abundant waters continues throughout the Hebrew Bible. In Ezekiel 47, the prophet envisages a new Temple, from which a great stream of fresh water issues. It appears that the rivers of Ezekiel's Temple reflect Eden's cosmic rivers.²⁸ The prophet connects the two using parallel motifs: for example, the two clumps of trees on both sides of the river in Ezekiel 47:7 may mirror the two trees in the Garden.²⁹

Ezekiel uses the Yahwistic tradition of the Garden of Eden in other ways as well. He envisions the restoration of the devastated land, a restoration he likens to the luxuriant Garden of Eden (36:33–35). In addition, Ezekiel uses Eden's trees in a fable about the fall of the magnificent tree (31:1–18) to describe the fate of the magnificent cedar of Lebanon, a metaphor for the king of Assyria. Again, the imagery relating to the cosmic waters and rivers is conspicuous in this pericope (31:4).

Ezekiel uses a stock of images associated with the Garden of Eden in his lengthy oracle against the Prince of Tyre in Ezekiel 28:11–16. Various precious stones and gold in verse 13 recall the description of the land of Havilah, around which the first river of Eden flows.³⁰ According to the Eden narrative, the land is known as a place of gold, bdellium, and onyx (Gen 2:11–12). It is also suggested that the Prince of Tyre is an archetype of Adam, the first man: the Prince is created by God just as Adam was (vv. 13, 15); he walks in Eden, the Garden of God, just as Adam did (v. 13); and he is expelled from the Garden just as Adam was (v. 16).³¹ The cherub mentioned in verses 14 and 16 is clearly reminiscent of the cherubim stationed at the eastern entrance to secure the way to the Tree of Life. In addition, the tradition of the "flame of sword" in Genesis 3:24 may lie behind Ezekiel's allusions to the fire in verses 14, 16, and 18 and the sword in verses 7 and 23.

Deutero-Isaiah also has a tendency to describe the restoration of Jerusalem, or Zion, using the language of the Garden of Eden. The author likens the restored Jerusalem to Eden and the Garden of Yahweh:

For the Lord will comfort Zion;

he will comfort all her waste places,

and will make her wilderness like Eden,

her desert like the garden of theLord;

joy and gladness will be found in her,

thanksgiving and the voice of song.

(Isa 51:3)

The themes of luxuriance and exuberance common to both the Temple and the Garden of Eden serve as a literary motif on which an Israelite poet plays:

They feast on the abundance of your house,

and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

For with you is the fountain of life;

in your light we see light.

(Ps 36:8–9)

It is obvious that "your house" in verse 8 alludes to the Temple. The reference to the "river of your delights" is probably the psalmist's deliberate attempt to evoke the rivers of Eden; the Hebrew word for "(your) delights" ('dnyk) not only bears phonetic resemblance to Eden ('dn), but it is also probably etymologically related.³² The idea of the cosmic river as the source of life continues in verse 9. Thus, this psalm is a good illustration of the literary blending of the Garden of Eden and the Temple traditions.

Most of the above passages stem from the exilic or post-exilic period, thus it is fair to say that opulent depictions of the Garden of Eden resurfaced after the destruction of the First Temple as an ideal model of the restored Jerusalem and the new Temple. It was Ezekiel who elevated the significance of Jerusalem's water to a higher level, envisioning the small stream issuing from below the Temple's threshold as a great river that sweetens the Dead Sea, bestows life and blessings upon all the Land of Israel, and turns the land into a new paradise (47:1–12).

Conclusion

This article demonstrates that the biblical description of the Garden of Eden shares some characteristics with sacred space as defined by historians of religion. In addition, some elements of the Eden narrative seem to have been borrowed from descriptions of the Temple, which contradicts the common interpretation that the Solomonic Temple replicated the Garden of Eden. The Yahwistic author attempted to present the Garden of Eden as an Israelite sacred place, downplaying its Mesopotamian connection and, especially, drawing on geographically and religiously important traditions like those of Gihon and Cush.

On the other hand, thanks to the connection with the luxuriant imagery of the well-watered Garden, Jerusalem and the Temple in turn acquired symbolic import as the source of life and blessing to the rest of the world, a theme cherished and entertained by later Israelite poets and prophets (Ezek 47; Isa 51:3; Ps 36:8–10).

1
This is a revised excerpt from my unpublished doctoral dissertation entitled 'Creation, Eden, Temple and Mountain: Textual Representations of Sacred Space in the Hebrew Bible', completed at the Johns Hopkins University.

2
David P. Wright, "Holiness, Sex, and Death in the Garden of Eden," Biblica 77 (1996): 307.

3
T. Stordalen, Echoes of Eden: Genesis 2–3 and Symbolism of the Eden Garden in Biblical Hebrew Literature (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2000), 458.

4
For the discussion of sacred space, see Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (London: Harcourt, 1987), 8–65; idem, Patterns in Comparative Religion (London: Sheed and Ward, 1958), 367–87.

5
Amihai Mazar, "The 'Bull Site'—An Iron Age I Open Cult Place," BASOR 247 (1982): 27–42; Z. Herzog, M. Aharoni, and A. Rainey, "Arad—An Ancient Israelite Fortress with a Temple to Yahweh," BAR 13:02 (1987): 16–35; Avraham Biran, "Sacred Spaces: Of Standing Stones, High Places and Cult Objects at Tel Dan," BAR 24:05 (1998): 38–45, 70.

6
This has often been taken as evidence of the widespread practice of the solar cult in ancient Israel. For some information on the solar worship in ancient Israel, see J. Glen Taylor, "Was Yahweh Worshiped as the Sun?" BAR 20 (1994): 52–61, 90–1; Mark S. Smith, "The Near Eastern Background of Solar Language for Yahweh," JBL 109 (1990): 29–39; idem, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2002), 115–24; Othmar Keel and C. Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1998), 283–316.

7
Some scholars interpret this feature as evidence of the Garden as a sort of sanctuary. See David Chilton, Paradise Restored: An Eschatology of Dominion (Tyler, TX: Reconstruction, 1985), 29; Gordon J. Wenham, "Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story," I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1–11, ed. Richard S. Hess and David T. Tsumura (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 399–404. But many parallels proposed by Wenham are flimsy as Wright rightly criticizes. See Wright, "Holiness, Sex, and Death," 312 no. 29.

8
For more information on tree symbolism in world religions see Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 265–330.

9
The palm tree seems to be a Palestinian cultural variation of the original tree of life motif. The appearance of the date palm may be attributed to the fact that it was very common in the region. See Othmar Keel, Goddesses and Trees, New Moon and Yahweh: Ancient Near Eastern Art and the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 30.

10
However, its ultimate source may have been the age-old iconographic tradition of the sacred tree of life flanked by mythical guardian animals including cherubim.

11
For example, the 'Ain Dara Temple, the scene on the sarcophagus of Ahiram, and the palace of Sargon II.

12
Yeivin suggests that there were double capitals, which would make up for some of the height difference. Even so, the total height of the pillars would only amount to 27 cubits. S. Yeivin, "Jachin and Boaz," PEQ 91 (1959): 1–15.

13
Victor A. Hurowitz, "YHWH's Exalted House—Aspects of the Design and Symbolism of Solomon's Temple," Temple and Worship in Biblical Israel, ed. John Day (London: T & T Clark, 2005), 82; Meyers, "Jachin and Boaz," 598.

14
Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987), 62–63.

15
Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 367–87; idem, The Sacred and the Profane, 36–47.

16
Ziony Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London: Continuum, 2001), 334 fig. 4.15, 337 fig. 4.20; Keel and Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God, 161 figs. 188a, 188b.

17
Hans H. Schmid, Der sogenannte Jahwist: Beobachtungen und Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung (Zürich: Theologischer, 1976); John van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University, 1975); idem, Der Jahwist als Historiker (Zürich: Theologischer, 1987); Christoph Levin, Der Jahwist (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993).

18
Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, "'Who is the King of Glory?' Solomon's Temple and Its Symbolism," Scripture and Other Artifacts: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Honor of Philip J. King, ed. M. D. Coogan, J. C. Exum, and L. E. Stager (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 27; idem, "Solomon's Temple: The Politics of Ritual Space," Sacred Time, Sacred Place: Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, ed. Barry M. Gittlen (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 87; Lawrence E. Stager, "Jerusalem and the Garden of Eden," Eretz-Israel 26 (1999): 183–94; idem, "Jerusalem as Eden," BAR 26 (2000): 36–47, 66; Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985), 131.

19
According to Genesis 10:8, as the son of Cush, Nimrod ruled the land of Babylon, Uruk (biblical Erech), Akkad, Assyria, Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen, most of which can be found in Mesopotamia. In addition, the land of Nimrod appears in parallel with the land of Assyria in Micah 5:5. These observations have led some scholars to locate Cush on Mesopotamian soil.

20
Stager, "Jerusalem and the Garden," 189.

21
Francis I. Andersen, Habakkuk: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 312.

22
William F. Albright, "The Psalm of Habakkuk," Studies in Old Testament Prophecy, ed. H. H. Rowley (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1950), 15; Theodore Hiebert, God of My Victory: The Ancient Hymn in Habakkuk 3 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1986), 89–90. Note also Albright's remark: "we may suggest that the land of Kushu … is the region from Arnon southward into Midian, corresponding to the archaic Kushan of Hab 3:7, which appears as a synonym of Midian." William F. Albright, "The Land of Damascus between 1850 and 1750 B.C.," BASOR 83 (1941): 34 no. 8; Redford and Coogan accept this identification of Kushu with Midian. Donald B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (Princeton: Princeton University, 1992), 92; Michael D. Coogan, The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures (New York: Oxford University, 2006), 108. For the original publication of the Egyptian texts from the 19th century bce in which Kushu clearly appears as one of the Asiatic countries, see G. Posener, Princes et pays d'Asie et de Nubie: Textes hiératiques dur des figurines d'envoûtement du Moyen Empire (Bruxelles: Fondation Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth, 1940), 88–9 (E 50–1).

23
Thus, the Cushite woman mentioned in Numbers 12 could be none other than Moses' wife Zipporah.

24
Some Mesopotamian myths describe the garden of the gods. For example, Gilgamesh went to the garden of jewels where, like the Garden of Eden, the trees of the gods and various kinds of precious stones were (Gilgamesh IX, 170–90). See Andrew George, The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian (London: Penguin Books, 1999), 75.

25
On the use of this term to refer to the river ordeal in the Hebrew Bible, see P. Kyle McCarter, "The River Ordeal in Israelite Literature," HTR 66 (1973): 403–12. McCarter notes that the etymological connection of the Hebrew with the Sumerian word id was first suggested by Dhorme in 1907 in his "L'arbre de vérité et l'arbre de vie," RB 4 (1907): 274.

26
In addition to Ugaritic and biblical examples, the waters were seen as the birthplace of the gods in Mesopotamia as well. Enki, the Mesopotamian god of the freshwater ocean, was known as the provider of the water of life. He is depicted as a seated god with streams of water issuing from his shoulders (Samuel N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C. [rev. ed.; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1972], 90). For the significant role water plays in ancient Near Eastern cosmologies, see Richard J. Clifford, Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and in the Bible (Washington, DC: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1994), 138–44.

27
Prominent gods are often depicted as seated between two water streams. For example, a cylinder seal from Mari contains a representation of a god seated on the mountain, between the springs of two streams. In Mesopotamia, Enki was envisaged as a god enthroned "in the midst of the mouth of the two rivers." See Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 47–48; A detailed discussion of El's abode is found in Mark S. Smith, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle: Introduction with Text, Translation and Commentary of KTU 1.1–1.2. (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 225–34.

28
Tuell also points out that Ezekiel 47:9 contains vocabulary, such as nefeš ḥayyah and the term šrṣ, found in the Priestly creation and flood stories. Tuell, "The Rivers of Paradise: Ezekiel 47:1–12 and Genesis 2:101–4," God Who Creates: Essays in Honor of W. Sibley Towner, ed. William P. Brown and S. Dean McBride Jr. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 172. For the correspondences between the Priestly tradition and Ezekiel, see Coogan, The Old Testament, 392–93.

29
Jon D. Levenson, Theology of the Program of Restoration of Ezekiel 40–48 (Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1976), 32.

30
These precious stones are nine of the twelve stones in the high priest's breastplate in Exodus 28:17–20.

31
Donald E. Gowan, When Man Becomes God: Humanism and Hybris in the Old Testament (Pittsburg: Pickwick, 1975), 75–76.

32
The most compelling evidence that ties the word Eden with a sense of "abundance and pleasure" comes from the bilingual inscription discovered at Tell Fekheriyeh in northern Syria. In the inscription, the Aramaic m'dn has the Assyrian counterpart of muṭaḫḫidu ("to enrich, make abundant"). See A. R. Millard, "The Etymology of Eden," VT 34 (1984): 103–6; J. C. Greenfield, "A Touch of Eden," Orientalia: J. Duchesne-Guillemin Emerito Oblata (Leiden: Brill, 1984), 219-24. Following McCarter's suggestion, Stager points out that the "Garden of Plenty" (kirî nuḫši) in a mid-7th century bce Assyrian text is the "semantic equivalent of the 'Garden of Eden.'" See Stager, "Jerusalem and the Garden," 186 and 193 no. 19; idem, "Jerusalem as Eden," 43.

Seung Il Kang is associate professor in the College of General Education at Hannam University in South Korea. His research interests focus primarily on the interpretation of the Old Testament and various aspects of the religion of ancient Israel.