Eden

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In 1979, a bilingual inscription was found in Syria that provides new background for understanding two significant puzzles in the opening chapters of Genesis. The first puzzle is the statement that mankind was made in the “image” of God, in his “likeness” (Genesis 1:26), a metaphor that has teased scholars for millennia. The second puzzle concerns the name of the place where it all began—the garden of Eden. What lies behind the word Eden? What is its etymology?

The inscription is engraved on the skirt of a life-size royal statue that was accidentally discovered by a farmer enlarging his field in northeastern Syria near the ancient mound known as Tell Fakhariyah.^a Hence it is known as the Tell Fakhariyah inscription.

Statues with ancient writing engraved on them are not that unusual. What is unusual about the Tell Fakhariyah inscription is that it is engraved in two languages—Assyrian and Aramaic. On the 029front of the statue’s skirt (males wore skirts in those days) is a 38-line inscription in Assyrian, a dialect of Akkadian. Assyrian was the language used by Assyrians in the second and first millennia B.C. This inscription is written in wedge-shaped cuneiform signs that have syllabic values.

On the back of the skin is a 23-line Aramaic translation of the Assyrian text that appears on the front of the statue. The Aramaic text is written in an early version of the Semitic alphabet.¹

Aramaic was the vernacular in Palestine at the time of Jesus. It became the lingua franca of the Levant during the period of the Persian empire (539–331 B.C.).

The Aramaic text on the back of the Tell Fakhariyah statue is the earliest known Aramaic inscription of substantial length. It provides scholars with an opportunity to learn about the language, vocabulary and script of early Aramaic. Just how early is a matter of some scholarly debate. The scholars who published the text date it to the ninth century B.C.² Others have suggested a date as early 030as the 11th century B.C.,³ based on the fact that some of the letters look like letters found in 11th century Phoenician-style inscriptions that use the same Semitic alphabet. These letter forms cannot be found in later inscriptions using this alphabet. However, the letters in these Phoenician texts may have developed and changed in a different way than the script in the Fakhariyah inscription. In short, the Tell Fakhariyah script apparently retained some of the earlier forms that disappeared in the West.

There is no question that based on its historical context the inscription must be dated later than the 11th century. The text indicates that the statue is of a local ruler named, in Aramaic, Hadad-yit_‘i, which means “[the god] Hadad is my salvation.” In the Assyrian text, Hadad-yit_‘i calls himself “governor of Gozan.” However, in the Aramaic text he refers to himself as “king of Gozan.”⁴ Apparently, Hadad-yit_‘i was a vassal of Assyria, so he uses the title “governor” in the Assyrian text to emphasize his vassalship to the Assyrian king. However, he uses the title “king” in Aramaic, the language of the people whom he rules. He wants them to know that he is the one in charge, not some king in a faraway land to whom he occasionally sends “gifts.”

The Bible mentions Gozan, which is one of the places conquered by the Assyrian king Sennacherib in the eighth century B.C. (2 Kings 19:12). More important for Biblical history, Gozan is one of the places to which Israelite exiles were sent after the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians in 721.B.C. (2 Kings 17:6, 18:11).

Gozan probably did not become a vassal of 031Assyria before the ninth century. Assyria was a weakling between the eleventh and the ninth centuries, and Assyrian inscriptions from this period are almost nonexistent. Furthermore, no Assyrian inscription refers to Gozan as a vassal before the ninth century B.C., at which time Assyria was strong and involved in the area of Gozan. Assyrian inscriptions from the eighth century begin to name governors of Gozan. These so-called Assyrian eponym lists name a governor of Gozan at intervals of about 30 years. But neither Hadad-yit_’i nor his father, Shamash-nuri, who is also named on the Tell Fakhariyah inscription, appear on these eponym lists. Therefore, the ninth century seems the most likely date for the Tell Fakhariyah inscription. It was a time when Assyria was strong enough to assert its power over Gozan. Moreover, the artistic style of the statue fits this period in Assyrian art.

In Genesis 2:8 we are told that “the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed.” The etymology of Eden is obscure. Some scholars have sought to connect it with the Sumerian edin, which means plain or steppe. Although this correlation is possible, it does not seem related to the context of Genesis 2, where the reference is to a well-watered land rather than a field.⁵

In the Aramaic text of the Tell Fakhariyah inscription is a participle spelled m‘dn. The last three letters spell Eden in Hebrew. In Aramaic, as in Hebrew, they also form a verbal root that can become a participle when prefixed with a mem, as here.

In the Aramaic text of the Tell Fakhariyah inscription, this word is used to describe Hadad-yit_‘i’s god Hadad. Here is the relevant text, which is essentially the same in the Aramaic and Assyrian versions (Aramaic additions or changes are in parentheses):

“[Hadad is the] regulator of the waters of heaven and earth,

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who rains down abundance,

who gives pasture and watering places to the people of all cities (to all lands),

who gives portions and offerings (rest and vessels of food)

to (all) the gods, his brothers,

regulator of (all) rivers,

who m‘dn the regions (all lands),

the merciful god to whom it is good to pray,

who dwells in Guzan (Sikan).”⁶

Note that I have not translated m‘dn in this text. The corresponding word in the Assyrian text is mutahÉhÉidu. This word is used elsewhere in Akkadian (the language family to which Assyrian belongs) with the meaning, “to make abundant.” For example, in a 13th-century B.C. Akkadian text from Ugarit, this word describes the “abundant” attractiveness of a royal adornment.⁷

This suggests that the word “Eden” refers to a garden of abundance,⁸ that is, a garden that can be described as “luxuriant and fruitful.”⁹

Can we go beyond this? If we look at the context of the word in the Tell Fakhariyah inscription, it is of course true that Hadad is a god who makes the land abundant and fruitful. But, as David T. Tsumura has observed, an additional common theme runs through this part of the text like a stream of water.¹⁰ The waters of heaven and earth belong to Hadad. Hadad provides watering places and controls rivers. There is in the verbal form m‘dn a more specific referent than abundance; it is a place well-watered. We might more appropriately translate the word as “providing an abundance of water.”

This emphasis on a well-watered land can also be applied to Eden in Genesis. It is a place that is watered (Genesis 2:6); it is associated with four rivers (Genesis 2:10–14). As Tsumura notes, the Jordan Valley plain is compared with the garden of the Lord (= Eden) in Genesis 13:10, on the basis of how well watered the plain is: “The Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord.” It hardly needs to be added that an abundance of water is especially prized in the Near East.

Thus, like many personal names in the opening chapters of Genesis, the place-name of Eden has its own meaning as a common noun. This garden provides for the first human couple because it is a well watered land.

The Tell Fakhariyah inscription also provides insight into what it means for something to be in the “image” or “likeness” of God. In Genesis 1:26 God says, “Let us make man in our image [slm, vocalized tselem (TSEL-em)], after our likeness [dmwt, vocalized d^emuÆt (deh-MUTE)]. In Genesis 5:3, the same words are used with respect to Adam’s son Seth. Adam “became the father of a son [Seth] in his own likeness, after his image.”

Why are two words used? Do they mean the same thing? And what does it mean to be in the “image” or “likeness” of God? Streams of ink have been used to discuss these questions both in rabbinic and Christian literature.

Based on careful research. some scholars have argued that tselem (image) is the more important word but also the more general and ambiguous.¹¹ Thus d^emuÆt (likeness) is added to provide a needed clarification, to avoid any attachment to a physical image and to emphasize a likeness to God.

Tselem (image) can also be used to refer to an idol. Thus, some exegetes have argued that tselem did not originally carry the meaning “idol.”¹² Because later Hebrew did adopt this usage, it was necessary, so the argument goes, to add an additional term in the post-Exilic period to clarify the text. In this way, the addition of d^emuÆt (likeness) was explained.

The ninth-century B.C. Tell Fakhariyah inscription questions this argument as a necessary interpretation, for its Aramaic text contains both words. The word slm is used to refer to the statue on which the inscription was incised. Elsewhere in the same inscription, dmwt also refers to the statue, just as the slm does.

The words slm and dmwt each appear twice in the Aramaic inscription, dmwt in lines 1 and 15 and slm in lines 12 and 16. It is enlightening to look at the words used in the equivalent part of the Assyrian text. The word dmwt in line 1 of the Aramaic text occurs in a phrase that is not in the Assyrian text. But in the other three occurrences of either slm or dmwt in the Aramaic text, we find in the Assyrian text the logogram^b NU used for the Assyrian word salmu (statue). In other words, the same Assyrian word is used for both Aramaic words. The Aramaic text on the back of the statue is probably a translation of the royal Assyrian text on the front; if so, the translator used two different words in Aramaic (slm and dmwt) to translate the same Assyrian word (salmu).¹³ This may suggest that slm and dmwt (image and likeness) are synonyms, Since they are translations of the same word in Assyrian and there is no difference in their usage in the Aramaic text.

Moreover, it is apparent that the Assyrian salmu and the Aramaic slm are related, or cognate, words. And of course Aramaic slm and dmwt are cognates of the Hebrew tselem and d^emuÆt. Thus, the question is raised anew whether the two words mean the same thing in the Hebrew text.¹⁴

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Since the words in Aramaic and Assyrian refer to a physical statue, what are the implications for the meaning of the Hebrew words? Is that what they mean in the Hebrew Bible?

Caution must be the byword. We are dealing with the appearance of these two words in two (or three) different languages. From the Tell Fakhariyah inscription, we learn that in Aramaic, a language closely related to Hebrew, slm and dmwt are used synonymously to translate the same Assyrian word in the same text from the mid-ninth century B.C. They are used to refer to a physical statue. When we come to the Biblical usage of these two words, we see that they are used together only in Genesis 1:26 and 5:3. The context of their usage here and elsewhere separately in the Hebrew Bible does not require the meaning of a physical statue, but it does imply that their meanings or referents overlap.

Indeed, the appearance of the two words together in the Bible may be nothing more than the artistry of the prose, in which two synonymous words are used for effect.

If the Arameans of ninth-century Gozan saw no problem with using both words synonymously, then the burden of proof lies with those who would argue that the Hebrew tselem and d^emuÆt mean something different when they are used together.

Finally, the fact that cognates in Aramaic and Assyrian refer to a physical image of some sort does suggest that the Hebrew words also refer to something substantial, if not physical, despite the fluidity of the meaning of words.¹⁵

Another element in the Tell Fakhariyah inscription that is relevant to biblical studies is the curses found in the inscription—warning that evil will be fall anyone who removes Hadad-yit_‘i’s name from the statue.

For example, “May he sow one thousand measures of barley, but may he recover a paris” (Aramaic line 19). A paris is a small fraction, a thousandth, of what was originally sown. This is not unlike the warning found in Isaiah 5:10b, “A field sown with a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah.” The idea is the same: a minimal harvest after a maximum investment of material in the sowing of the seed. Similar sentiments are found in Deuteronomy 28:38 and in Haggai 1:6.

Here is another curse from the Tell Fakhariyah inscription: “May one hundred women bake bread in an oven, but not fill it.” This is similar to Leviticus 26:26b: “Ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and shall deliver your bread again by weight; and you shall eat, and not be satisfied.” The Assyrian curse develops the thought with a more extreme picture of ten times as many women involved.

In many ways—in terms of linguistics, history and content—the Tell Fakhariyah inscription takes its place with other important Near Eastern inscriptions in providing an illuminating background to the Bible.