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desert lying W and S of the Euphrates; and Kush is a name for northern and middle Babylonia, derived from the Kaššite dynasty that once ruled there. In spite of the learning and ingenuity with which this theory has been worked out, it cannot clear itself of an air of artificiality at variance with the simplicity of the passage it seeks to explain. That the Euphrates should be at once the undivided Paradise-stream and one of the 'heads' into which it breaks up is a glaring anomaly; while v.$14$ shows that the narrator had distinctly before his mind the upper course of the Tigris opposite Assur, and is therefore not likely to have spoken of it as an effluent of the Euphrates. The objection that the theory confuses rivers and canals is fairly met by the argument that the Bab. equivalent of is used of canals, and also by the consideration that both the canals mentioned were probably ancient river-beds; but the order in which the rivers are named tells heavily against the identifications. Moreover, the expression 'the whole land of Ḥavilah' seems to imply a much larger tract of the earth's surface than the small section of desert enclosed by the Pallakopas; and to speak of the whole of northern Babylonia as 'surrounded' by the Shaṭṭ en-Nil is an abuse of language.—According to Sayce (HCM, 95 ff.; DB, i. 643 f.), the garden of Eden is the sacred garden of Ea at Eridu; and the river which waters it is the Persian Gulf, on the shore of which Eridu formerly stood. The four branches are, in addition to Euphrates and Tigris (which in ancient times entered the Gulf separately), the Pallakopas and the Choaspes (now the Kerkha), the sacred river of the Persians, from whose waters alone their kings were allowed to drink (Her. i. 188). Besides the difficulty of supposing that the writer of v.$10$ meant to trace the streams upwards towards their source above the garden, the theory does not account for the order in which the rivers are given; for the Pallakopas is W of Euphrates, while the Choaspes is E of the Tigris. Further, although the description of the Persian Gulf as a 'river' is fully justified by its Bab. designation as Nâr Marratum ('Bitter River'), it has yet to be made probable that either Babylonians or Israelites would have thought of a garden as watered by 'bitter' (i.e. salt) water.—These objections apply with equal force to the theory of Hommel (AA, iii. 1, p. 281 ff., etc., AHT, 314 ff.), who agrees with Sayce in placing Paradise at Eridu, in making the single stream the Persian Gulf, and one of the four branches the Euphrates. But the three other branches, Pishon, Giḥon, and Ḥiddeḳel, he identifies with three N Arabian wādīs,—W. Dawāsir, W. Rummā, and W. Sirhān (the last the 'wādī of Diḳlah' = ḫad-deḳel [see on v.$14$ above], the name having been afterwards transferred to the Tigris).

2. Since none of the above theories furnishes a satisfactory solution of the problem, we may as well go back to what appears the natural