as thou goest toward Assyria", (Gen. 25: 18), and Ophir, famous for its gold

(Job 28: 16), is associated with Havilah in Gen. 10: 29; and again Moses gives the

added note:--

If four great rivers took their rise from the river that watered Paradise, it is plain that

Paradise itself must have been in an elevated tract of country. Lenormant says, "Eden, in

the Accadian and Sumerian texts is used sometimes to designate a plain in opposition to a

mountain. But this is never the bottom of the valley . . . . ."  The Tigris (Hiddekel,

Accadian for Tigris) and the Euphrates both rise in Armenia, thus, once again, we

observe a connection between Adam and Noah, for the Ark rested on "one of the

mountains of Ararat", which tradition places in Armenia. Two other rivers take their rise

in this region, the Kur and the Araxes, which flow into the Caspian Sea. These rivers

cannot be identified with the Pison or the Gihon, but such may be what remains of them

since the disruption at the flood. As the Bible is the only book that declares that this

district is the cradle of the human race, it has for thirty three centuries been ahead of the

"science" of the day.

Quatrefages, the great French scientist and anthropologists, says, "that the study of the

various populations, and of their languages, has led scientists of the greatest deliberation

and authority to place the cradle of the human race in Asia, not far from the central mass

of that continent, and in the neighbourhood of the region where all the principal rivers

which plough their way to the north, to the south, and to the east, take their rise". It is in

Central Asia alone that wheat is indigenous, and must have been carried thence by man as

he spread abroad. In Gen. 2: 12 Moses speaks of the gold, the bdellium and the onyx

stone as constituting an easy means of identifying this district. The word bdellium occurs

but twice in Scripture, once in Gen. 2: 12, and once in Numb. 11: 7, where the manna is

likened to it. This shows that Israel, for whom Moses wrote, were well acquainted with

this substance, though today there may be uncertainty as to its identity. The LXX

considered it to be a precious stone, and translate the word by anthrax and krystallos,

while Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion render it bdellium, a transparent aromatic gum

which is formed by a tree that grows in Arabia. The Rabbis, however, translate the word

by "Pearl".

In our earlier studies, we have found that the references to "time" in Gen. 1:, 2: 3

have a symbolic value far outweighing their primitive meaning. As we look at this first

great reference to "place" are we not justified in expecting that its description answers

some more important purpose than that of satisfying the Israelites as to the identity of the

site of Paradise?

Three great streams of humanity have their origin in this district; the descendants of

Shem, Ham and Japheth, and, mingled with the descendants of the true seed preserved

alive in the ark, we learn of the Canaanite, and their frightful progeny.