The Biblical description of Eden:
"And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers.
The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.
And the gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there.
And the name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush.
And the name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'From every any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.'
Then the Lord God said, 'it is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.'"
[snip of the creation of Eve]
"And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.1"
The Sumerians did not have a "unified" Eden myth. Instead they had numerous myths dealing with a place called Dilmun. Just what and where was Dilmun? There seems to have been two such places in Sumerian literature. A mythical paradise-like place and a real geographic local that traded with and paid tribute to various Mesopotamian lands. Most scholars now identify Dilmun with the island of Bahrein. This may well be the case for the later historical Dilmun, but the earlier paradise like Dilmun could not have been there.
The Paradise-Dilmun (for a lack of a better term) is described as the "place where the sun rises" so it would have to be to the east of Sumer. Bahrein is almost directly south. In an inscription of king Lugalannemundu of Adab (c.2400 BC) eight lands are listed which the king claims control over: the Cedar Land, Elam, Marhashi, Gutium, Subir, Martu, Sutium and Eanna. The last seven names are in geographic order from south-western Iran up through Assyria and Syria and then down into southern Mesopotamia itself. So "the Cedar Land" would be to the east of Elam in south-western Iran. According to myth Utu, the Sumerian sun-god "rises from the land of aromatics and cedar." And lastly in a Dumuzi lament there is the line: "The cedar, the consecrated of Hashur, The shade of Dilmun". When you add all of this together: 1)The Cedar Lands are to the east of Elam (and Sumer), 2)Dilmun is the place where the sun rises, 3)Utu (the sun) rises from the "Land of aromatics and cedar", 4)The cedar is the "shade of Dilmun" it is clear that Dilmun was to the east and was a land full of cedar. It was either in southern Iran, Baluchistan or even possibly the Harrapan/Indus valley civilization2. How do we reconcile the Paradise-Dilmun of myth with the later historical Dilmun? In early antiquity Dilmun may well have been the term used to describe a land to the east. Later the same name was used to describe a closer land that was a trading partner (Bahrein). This was the case with the country of Magan also. In the third millennium it was the name given to the land that is now Oman. In later times it was the name given to Egypt.
Now that we have tentatively located Dilmun what was it like? The myth "Enki and Ninhursag" gives a good description of the land:
"Pure was Dilmun land!
Virginal was Dilmun land!
[snip]
The lion slew not,
the wolf was not
carrying off lambs,
[snip]
No eye-diseases said there:
'I the eye-disease.'
No headache said there:
'I headache.'
No old woman belonging to it said there:
'I old woman.'
No old man belonging to it said there:
'I old man.'
[in other words there were no diseases or aging]3
Now lets compare this with the Biblical Eden:
The most important part of Eden was the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The closest the Sumerians have to this is also in "Enki and Ninhursag". In that tale Enki impregnates the goddess Uttu but the semen is hurting her so the goddess Ninhursag removes it and plants it in the ground. Eight trees and plants grow from it. Enki then eats all eight, Ninhursag curses him for his actions and he in turn becomes deathly ill. Ninhursag is later either tricked or talked into helping Enki (who she had earlier cursed). She then sleeps with and is impregnated by Enki. She gives birth to eight deities who in turn cure Enki's eight afflictions. Some scholars have attempted to relate Genesis with this myth, but I think that is a bit of a stretch. The Eden Trees bestowed knowledge or immortality on their eaters. It was God who punished Adam and Eve. In the above tale, it is the opposite. The plants themselves are the cause of pain and it is a goddess who cures them. A very big difference.
The only similarity between Genesis and Sumerian myths is that they both have a paradise in the east. The most important theme of Eden is the Trees and the Fall of Man. In fact the whole point of the Genesis tale is the Fall of Man and the introduction of sin and death, not that man was placed in a garden. The Sumerians made no mention of this and a paradise or earlier golden age is common in many religions and cultures. It is obvious to me that the Hebrews did not borrow from the Sumerians.
1)Genesis 2:8-17,25. All Biblical quotes are taken from Thompson NASB Bible (Indianapolis, 1979)
2)The Sumerians, Samuel Noah Kramer (Chicago, 1971) pgs.281-282
3)The Harps That Once...Sumerian Poetry in Translation, Thorkild Jacobsen (Yale, 1987) pgs. 185-186
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