Heaven on Earth

The History Channel had a program titled “In Search Of Eden”, which featured archaeologist David Rohl’s theory about the location of the Garden of Eden. In it, he uses the literal text of the Bible, Sumerian legend, linguistic, and geographic sources to identify Eden.

The Story of Eden takes place approximately 7000 years ago, which coincides somewhat with the Neolithic revolution. There was a major shift in human subsistence. Settlement into farming communities and domestication of crops and animals occurred. This allowed for the growth of civilization. (A good book on the factors allowing for the society to grow and succeed is “Guns, Germs, & Steel” by Jared Diamond).

Genesis2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9And 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.
10And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads (Roshim).
11The name of the first is Pishon: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
13And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Cush.
14And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Perat.



Previous unsatisfying theories identify the Nile as the Gihon based on the Gihon's association with the land of Cush. Cush is present-day Sudan and Ethiopia. This separation of the Gihon/Nile river from the known Hiddekel (Tigris) and Perat (Euphrates) necessitated the Pishon to be of somewhat equal distance in the opposite direction and so the Ganges or the Indes where chosen as possibilities. Thus the Garden of Eden encompassed the entire ancient world! If this large area was correct for the Garden of Eden, to where, then, would Adam & Eve have been banished?

Another failed theory is that there are two other rivers that join the Tigris and Euphrates that flow out into the Persian Gulf. The problem here is that the Hebrew text says the river of the garden divides into four Roshim, which are not endpoints but headwaters.

We must look on a more narrow scale closer to the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, which would lead us to Eastern Turkey and North Western Iran. There are 2 major rivers in this area that flow out into the Caspian Sea. There is the river Aras (Araxes), which was called the “Gaihun” by the Islamic conquerors of Persia. “Victorian dictionaries had referred to the river as the Gihon-Aras.” The region by the Aras is known as Cush and there is even a mountain called Kushadag (meaning the mountain of Kush/Cush). Thus, this river is to be identified as the Gihon of the Bible.

The other river is the Kezel-Uizon, which means 'the golden Uizon'. Gold and other precious stones are found there even today, just like the description of the Pishon. Linguistically the Persion U has been translated into Hebrew as P. The Minean(?) city of Ushteri has become Pishderi in Semitic language. Thus Uizon is to be identified as Pishon.


Other useful clues that lead us to this very region are quite interesting. There is an ancient Sumerian legend called “Enmerkar and the Land of Arrata”, where an envoy was sent from Suza (situated on a broad plain by the river Kerkeh in SW Iran). He traveled through seven gates (mountain passes or gorges). {This is reminiscent of the seven levels of heaven culminating in the throne of glory. Seventh heaven is ‘Paradise’!} The envoy descends into the plain of Arrata “known to Sumerians as a land of happiness and plenty – to obtain gold and lapis lazuli to decorate a temple that Enmerkar was building in Uruk.” The Sumerian word for plain is ‘Edin’. Dr Irving Finkel, a Sumerian specialist, describes this as a steppe land outside of town; a plain or uncultivated land past the settlement.

The envoy went “through the Zagros Mountains, to the foothills of Mt. Sahand,” where his journey would end, at Edin. King Sargon of Assyria in the 8th century BCE made a similar journey. After the seven mountain passes, he ended up in Surrikash which is the modern Kurdish town of Sakkez, on the Minean Plain (other source says Miyandoab Plain).

To help us further, we return to the Bible, which uses the term ‘Gan’, which is a very specific type of enclosed garden in Hebrew. (Interestingly, the ‘Persian Gardens’ where enclosed by high walls, with a central spring flowing out in four direction like this +. It is from this form of enclosed space (pairi-daeza) that the word paradise derives).

So, in identifying Eden, we are looking for an enclosed plain, with a river running through, which has four headwaters of major rivers. The plain described above fits well with those requirements. Today it is called the valley of Tabriz. It is in this region that the major rivers identified above are found. The plain is enclosed on the south and north by high mountain walls. The western end is sealed by the lake of Urmia. Climatologists have shown that this enclosed plain had a microclimate benefiting from the moisture from the warm western winds off the Mediterranean Sea. This allowed for the growth of dense vegetation. Apples, apricots, pistachios, almonds and grape vines were identified in excavation.

There is an eastern pass through the mountains. If you recall, the ‘first’ humans were banished to the east. Cain was exiled and he settled in the land of Nod. Beyond the eastern pass are areas designated upper and lower Nochdi, which may be related to Nod. “All over this region there are villages called Nod-i (belonging to Nod).”

The path back to Eden was guarded by a fiery, flaming sword, which could easily be the thunder and lightning that is often associated with the volcano known as Mt Sahand. In the book of Ezekiel it mentions the mountain of God (Ezekiel 28:11-19) overlooking the garden. This would probably be that same volcano. “Cascading down this mountain (Sahand) is a small river, the Adji Chay (the name of which translates in local dialect as ‘walled garden’).”

Cherubim were posted as guards. Cherubim are the Kuribu (Akkadian)/Karabu of ancient Babylonia and Mesopotamia which serve to guard sacred places and temples. They are winged and frightening. There is a town in Nod (Nochdi) called Kheruabad, which means settlement of the Kheru people. There resided priests who wore vultures’ wings. Perhaps, they where the cherubim mentioned.

In the village of Kandivan in this region, red clay (red ochre) is well distributed in the landscape. This is reminiscent of the use of ADAM as the term for the first human. Adom means red and Adama means earth. The Neolithic revolution played prominently in this region. Perhaps it is from the descendents of these people that the first civilization in Sumer was founded. The Sumerians lived on the open plains of Iraq but they built Ziggurats to replace the mountains of god that they recalled from their past further north. “The so-called "pottery trail" is good evidence of that southerly cultural migration.”


One point of contention, Mr Rohl uses a grid pattern (envision a + in a box to yield 4 smallerboxes). When he applies the grid to the plain, rivers fall out in each quadrant. This however, is not the exact meaning of the Bible when it says (Gen2:10) “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.” These four rivers do not truly come out from one source (I think). The Pishon is found in the SW quadrant and I am unclear if it is a tributary of the river in the plain in the same way as the Aras.

There is, however, a convergence of many related pieces to the puzzle. Not all are 100% perfect but they certainly make a strong case for the area in northern Iran to be identified with the Garden of Eden. Even if true, this doesn’t mean that Adam and Eve were the first humans or that they lived in paradise. It just means that the authors of the Bible retold familiar epic legends (and created new ones) with familiar landmarks that perhaps the reader would recognize. Associating stories with elements of truth enhance the readers’ enjoyment, make the story easier to relate to and transmit, and even make the story believable as well. By the way, that area of Tabriz, Iran looks like a run-down industrial Arab town. Paradise is truly lost.

"Adam is a metaphor for the oldest ancestor in memory, the first historical man, the head of a genealogy, a spiritual and political leader in one. He is, too, I think, the representative of the first settled people, former hunter-gatherers, who, through the Neolithic revolution, learnt to domesticate animals and to plant crops. Religion is a function of settlement, of social organization, of hierarchy, and of needing a political leader/shaman-priest who is in touch with the gods of nature. Adam, with Eve, probably represents an important marriage between two such settled tribes. They're the founding family of civilization."

Since I obtained most of this information from a TV program, there may be grammatical errors in the names of places or people. I still can’t find the book on this subject called Legend: The Genesis of Civilisation.

I realize that on the second picture there is a spot labeled the 'Location of Noah's Ark'. I took this from an article by Peter Martin http://www.ramsdale.org/dna6.htm
It occured to me when reading about Eden that there may be a reason people thought there was a global flood and that many cultures had the same notion. One of the volcano's mentioned, had a lake at its summit. Perhaps people thought that only such a global flood would leave such a stable source of water on the mountaintop. Just a thought.