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Fatal Knowledge: Creation Myths of the Middle East: Part Three
| Article
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11448 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1994 |
2,924 Words |
| Author
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Ewa Wasilewska
Ewa Wasilewska is assistant professor of anthropology at the
University of Utah, specializing in the Middle East and
Central Asia, with a focus on ancient religions. She is
neither a Muslim nor an Islamic scholar. She is a frequent
contributor to the Culture section and the author of Creation
Stories of the Middle East (Jessica Kingsley Press, 2000).
Maulana Muhammad Ali's translation of the Qur'an--which is
widely considered to be written with the required "gift of
inner purity"--was used for all quotations. Due to the length
of the Qur'an, only selected suras have been cited. The author
would like to thank Jennifer Graves for her assistance and
critique of the draft text. |
However, the narrative seems to be original, and the exact plot line has not been discovered in the earlier written records of the Middle East.
The Yahwistic account places the story of the Fall not in Syro-Palestine but somewhere in the East, in an area called Eden. The East probably meant Mesopotamia or the land beyond its borders. This location can be supported by the name Eden, which possibly is derived from the Sumerian edin, meaning "plain," "steppe," or even "desert." Because the Garden of Eden was obviously not a desert, some scholars have proposed another derivation of the term Eden related to the Hebrew root dn, which is used in words implying luxury and delight. Thus, even the name of the divine garden of Genesis could indicate the abundance of all positive things.
However, it should be remembered that the 'first" Paradise was of Sumerian origin, as are many other stories of the Old Testament. The land of Dilmun in the Sumerian myth "Enki and Ninhursag" was the most celebrated divine garden of ancient Mesopotamia. Although beautiful, pure, and clean, Dilmun originally must have looked like a desert, for it lacked fresh water that could nourish its beauty One of the goddesses pleaded with Enki to bring life-giving waters to this location. On Enkis order: From the "mouth whence issues the water of the earth,"
[Utu] brought her sweet water from the earth;
He brings up the water into her large [text missing]...,
Makes her city drink from it the waters of abundance,
Makes Dilmun [drink from] the waters of ab[undance].
(trans. S.N. Kramer)
This transformation of Paradise from a desert to a lavishly green garden is also indicated by the author(s) of the Yahwistic account. One of the passages preceding the planting of the garden and the creation of Adam speaks of a flood "rising from the earth and watering all the surface of the soil."
The earthly Paradise
Waters coming from the earth, not the sky, are another mdi-cation of the Mesopotamian origin of Paradise. The
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