The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1882-11-15

came four arms or branches). The fact
must be borne In mind, noticed long ago
by DR.. W. Adds Wright in his article on
Eden in Smiths Biblical Dictionary,
that the word translated event forth"
which occurs in this description, is used
only In reference to a river descending
downward from its source. The four
arms, or independent streams, into which
the river which watered the garden of
Eden was divided after passing through
that paradise, are infinitely described by
the writer of the book of Genesis THE
name of the first is Pison (Pishon) that
is 1T which compasseth the whole land of
Havilah Git. the Havilah), where there
is gold Cor, the gold), and the gold of that
land is good: there is the bdellium and
the onyx stone. And the name of the
second river is Gihon (Gihon) that is it
which compasseth the whole land of
Cush" (the Authorized Version contains
here a gloss, translating "Cush" by
" Ethiopia "And the name of the
third river is Hiddekel: that is it which
goeth toward the east of Assyria" (more
correctly rendered, with Knobel and
Kalisch, (which foweth before Assyria'0.
" And the fourth river that is Euphra-
ties" (Gen. ii: 11-14).
SOUTHERN BABYLoNIA AND ARMENIA.
Much Importance has always been at
tached to the supposition that the site of
Eden was in Southern Babylonia, in the
locality Of the Shatt-el-Arab But De-
lltzsch shows that the Shatt-el-Arab had
no existence in early times. Pliny states
expressly wi, section 1907 that the Eu-
pirates originally discharged its waters
directly into the Persian Gulf and Ritter
(as quoted by Delitzsch) observes that in
the time of Alexander the Great the
mouths of the Tigris and the Euphrates
were still separated from one another by
the distance of at least good DAVIS Jour
ney. The delta at the head Of the Per-
sian Gulf is distinguished for its rapid
growth. 1t increases, according to Lotus,
at the rate of one mile of land in seventy
years. According to Sir Henry Rawlin-
son its growth was far more rapid in an
clent times, when it probably grew at the
rate OF one mile In thirty years. The
city Charax was founded by Alexander
the Great on the site of the present Mo-
hammerah. But in the days of Alexan-
der that city was only 1000 PAGES from
the sea. In the time of Tuba H., as De-
htzsch notes in his appendix, that is
about l B. O., that city clay inland fifty,
or indeed one hundred and twenty Ro-
man miles A more conclusive proof is
that the delta at the embouchure Of the
Hgris and Euphrates was in the time of
Sennacherib sea which ran inland far
beyond Mohammerah. Into that sea.
termed In the cuneiform inscriptions Mar
Marratum, or the salt water stream, the
Euphrates and the Tigris discharged their
waters independently of one another,
without uniting in one common channel
The cuneiform inscriptions speak of
great naval expedition which Sennacherib
made against Elam in which he trans
ported his army over this arm of the sea
IN large vessels in order to attack the
army OF Elan at the city of Nagitu, sit
uated on the opposite coast, few miles
north Of the spot where the River Ulai
(the Pasitigris) discharged its waters into
this sea-that is, nearly opposite to the
modern Busra. The Southern Baby
lonian hypothesis cannot be sustained.
The only other hypothesis of any conse-
quence is that which locates Eden in
what we now call Armenia. This the
Professor easily disposes of. Indepen-
IDENTIFY of the many difficulties which be-
set the attempt to make out the various
lands mentioned by the Hebrew histo-
rian, the fact that Meth r the Araxes nor
the Kyros can be regarded as contin-
uatlon OF one and the same stream with
the Euphrates and the Tigris is fatal to
this theory. The same may be said of
the hypothesis which, identifying the
Araxes or the Kyros with the Gihon of
Genesis, seeks to discover the Pishon in
the Phasis, now the Rion, on the borders
of the ancient Colchis, separating it from
Armenia. The Phasis, moreover, has no
connection whatever with any of the |
other rivers. Still more hopeless, per-
haps, was the attempt to connect the
Oxus, called by the Arabic geographers
by the name of Gaihun, with the river OF
Paradise Of the same name (the Gihon).
The Oxus, which now flows into the sea
OF Aral, was anciently considered to have
flowed into the Caspian, but its sources
are far removed from those OF the Tigris
and Euphrates
THE TRUE SITE.
The Garden Of Eden is considered bv |
Professor F. Delitzsch to have been sit |
uated in the land Of Babylonia, in that
special district in which the waters of the
Euphrates and the Tigris approach near
eet tn eocb. Ut bor rpL;o ate4--