Edward Lipinski's "El's Abode: Mythological Traditions Related to ...

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48 E. LIPI&SKI
of darkness : w'lbrt [']£[*] [m\n Mwk' rk[y]q mnh w'hlpt lyd prds qst[*l
(4Q Hend, lines 7-8), « and I passed above the Darkness, far from it,
and I came next to the Paradise of righteousness ». This paradise has
to be identified with the high mountain of God which is situated-.in
the north, as results also from a comparison of I Enoch 25,3
25,5 175.
It can even be referred to the pseudepigraphic book of IV
13,40 ff. 1765 where the author relates his vision of the expedition-of
the deported North-Israelite tribes from Mesopotamia to «a land'
further distant, where the human race had never dwelt» (II Ezra
13,41). The text says that, on their journey, « they entered the narrow
passages of the river Euphrates» (IV Ezra 13,43), travelling thus iir
the direction of the north.
All these legends make their hero penetrate the Land of the Living
through a gate of darkness, whose geographical origin is likely to be
looked for in the tunnel at the source of the Western Tigris 177. The
river enters the mountain on the north, traverses it in a rocky tunnel
about one kilometer long, and reappears on the southern side. There
is evidence that the tunnel was much longer formerly and that it was
shortened, in the north, by successive landslides 17S.
175 Cf. P. GRELOT, art. cit., in Revue Biblique, 65, 1958, p. 42, and J.T. MHJOK, ibid.,
p. 77 with n. 1.
176 Cf. the edition of L. GRY, Les dires prophetiques d'Esdras (IV. Ssdras), Paris,
1938.
177 fjphe narrative of IV Ezra 13,40 ff., which mentions the river Euphrates, constitutes
no objection against this location. Moreover, the idea of « narrow passages of the
river » may ultimately be borrowed from the tunnel of the Western Tigris.
178 Cf. C.F. LBHMANN-HAFPT, Armenien einst und jetzt, I, p. 438-440, 448, 450;
II, p. 838, 846; W.F. ALBRIGHT, The Mouth of the Rivers, in AJSL, 35, 1918-1919,
p. 161-195 (see p. 192); A.H. KBAPPE, art. cit., in Philological Quarterly, 20, 1941, p. 126-
127. I. FRIEDLANDER, Die Ghadhirlegende und der Alexanderroman, p. 303-304, located
the landmark of the junction of the two seas (magma* al-bahrain) at the Rock of Gibraltar
and regarded the subterranean passage as a sort of forerunner of the Suez Canal.
M.H. POPE, El in the Ugaritic Texts, p. 78-80, considers that the tunnel connecting Afqa
with the nearby Birket el-Yammuneh recommends itself as a most likely place. But
R. HASTMAJSU, review of I. Friedlander, Die Chadhirlegende und der Alexanderroman,
in ZDMG, 67, 1913, p. 739-751 (see p. 749-751), seems to have proved that even the
scene of the Qur'an, Sura 18,59-63, as far as it has a definite terrestrial location, was
the cave at the sources of the Tigris, since the pre-Islamic legend makes Alexander the
Great enter this cave on Ms way to Paradise, which accordingly would be located in
Armenia. The ma$ma* al-bahrain should thus be looked for in the same region, at the
sources of the Tigris.
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