“7 then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground the LORD God made 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 the knowledge of good and evil. A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. 11The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. 14The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.” Genesis, New Revised Standard Version
This one passage has given rise to endless speculation about the true location of the Garden, which is either east of Eden or in Eden, in the east (depending on how the eighth verse is translated). I do not think that this is such a mystery, and can demonstrate why I think the Garden is rather easy to find – once we start with an identification of Eve with the Hurrian goddess Hebat/Heba.
Readers who wish to research the etymological intricacies of the Eve/Hawwah = Hebat/Heba equivalency are welcome to do so. There has been a great deal written on the probable correspondence and it is not the aim of the present paper to go over these arguments. To best summarize a recent scholarly position on the issue, I am quoting Note 30 from I.M. Diakonoff’s “Evidence of the Ethnic Division of the Hurrians”, in Studies on the Civilization and the Culture of the Nuzi and the Hurrians by E. R. Lacheman, 1981:
“It is Heba in all PN (and therefore this form is the more archaic) but Hebat, Hebatu in Bogazkoy, in Ugaritic lists, in the Hieroglyphic Luwian texts and elsewhere. E.A. Speiser had pointed out that this t does not, contrary to the rules of Hurrian phonetics, develop to *d, and hence is (a) late, (b) Semitic. He compared West Semitic *Hawwatu, Hebr. Hawwa “Eve”. The name cannot be borrowed from West Semitic because, first, the form Heba is earlier than the Semitic addition –t- (this is, among other proffs, shown by the existence of Huba in Urartian), and second, because intervocalic *b may develop to West Semitic b > /w(w)/, but Semitic *w cannot be reflected as Hurrian b… Therefore, although there may have been an identification of Hurr. Heba > Hebatu with West Semitic Hawwa < Hawwatu, either the two mythological figures must have originally been quite separate, or it was Heba who was the original. The Semitic etymology of Hawwa is not above some suspicions.”
Gary Beckman, Professor of Hittite and Mesopotamian Studies, Department of Near Eastern Studies, at the University of Michigan, passed along this on the goddess Hebat, her name and other goddesses with whom she was identified:
“It has recently been demonstrated that her name developed through some complicated sound changes from *Halabat, “the (female) one of Aleppo.” She became the chief goddess of the western Hurrian pantheon and spouse of the Storm-God Teshshub. Among Hurrians in the east, this position was held by Shaushga, a goddess whose name was usually hidden under the word-sign Ishtar. [At Nippur, Innana/Ishtar was called nin edin "the Lady of Eden"]. Within the syncretistic late pantheon of the Hittite empire, when figures from the earlier Anatolian god world were assimilated to members of the newly-adopted Hurrian pantheon, Hebat was also identified with the Sun-goddess of Arinna. But this was simply because each was the partner of the Storm-god in the respective systems (Anatolian Tarhunt and Hurrian Teshshub). This is most famously illustrated in a prayer of Queen Puduhepa in which she addresses the Sun-goddess, mentioning that “in the Land of Cedars (Syria) they call you Hebat.”
Dr. Mark Weeden of Oxford and other top Assyriologists agree on the derivation of Hebat's name from the city-name Aleppo.
Professor Piotr Taracha on the origin of Hebat:
"The early form of her name, Ha(l)abatu, attested already in the third millenium BCE, connects Hebat with her city: Lady of Halab. As you can read in Archi's, she was originally a goddess of morning dew (in the second millenium she was identified in Ugarit with Pidray). Hence, she has nothing to do with Ishtar/Inanna or Venus-type goddesses (although, Teshub and Shaushka/Ishtar stood at the head of the East Hurrian pantheon, as it is the case in Nuzi. However, they were considered brother and sister rather than a couple. Due to its nature Pidray was identified with both Ishtar and Hebat in multilingual lists of gods from Ugarit). Her 'career' was connected with her being a spouse of Haddu, the stormgod of Halab, who was of supra-regional significance already in the third millenium To sum up, Hebat was originally a West Semitic goddess from Halab. In the early second millenium Halab was the capital of Yamhad, something that further stimulated a further 'career' of Haddu and Hebat. They retained their position in the Hurrianised pantheon. Hebat was still worshipped in the first millenium BCE in such Neo-Hittite centers as Kummaha (Kommagene) and Malida (Melitene).
The origin of the name Adam will be discussed below.
Some scholars (although to a degree considered "fringe") have made a case for an identification of the four rivers of Eden. David Rohl (see The Jerusalem Report, February 1, 1999, “Paradise Found”), deriving his material primarily from the earlier independent scholar Reginald Walker, equated the Gihon with the Aras or Araks, and the Pishon with the Uizhon (and alternate spellings, the P showing a supposed Semitic shift; the river is now known as the Qezel Qwzan and is the upper half of the Sefid Rud ). Unfortunately, he is an archaeologist and not a linguist, and his analysis of the river-names and other place-names has been disputed. Such identifications rely on late Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian names and therefore cannot be trusted to be accurate forms.
If we "respect" the Biblical account (yes, I know - an exercise fraught with peril!), we need to fulfill some conditions. First, we cannot opt for a location for the garden that runs directly contrary to the account. One example of this would be the recent effort to find Eden at the head of the Persian Gulf by identifying the Pishon with the newly discovered dry 'Kuwait' river (see James A. Sauer, "The River Runs Dry," Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 22, No. 4, July/August 1996, pp. 52-54, 57, 64. Molly Dewsnap, "The Kuwait River," Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 22, No. 4, July/August 1996, p. 55.). Second, the actual river of the garden HAS to have four rivers branching out from it (or seeming to branch out from, or symbolically branching out from it). Furthermore, we MUST have a verifiable association of the said river of the garden with Heba/Eve and Adam. Rohl neglected to fulfill the last two of these critical requirements.
The Tigris and Euphrates we know and they are not a problem. Gihon and the Pishon are quite the opposite.
The Pishon is said to surround the land of Havilah (Hebrew Chaviylah). This land, mentioned only once in the Bible, is not otherwise known and researchers have sought it all over the place, primarily in southwest Arabia or even in Africa. However, there is an ancient city that can tentatively be located on the upper Khabur, the largest tributary of the Euphrates. The name of this place is Hawilum (Hawalum, Hawlum). A temple at the site was dedicated by the king of Urkesh (Tell Mozan) and Nawar (Tell Brak) - both on the headwaters of the Khabur. Thus these cities are in the region of the Turkish-Syrian border, pretty much exactly between the Euphrates to the west and the Tigris to the east. I would equate Hawilum with Havilah.
The inscription concerning Hawilum may be found here: http://www.urkesh.org/pages/571.htm.
While Hawilum has not be precisely located, the Syriac lexicographer Bar-Bahlũl (10th century) mentions the toponym HWYL´ (Hwilā, Huwaylā, and in one exemplar of his lexicon H/Kwilā or H/Kuwaylā), which he associates with the city of GWZN (vocalised Gawzan; Lexicon Syriacum ed. R.Duval [1888-1896] col. 426 and n .25). This GWZN is probably Guzana, which we now know to be Tell Halaf. Thus Hiwalum may have been in the vicinity of the latter ancient city.
I have confirmed the above with Professor Amir Harrak. He writes (personal communication):
"It is a 10th century AD Syriac source that says literally: GWZN, according to Bar-Saroshway (ca. 900 AD) is a city which is HWYL’. The latter name is not consistent in all manuscripts. There are 2 issues here: whether or not Syriac GWZN is Guzana and I think it is since Syriac authors were native of the Khabur for centuries if not millennia , and whether or not HWYL’ is Hawilum. Because of the variant spellings of this name found in the Syriac sources I am not sure of the association HWYL’ Hawilum. Ancient names do appear in late Syriac sources and an important one is Edessa near the Upper Euphrates whose Syriac name is Urhay. The same 10th century source gives its ancient name (Adme) known since the 19th century BC in Assyrian sources; see my article on this in JNES 51 (1992) pp. 209-214."
[The city name Adme has been linked to the Biblical name Adam. This from “Amorite names and old testament onomastics”(https://ur.booksc.org/ireader/29429551) by Ebbe Egede Knudsen:
177+ a-da-mu (fern.), also Rép. 2,49, same spelling 178+, 2004+ hada-mu (both
masc.) for /adamu/. In the context of Biblical studies it is of interest to
note that the spelling a-da-mu also appears as an ancestor's name at the
beginning of the Assyrian King List.31 Presumably the name is distinct from the
divine name Admu as in 2443+ i-dindad-mu an Akkadianizing spelling (K 1) for
/yantin-adm/ "Admu gave." Or is ad-mu another Akkadianizing spelling
with vowel contraction (K 2.6a) from /adamu/ as in the Amorite cognate of ΓΠΒ7Χ
q.v.? Admu is common in feminine names like 670 f,(d:]ad-mu-si-imhi
"Admu is my delight," 667 ad-mu-ne-ri (all Mari) "Admu is my light" and others. It may possibly be a name of the sun god (lit. "the red one"), compare below s.v. pb, or it is related to the geographical name Admum as suggested by Birot.32 The name of the Ebla goddess spelled ia-dam-ma and da-dam-tumi3 is likely to be related
Edessa/Adme was, according to Edward Lipinski (see THE ARAMAEANS, p. 170), within Bit-Adini. Prof. Dr. Ariel M. Bagg (Seminar für Sprachen und Kulturen des Vorderen Orients/Assyriologie, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg) agrees with Lipinski, saying
“In fact, Urfa/Edessa lay most probably in the territory of first millennium Bit-Adini. The ancient Name in Neo-Assyrian times is not known, but it was proposed as a candidate for Ruggulitu (RGTC 7, 204), a city in Bit-Adini. The ancient name of Urfa in early periods is still matter of debate and many identifications were proposed in the literature.”
I
will have more on the Bit-Adini kingdom name below.
Just as importantly, Edessa/Adme was also for a time under Hurrian control, and
it was the Hurrians who worshipped the goddess Hebat. The Biblical Eve appears
to derive from this goddess.]
Other scholars now agree in placing Hawilum in the western part of the Khabur Triangle. The following, for example, is from G.Buccellati and M. Kelly-Buccellati's "The Great Temple Terrace at Urkesh and the Lions of Tish-atal", SCCNH (Owen Volume), December, 2005:
"The fact that NERGAL is called 'Lord of Hawalum" implies that his temple was in that locality, and the name Hawalum had no known link with Urkesh (its localization remains unknown, though it is assumed to be in the Khabur Triangle, west of Urkesh)."
Allowing for Hawilum = Havilah, "Cush" is pretty plainly a reference to Urkesh, i.e. the City ( = Ur) of Kesh, itself at Tell Mozan on the Upper Khabur. Urkesh is here a substitution for Sumerian Kish, which was linked to Biblical Nimrod, whose father was Cush (see https://www.jstor.org/stable/1585058?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3Aacf9525c601db894ad869216df956f84&seq=12#page_scan_tab_contents). The Gihon, however, cannot be another name for the Khabur (ancient Hubur or Habur), but must instead be the Wadi Darca, as Urkesh/Tell Mozan is near the headwaters of this stream. The Khabur's name was known anciently (and will be discussed below), so equating it with Gihon is not something we can allow.
The Pishon (Hebrew Pison), being associated with Hiwalum near/at Guzana/Tell Halaf, has to be the Wadi Djirjib. The name itself could be from Old Babylonian pis, meaning "quay, port; bank, shore, rim; stream, wadi, gorge" (Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary). However, from Old Babylonian on, including Akkadian, there is pisannu, 'drainage passage' or 'drainpipe' (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary). The Djirjib is to the west of the Wadi Darca of Urkesh and both are within the Khabur Triangle.
So together the Pishon and Gihon designate streams associated with the Khabur River.
And what of the river that actually flows from the Garden?
Well, we need to begin at Tell Ahmar, the site of ancient Aramaean Til Barsip (Hittite Masuwari) and the capital of the small kingdom of Bit-Adini, Biblical Beth-Eden (Amos 1:5).
Til Barsip is on the Euphrates a dozen miles to the southeast of Carchemish, and Carchemish is roughly 75 miles west of Abraham's Haran. Bit-Adini/Beth-Eden stretched from the Sajur River, a tributary of the Euphrates whose mouth was approximately opposite the capital to the west, to the Balikh River, another tributary of the Euphrates further south. Scholars now believe it embraced some territory to the west of the Euphrates as well.
It appears fairly obvious, then, that the Balikh, which formed a boundary for Bit-Adini/Beth Eden, is the actual river that flowed from the Garden.
The following wonderful description of Til-Barsip is courtesy peeters-leuven.be/boekoverz_print.asp?nr=8841:
“Tell Ahmar, ancient Til Barsib, on the east bank of the Euphrates River, close to the confluence of the Sajur River, was ideally placed to function as a crossing point from upper Mesopotamia to northern Syria. To a large extent the prominent and strategic location of Tell Ahmar determined the Assyrian interest in the site and its apparent that Tell Ahmar reached its maximum size under the Assyrians.”
While the location of Eden in the Bible has been intentionally mystified, no verse better than 2 Kings 19:12-13 shows better where it is to be found:
"Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my predecessors destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar (Tell Assur, 'Hill of the god Assur' of the Assyrians)? Where is the King of Hamath, the king of Arpad, etc."
All these places are known to be in northern Mesopotamia and Syria. 2 Kings 19:12-13 is repeated in Isaiah 37:12-13.
Rivers
of the Garden of Eden
1)
Balikh, coming from and watering the Garden
2)
Pishon/Wadi Djirjib of Hiwalum/Tell Halaf (Khabur River)
3)
Gihon/Wadi Darca of Urkesh/Tell Mozan (Khabur River)
4)
Euphrates
5)
Tigris
More exciting than the identification of the rivers is the presence at Til Barsip/Tell Ahmar of inscriptions bearing the name of the goddess Hebat/Hepat, as well as theophoric personal names containing her name. To quote from THE DICTIONARY OF DEITIES AND DEMONS IN THE BIBLE on Hebat:
“In the Hurrian pantheon. the goddess Hebat occupies a high rank: she is the wife of the weather-god Teshub and the mother of Sharruma (DANMANVlLLE 1972-75:326). Her epithet 'Lady of heaven' or - "Queen of Heaven' underscores her celestial character. In the course of tradition, she has been assimilated to the sun-goddess of Arinna. The theologians of Ugarit equated her with Pidraya. one of the daughters of -'Baal (Ug. 5 [1968] 503.525). She may have been associated more particularly with Venus, as she corresponds rather closely to Ishtar. In Nuzi, the spouse of Teshub is called Ishtar (R. F. S. STARR, Nuzi, Vol. I [Cambridge MA 1939] 529), and elsewhere Pidraya (dpi-id. di-rf;·)'a» is assimilated to Ishtar (Cf 25, PI. 17 ii 12).
Also found at Til Barsip is the goddess Adamma. Francesco Domponio (in "Adamma Paredra Di Rasap") gives as the various forms of Adamma's name Adamma, Adama, Adamaum, Adammaum and Adamtum.
In E. Lipinski’s “Resheph. A Syro-Canaanite Deity. (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 181, Editions Peeters, Leuven 2009)”, the author rejects the association of the name of the goddess Adamma with the similar looking word in Semitic languages for ‘earth’. More likely in his opinion is the relation to ‘blood’ (Hebrew dam). Adamma was the consort of Rasap (Resheph).
According to Alfonso Archi ("The Gods of Ebla", NIT Annual Report, 2010):
"A common epithet of Rashap was "of-the-garden" [rsp gn, with gn being the Canaanite equivalent of Hebrew gn, the word used to describe the Garden of Eden], which does not seem to refer to "the cemetery", neither at Ebla, nor at Ugarit. At Ebla the spouse of Rashap was Adamma - there is also an "Adamma-of-the-garden." In the second millenium this goddess was no longer associated with Rashap, but was included in the Hurrian pantheon and associated with the goddess of Karkamish, Kubaba."
[It will be admitted that some scholars do not read GN as 'garden', but as a place-name GUNUM. The following is from Mary Seeley, Subject Librarian (History & Religions; Ancient Near East, Semitics & Judaica), Teaching and Research Support (Library), School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London: "SOAS Library has a copy of Lipinksi's book Resheph: a Syro-Canaanite deity (classmark QK929.4 / 738142).
I have had a quick look at the contents, and in Chapter 1 (Resheph in the Ebla Archives) Lipinski transcribes the GN epithet of both Resheph and Adamma as "Gunu". He states that this is possibly derived from the suffix - kunu, and may represent a derivative of the root kun (to be firm).
Lipinski states categorically that the gu-nu qualifier in the name of Resheph is not "garden" (gann in all the Semitic languages that provide a vocalization).
In Chapter 2 (Resheph and Adamma) he mentions the following places associated with the worship of Adamma - Emar, Boghazkoy, Ugarit and Alakh. The goddess frequently carries a topographical epithet. Adamma of Adani, Gunu, DU-anir, Du-lum and Tunip are among those noted in the original sources."]
Adamma's primary cult center (according to Robert R. Stieglitz in "Divine Pairs in the Ebla Pantheon", Eblaitica Volume 4 and Pelio Alfonso Archi in Semitic and Assyriological Studies, ed. by Pelio Fronzaroli, 2003) was Adani or Ataanni, thought to possibly be Tell 'Asharneh on the Orontes not far from Hama.
The name Adam, of course, has been derived from various words in the languages of the region, in addition to the Hebrew: Sumerian adama "a dark-colored bodily discharge", e.g. blood, to which we may compare Akkadian adamu, “blood”, adamatu, “black blood”, [as plural only] “dark red earth (used as a dye)”. But a similarly spelled word in Akkadian also means “an important, noble person” (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary). Thus is it not difficult to see how the notion of a man made out of earth came to be a popular one.
Adamma came to be associated with Kubaba (Cybele) in Hurrian religion. From Alfonso Archi’s “The West Hurrian Pantheon and Its Background”, in BEYOND HATTI: A Tribute to Gary Beckman, ed. by Billie Jean Collins and Piotr Michalowski (Lockood Press, 2013):
“According to the texts from Ebla, Adamma was the spouse of Rašap, while in the Hurrian pantheon from Kizzuwatna she forms a dyad with Kubaba, sometimes enlarged to include Hašuntarhi. Adamma gave the the name to the ninth month of the local calendar: dA-dam-ma-(um).88 Kubaba does not appear, instead, in the Ebla text, although she is attested as the goddess of Karkamiš already from the eighteenth century…
In the kaluti of Teššub,94 the bulls Šerri and Hurri are followed by (nos. 18–19): “the gods of the father of Teššub; the gods of the father of the sacrificer (DINGIRMEŠna attanni=wena ašḫušikkunni=na); similarly, in the kaluti of Hebat,95 the goddesses Adamma, Kubaba, Hašuntarhi are followed by (nos. 15–16): “the gods of the father of Hebat; the gods of the father of the sacrificer.”
Kubaba, in turn, is found with Hebat at Til-Barsip, the capital of Bit-Adini/Beth-Eden.
We have, then, in Bit-Adini or Beth-Eden a goddess Hebat (= Eve) and a goddess Kubaba, who was associated with one called Adamma (a feminine form of the masculine name Adam). The town of Adme (later Edessa, now Sanliurfa) may have, for a time, been in Beth-Eden.
THE
GARDEN AND GOBEKLI TEPE
Sanliurfa
or Adme, which I have very tentatively linked to Adam, is only a half dozen
miles from the amazing archaeological site of Gobekli Tepe. While Gobekli is not unique in some of its
characteristics (see, for example, https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/2016/05/08/the-current-distribution-of-sites-with-t-shaped-pillars/,
which discusses other such sites in the Balikh and adjacent Khabur valleys), it
lies at the headwaters of the Balikh River and so perfectly fits the
description of the Biblical Garden of Eden.
Research at Gobekli Tepe has demonstrated that the people responsible for
building the temple complex were transitioning from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural
society. This change may well be
represented in the Adam and Eve story, where humans are expelled from Nature to
live in cities.
What
exactly Gobekli Tepe and surrounding sites were used for is not yet understood –
and may never be, as archaeology can tell us only so much. But many misconceptions regarding the temple
complex continue to be promulgated. The
most persistent is the mistaken notion that the Gobekli enclosures were open-air
astronomical observatories. I asked the
chief archaeologist of the site, Professor Doctor Mehmet Ozdogan about this,
and he set me straight:
“Concerning any supposed astronomical alignments you need first to understand
that for the culture that was there we at present have over 30 excavated cult
buildings and each has a different orientation. Second, and more importantly,
all of these buildings are sub-surface buildings entered through a narrow
ramp-like tunnel. They all had some sort
of roofing which bound the standing stones. These huge central pillars were
necessary to support the roofing system; that is why they are so much higher
then the ones along the wall. The entrances are through a narrow ramp and a
port hole. Passages arranged in rings around the main chamber were walled in,
making the proposed sighting of celestial objects impossible. The restitution drawing at NGS was totally
misleading, showing all free standing structures like Stonehenge. Even from the
first building of that type recovered as early as 1964 at Çayönü, we knew that
these were sunken, subterranean structures.
The earliest date for Gobekli is 9.800 cal.BC, but most other sites begin more or less together, at about 10.300 cal.BC. [The cal prefix indicates that the dates are the result of radiocarbon calibration using tree ring data. These values should correspond exactly to normal historical years BC and AD.]
Each special building has its own story of burial, so it is a continuous process. But the Göbeklitepe site itself ends before Prepottery Neolithic B, roughly around 8.000 BC. Some of the other sites continue on after that. When the Gobekli cult buildings had fulfilled their function, they were buried together with some materials considered sacred (“Humanization of Buildings. The Neolithic Ritual of Burying the Sacred,” M. Ozdogan, ORIGINI, XVI, 2018-1:7-24).
Göbeklitepe culture did not suddenly spring out of nothing. We can more or less follow its evolutionary stages. It lasted for several thousands of years. No miracles needed to account for the culture’s appearance or development; instead, it is a socio-cultural process that took place where environmental conditions were optimal at the time.”
[NOTE -
From https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1700564:
"Monumental buildings at Göbekli Tepe were “buried” with enormous amounts of detritus material in ancient times. This deposit, commonly referred to as backfill, is composed of extensive amounts of fist-sized limestone rubble interspersed with archaeological artifacts, primarily lithics and animal bone. An intentional (ritually charged) burial of buildings was previously posited (36–38); more recently, however, other explanations appear increasingly likely, including inundation from building collapse and eroded deposits from higher-lying and adjacent parts of the mound. These latter processes (collapse and erosion) would also account for the highly fragmented nature of human (and animal) bone contained in the backfill (11), thus providing first indications of a potential (formerly unknown) provenance for this material."]
For more on Gobekli and its possible significance for the Adam and Eve story, see my blog
article at https://newatlantistheory.blogspot.com/2021/08/gobekli-tepe-sirius-and-vela-supernova.html.
