The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament; - The Search For ...

GENESIS III. 41
Also the Cherubim of the Ark of the Covenant have at
least this point in common with the winged bulls, that just
as the latter appear as the special sentinels of the ruler's
abode and likewise of a place devoted to a sacred cultus,
so the former appear as the sentinels and guardians
of the majesty of God that is withdrawn from the glance
of the profane, and as the protectors of his sacred dwelling
(Riehm).
When we revert to the preceding Assyriological comments
on Gen. II. 4
—
III. 24 we clearly discern a double phaeno-
menon. On the one hand this Biblical account of Paradise
(to speak in general terras) appears throughout locally
defined and endowed with local colouring. We are im-
mistakeably led towards the East, or to speak more definitely,
into a region of the Euphrates and Tigris, and, at all
events partially or in some way , of Babylonia. GuhS,n-
Gichon, Pisan-Pishon , also ]1I^ (i. e. the appellative Babyl.
Idinu 'field' transformed into a proper name), likewise the
conception of Svatering' or 'irrigating' the land by a river or
canal, point specially to Babylonia; and the same is equally 4i
true of the name for the precious stone Shoham ; and last
of all the mention of the land Kush certainly points to the
^SoM^^-East.—On the other hand, the reference to the fig-
tree as a growth from the soil of Paradise is unquestionably
non-Babylonian. The description of the Tigris as a river
that flows 'before Assur' is certainly of non-Babylonian
origin; and, finally, the blending of the Babylonian K a
with the African Kes [in the form Ktish, see on X, 6 (8)]
is not to be conceived as possible on Babylonian soil.
Now I agree with Fried. Delitzsch* in holding strongly to
'Wo lag das Paradies" Leipzig 1881 pp. 45—83. According to
s