In Genesis, Eden is the mythical garden of YHWH God. In texts like Jubilees, it was understood to be a hidden valley somewhere on Earth which the waters of the Flood cannot touch. Can this myth be traced elsewhere?
Before the Exile, (Beth) Eden was a kingdom destroyed by Sennacherib: 2 Kings 19 = Isaiah 37:12. Eden is listed with Canneh and Haran in Ezekiel 27, and "the House of Eden" with Damascus in Amos 1.
Ezekiel 28, 31, 36 and Joel 2 take a more poetic line. Ezekiel 28:1-19 is a satirical broadside against the Canaanite city Tzur (Assyr. Zaaru, Gk. Tyre). 1-10 compares Tyre's wisdom to the Ugaritic legend of Danel: "In the pride of your heart you say, 'I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas.' But you are a man and not a god, though you think you are as wise as a god. Are you wiser than Danel?" (28:2-3) 28:11-19 is a different swipe at Tyre, this time at its prosperity. Tyre now resides in "the trees of Eden in the garden of God / the choicest and best of Lebanon", or the "mount of 'El". Tyre had been "anointed as a guardian cherub". Since "wickedness was found in" Tyre, though, Tyre will be "expelled... from among the fiery stones".
The others invoke Eden as an archetype of lush beauty. Egypt is warned that Assyria was once a tree in Lebanon (31:6), specifically Eden (31:16). Assyria fell and the rest of Eden followed. To the reverse, Joel 2 and Ezekiel 36 make Eden a paradise that may be restored.
'El literally means "god" in the western Semitic languages. In the Canaanite context, 'El generally refers to the Canaanite deity who is father to Ba'al. Most of the sundry books of the Bible know this, but many will use 'El as an honorific or even a synonym for YHWH.
Ezekiel considers the term 'el an honorific, and is very careful about its usage. Ezekiel may have YHWH say "I am YHWH, your 'el" - five times, and "your 'el" only in that phrase, contrast with Jeremiah and Lev 17-26 - but Ezekiel never calls this deity 'El any more than he calls Him Ba'al ("lord") or Moloch ("king"). Ezekiel generally introduces a speech of YHWH with "this is what the Sovereign YHWH says". (This is an understatement. Ezekiel hogs 243 out of the 350 "sovereign YHWH"'s in the Bible.) For Ezekiel, 'El is for Canaanites.
Genesis 2-3, by contrast, does call YHWH "YHWH 'El". Even the other harmonizing passages - and there are a lot in Genesis - keep YHWH and El in different clauses (9:26, 14:22, 16:11, 16:13, 17:1, 21:33, etc.). Isaiah 51 is the only prophet to pick up on this and call Eden the "garden of YHWH"; and that part of Isaiah is really the post-Exilic "Second Isaiah".
Ezekiel 28:10-19's assumptions about Eden share a context with the Canaanite Danel, are used in the context of anti-Canaanite polemic, and do not associate El with YHWH. Ezekiel bears witness to the Garden of God at Eden as a Canaanite legend.
Gen 2-3 is usually assigned to the J voice of the Pentateuch. J normally called YHWH, "YHWH". The Torah took pains to call Him "YHWH El" throughout Gen 2-3. Richard Friedman (Hidden Book p.63) thinks that 'El was a redactional feature of the Jahwist's editor.
But if Friedman is right, why did this editor not so alter later instances of YHWH? If YHWH was the redactional feature, then its compiler borrowed the story from a myth that only referred to the 'El of Canaan. Keeping 'El's name in there rendered the tale palatable to those who remembered the original. This seems more likely.
The Eden story does not reflect the concerns of arid Judah, in the way the scholars have asserted for the J source. Eden was in Canaanite territory, to the more temperate north.
Sperling noted that Hosea 10:8 shares language with this story (pp. 37-39). Hosea came from the Northern Kingdom on Canaan's southern fringe.
Kelly (Satan pp. 13-4, 32) has recently claimed that the rest of the Old Testament lacks reference to all Genesis 1-11. This is debatable for the Priestly writings, which (I think) demand a seven-day creation; e.g. Exodus 20:10-11's commentary upon the Sabbath commandment. This is however true of the pericope with which this essay is concerned, the Eden story. It is also true that the Elohist author starts at the story of Abraham (Genesis 20). If Kelly is right about J, then it is a parallel to its near-contemporary E.
The concerns of Genesis 2-3 reflect the concerns of a post-exilic nation who desired to keep the old legends, but to associate them with the national YHWH rather than the pagan 'El. The language of the pericope is Canaanite. Non-Priestly authors in the Hebrew Bible might refer to the Canaanite legends behind Genesis 2-3, but they never cited them as a part of Judaean culture let alone as a part of Scripture.
From this, I conclude that 'DN was a real place, a city somewhere in Lebanon. Its countryside was famed for its beauty and its cedar forests, and it revered the Canaanite father-god El. There was also a legend which concerned a guardian cherub and an exile. In Mesopotamia, there were other stories involving a primordial paradise (Dilmun), involving the loss of immortality due to a snake eating a flower (Gilgamesh), and involving the loss of innocence and strength due to a woman's wiles (Enkidu, Samson). All very Freudian, to be sure; and the author (probably Canaanite) was very clever to combine them.
This indicates that Ezekiel did not know Genesis 2-3 in its present form, nor in a so-called "J" form; but that he did know a Canaanite legend like it. Second Isaiah was first to hear the story with its current YHWH - after Ezekiel. It is doubtful that Ezekiel, or anyone in the Israelite kingdoms, accepted this legend as sacred scripture any more than they accepted the legend of Danel.
It is possible that J, like E, originally started with Abraham. The J parts of Genesis 1-11 are additions, likely postdating even Deuteronomy and the "JE" merge.
e-mail me with any thoughts...
zimriel@sbcglobal.netThe original version was 9 August, 1999. Better explanations and a real conclusion added 15 March 2000. I found Ezekiel 28's other affinities to Gen 2-3 on 8 June; I had to fix the conclusion as a result. In 21 Dec, clarified "YHWH your God". 9 Feb 2003, reorg of appendix. 9 May 2004, Sperling leads me to take this tale away from J entirely. 25 Nov 2006, Kelly asserts no witness to J parts of Gen 1-11. (Nor P parts, but that controversy isn't important here.)