Eve In The Garden Of Eden - Halloween Special -...
On Saturday October 29, Eden Gardens will be transformed into a haunted garden. Expect a glass of specially brewed Halloween Punch on arrival; canapé stations scattered around the grounds; and a photobooth to capture all those scary moments. Dance the night away to the tunes of DJ Dracula, wander the haunted gardens and mingle with other Halloween-loving adults.
Eve in the Garden of Eden - Halloween Special -...
Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson by 1854-1860 had proposed that behind Eden's serpent was a Babylonian god which lived at ancient Eridu in Babylonia, whom he called Hea, rendered today as Ea. He identified him as the god who had created mankind, and who had bestowed upon man the knowledge of how to live like a god by building cities and creating laws to create a sense of right of wrong instead of living like a savage or brute animal. Ea, pronounced Ay(y)a, according Gwendolyn Leick, was also famed for a statement he had made about mankind, personified in a priest called Adapa who lived at Eridu, saying "I gave him [godly] wisdom but denied him immortality." In Genesis Adam is allowed to acquire godly knowledge but denied immortality by Yahweh. In 1888 the Adapa and the Southwind myth was found in Egypt, and by 1892, Professor Archibald Henry Sayce was proposing Adapa was the pre-biblical prototype of Adam, and that Adapa might have been alternately rendered as Adama. Scholars expressed doubt about Adapa being once uon a time Adama, but they acknowledged other parallels with Adam. Especially the conferring of godly knowledge and denial of immortality. The problem? None of the characters in the Adapa myth was called a snake or serpent. Another myth did mention a serpent eating a plant denying man (Gilgamesh) a chance at rejuvenation of life so many scholars seized on this snake being behind Eden's serpent, and for over 100 years this is the most popular proposal amongst scholars. The problem? The Gilgamesh snake doesn't speak and doesn't walk. Agreeing with scholars about the Adapa myth being the closest parallel to mans acquiring knowledge but not immortality, I asked myself a question: Given that no snake appears in the Adapa myth, had anyone in Academia sought serpent associations in other myths for any of the characters? The answer appeared to be no. So I investigated various myths looking for any mention of Anu, Ea, Dumuzi, and Gishzida which might reveal a serpent association. I was successful. In other myths Ea, Dumuzi, and Gishzida all bore the Sumerian epithet ushumgal, ushum= serpent, gal= great, or "great serpent." By the 1930's scholars abandoned this terminology and came to render ushumgal as "dragon." The ushumgal is portrayed with four feet, wings, a serpentine head and body, and horns on its head. Here, for me was the _missing_ or rather, _overlooked_ serpent association of a walking talking serpent involved in a story about man obtaining forbidden godly knowledge and denied immortality. Ea (Sumerian: Ushumgal Enki of Eridug) had allowed Adapa to possess godly-forbidden knowledge, how to utter incantations stopping wind from blowing by breaking the southwind's wing. This outraged Anu. Ushumgal Dumuzi and Ushumgal Gishzida as Anu's gate guards' favor was won by Adapa. They convinced Anu to treat Adapa kindly. So on Anu's behalf, the food (bread) of life was urged on Adapa to possess eternal life. He refused having been forwarned by Ushumgal Ea/Enki that it was the food of death and he would die, don't eat it. He lost out on a chance at immortality for obeying his lying god's warning. Eden's serpent is: (1) Anu, (2) Dumuzi, (3) Gishzida because they urged on man (Adapa) the food of death he was warned not to eat. Eden's serpent asked Eve, why not eat? Anu asks Adapa why not eat? (4)Ea is also Eden's serpent as he provides man forbidden knowledge objected to by Anu.Yahweh-Elohim's pre-biblical prototypes: (1) Ea, as he warns man not to eat the food of death as Yahweh warned Adam; (2) Anu, as he summons Adam to give account of himself for obtaining godly forbidden knowledge; Anu also clothes man before dismissing him like Yahweh dismissed Adam, clothing him. In other myths Dumuzi is turned into a sagkal serpent to slither out the bonds tying his hands and feet to sticks to be carried off to the underworld at Inanna's pleasure. He says "turn my hands and feet into serpent hands and feet that I can escape. His plea is honored. Ningishzida is portrayed in art as human with serpent dragon heads erupting from his shoulders. His name: Nin=Lady, Gish=Tree, Zida=Upright (there are other translations). So, there you have it, some of the characters in the Adapa myth in other myths were associated with serpents bearing the epithet ushumgal.Rawlings (1854-1860) hit the nail on the head, Ea was indeed behind Eden's serpent, but there were pothers too, Anu, Dumuzi and Gishzida. Adapa's reply as to why he would not eat was that his god told him he would die. This is Eve's reply to the Serpent. Anu's query has become Eden's serpent's query and Adapa's answer, I will die according to my lord Ea has been recast as Eve's reply to the Edenic serpent. My two books mentioned in the previous comment posted above has the details. Rawlings understood the Hea (Ea) was mankind's creator. In myths he creates man at Eridu to be his servant and care for his city garden in Edin (the floodplain).
Profesorn Day I look forward to acquiring for my personal library the 18 June paperback release of your 2013 book titled From Creation to Babel. Does this release offer corrections, revisions and expansions? My 20 years of research on Eden's pre-biblical origins is done by seeking Eden's motifs in Mesopotamian literature, Sumerian and Akkadian, noting where and who is involved in the recast motifs. Under no circumstance is each of Eden's characters to be traced to just one Mesopotamian character, it is always several for me. Eden's location, is determined via its motifs, and is to be found in multiple sites too, in the myths. Hebrew eden has been determined by scholars to mean "delightful, abundant," etc. And this Hebrew meaning is one of the keys to locating it. Scholars have noted that Genesis' anonymous author erred on his explanations of the meaning of some sites' names, some personal names, some tribal names, and the names of some countries. These false Hebrew explanations are charitably called "folk-etymologies" in the scholarly literature. Perhaps these foreign words were heard wrongly and thus mis-pronounced, misspelled, and given false Hebrew word explanations? Thus, via assonance, (EDIN), a foreign word, became misspelled and mispronounced as Hebrew 'Eden, a place well-watered, or delightful. Thus naked Enkidu's (EDIN) becamea "delightful" place for him and his herbivore companions (wild cattle and antelope) to live in? The myths declare edin is a dangerous place, lions, leopards and snakes inhabit it. I was informed by Professor George that (EDIN) means "back" (as in a person's back)and that by anology the steppe lands surrounding and "backing" the Sumerian cities' walls, came to be associated with the steppe where shepherds grazed their sheep and cattle. Every Sumerian city had a god or goddess who's fields were worked by men on the gods' behalf. Some art forms show food from these gardens, surrounded by edin the steppe, being presented to the god/goddess by naked men, whom I presume to be naked gardeners, for the gods made man to work their city-gardens in edin to provide food for the gods, freeing them of the back-breaking gardening chores: weeding, clearing canals of silt, etc. Ergo, Enkidu's (EDIN) is not the only prototype. Other myths have motifs reappearing in the Garden of Eden account: (1) Enkidu's (EDIN)where he is ensnared by Shamhat and removed from (EDIN), (2) Anu's heavenly abode (Adapa myth) where man is denied immortality, (3) Eridu where Ea warns Adapa don't eat the bread of death, recast as Yahweh warning Adam and Eve, (4) Nippur, where Enlil makes man to work his city-garden to relieve the Igigi gods of the back-breaking gardening toil, (4) Uruk, Sumerian(UNUG)where Shamhat (recast as Eve)is sent from to ensnare Enkidu, accompanied by Sadu the hunter (Sadu is recast as God presenting Eve to Adam in Eden), (5)A Lebanese cedar mount where Humbaba is slain by a sword-wielding Enkidu and Gilgamesh, a guardian of the gods' aromatic cedar trees (the trees being off-limits to man, as Eden's trees are to Adam),finally, every Sumerian city, and its city-gardens, within and without the walls becomes a prototype of Eden. The Uruk clay map shows gardens within its walls and clay tablets mention that some city gates were called abul-edina, the edin-gate, the way to the edina steppe land surrounding all the cities of Sumer, which bumps the total of pre-biblical Eden locations to well over a dozen locations fused together and recast as one site in Genesis.
You are quite right about a steppe being a treeless plain. However, some steppes do have trees near lakes and rivers, and in our case, the Sumerian Edin did possess trees because of rivers, lakes, and man-made irrigation canals and water-retention ponds for irrigation. Wikipedia on Steppe:"...characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes..." Innana the goddess of Uruk finds an uprooted tree near Uruk, she has it planted in her garden intending to make furniture of it after maturity. A snake that "cannot be charmed" makes a nest at its base preventing its being cut down. Hero Gilgamesh learns of her sorrow and takes an axe, kills the serpent, chops down the tree and makes a throne of it for her. Ezekiel's eden is in Lebanon and the garden is of cedars. Gilgamesh and Enkidu access this Lebanese cedar mountain and after killing its guardian, Humbaba, they chop down cedars to float down the Euphrates to Uruk to refurbish/build a temple for the god Anu and goddess Inanna. And, as Ur's ziggurat was called an aromatic cedar mountain by the ancient poet, and a dwelling for Ur's moon god, Nanna, it makes sense to me that all the ziggurats of Sumer were conceived of in the same way, artificial cedar mountains for the mountain-dwelling gods who inhabited, in myth, the mountains ringing the edin steppe lands: Lebanese cedar mountains in the west as well as the Amanus near Turkey and the pine trees of the Zagros near western Iran. I look forward to reading your future research on Eden's serpent. I understand that there were two Sumerian edins. The oldest was southern Mesopotamia and Sumer. By 3000 BC Sumerian colonies had been established in upper Mesopotamia, and I would assume they called this steppe land edin as well. In the northern area the Euphratyes is mostly one stream, but south of ancient Sippar it subdivides into four streams which subdivide into numerous branches which are tapped as irrigation canals. So an upper Mesopotamian river of edin (principaly today's Syria) becomes four streams south of today's Anah (south of ancient Mari) to become four streams of Genesis. Eden's stream flows downwards from the higher edin steppe land northwest of Mari, to become the four rivers of Genesis eden. 041b061a72