EDEN. – Place in which the earthly paradise was situated (Gen. 2:8, 15). The Hebrew « edhen », according to the ancients, means « delight, pleasure » (II Sam. 1:24; Ps. 25 [36], 9); according to modern scholars, « steppe », « uncultivated plain », like the Akkadian edinu, or « fertile field », like the Sumerian edin. In the Sacred Books it also indicates:
1) a region on the Euphrates, east of Aleppo (II Reg. 19:12; Is. 37:12: Ez. 27:23; Am. 1:5): it is the Bīt-Adini of the Assyrian monuments; 2) a Levite descended from Gerson, from the time of King Ezechia (II Par. 29:12; 31:15).
Regarding the location of E., the indication of four rivers might be helpful: « At the beginning of the garden a river issues from E., and from there divides into four branches (Phison, Gehon, Tigris, Euphrates) » (Gen. 2:10-14). But the identification of Phison and Gehon is unknown. Further difficulties arise concerning Hevila and Chus, the lands watered by them: Gen. knows two Hevilas: one Asian (10:29) and one African (10:7), and two Chus (10:6-8). It is moreover probable that, with the migrations of peoples, the names of the rivers passed from one region to another.
The countless opinions concerning the location of E. may be reduced to four groups: 1) near the course of the Tigris and Euphrates, and more precisely: a) on the Armenian plateau (among others Hoberg, Hetzenauer, Strack, Kalt, Šanda): Chus is identified with the Aras, and Phison, which surrounds the land of Hevila, where gold, bdellium, and precious stones are found (the region of Colchis, dealt with in the myth of the Argonauts), with the Phasis: a change in the configuration of the land is assumed; b) on the middle course of the Euphrates, where the Belich and the Ḥabū converge (P. Riessler); c) on the lower course of the same Euphrates, near Babylon, where it joins the Tigris, while later the two rivers are separated again by canals, two of which would precisely be Phison and Gehon: cf. nēhar kēbhār of Ez. 1:1 (F. Delitzsch and S. Theis). 2) Departing from the Mesopotamian basin, the ancients, who had little knowledge of geography, spoke of the Euphrates, Tigris, Ganges, and Nile (Flavius Josephus, Antiq. Ind., I, 13). F. Hommel and J. Feldmann think of Arabia; Niebuhr and Engel of the vicinity of Damascus. 3) A. Ungnad places E. in the firmament, which the Sumerians called gū-edin-na. 4) Philo and the Alexandrian school place E. in the world of ideas, and modern mythologists and folklorists among the meadows of fantasy. The last two interpretations must be rejected, since Gen. 2 describes a real place. Among the various locations proposed, that of Delitzsch presents the fewest difficulties. « Probably the author did not wish to determine a precise place, but only to attribute to four streams of the paradisiacal garden the names and beneficial fertility of the waters (not their course) of the four greatest rivers then known. In this interpretation there is nothing to prevent one from understanding, with the ancients, Phison as the Ganges (or rather the Indus, as closer to the Hebrews) and Gehon as the Nile » (A. Vaccari).