The Sunday Mail
WE have so far shown that Adam and Eve were not human beings but a universal human condition respectively symbolising two polarities of the mental and sexual energies related to the positive and negative polarities.
These two symbolically represent metaphysically within oneself of the conscious (will) and sub-conscious (wisdom), psychologically the masculine (active) and feminine (receptive) principles, and biologically men and women.
The Garden is not sought as a geographical location but identified as the symbolic human body, our own physicality. The Garden is called ‘Eden’, meaning voluptuousness that is full of delight, excitement or pleasure to the senses.
In our blissful or pleasurable physicality, in the Garden of Eden is found the trees, particularly that of life (central nervous system) and of knowledge of good and evil (sense of discernment, which is the capacity to distinguish and comprehend), which we should access with due caution.
The Garden of Eden is physically described in Genesis 2:8-14 and is claimed to have had four rivers or headwaters: Pison, Gihon, Tigris (Hiddekel), and Euphrates.
Where is that blissful physicality located? The garden was planted “eastward in Eden” (Genesis 2:8). Symbolically, the East means toward or into the light and this is a metaphysical realm where the real or true self is found.
Let us determine the meanings of the four rivers’ names using the Alexander Cruden’s “A Complete Concordance to the Holy Scripture” (1737):
· ‘Pison’ – meaning, changing or doubling, or extension of the mouth” or “joining together as one”;
· ‘Gihon’ – “the Valley of Grace, or breast, or impetuous or bursting forth as from a fountain, or from the womb” or “to run out, to burst forth into thought”.
· ‘Hiddekel’ (Tigris) – “a sharp voice or sound or swiftness of a current” or “freely flowing”;
· ‘Euphrates’ – “that makes fruitful or grows” or “to increase, the creative power, the fruitful river”.
The four rivers or headwaters were said to issue from Nahar (Strong’s Concordance H#5104), meaning a single river (Genesis 2:10). A river is a flowing fluid, sustaining, nourishing and adventuresome. The single river is synonymous with the “Breath of Life,” which is also flowing fluid, sustaining, nourishing and adventuresome.
Based on Cruden’s Concordance (1737), the signification of these rivers is descriptive of the functions and of the various physical facts and capacities of the garden. They inform us how that garden is fed with new, and how it drained of refuse or old and worn-out matter; and they set forth the method by which the garden is made productive.
The three countries associated with the Garden of Eden:
‘Havilah’ – “that suffers pain, that brings forth”;
Cush (Ethiopia) means blackness (darkness) – heat, burning.
Assyria is the country of, and signifies Asshur. One that is happy, which would make the meaning of Assyria to be, the land of the happy; or the land in which the happy dwell.
Using words of its signification, based on the meanings of the names of rivers and the Garden of Eden, Genesis 2:8-14 would re-read as follows:
“And a river went out of the garden in which there is pleasure or delight, which river watered, fed, and drained the garden; and to water, feed, and drain the garden it was divided into four channels.
“The first of these new rivers, and the main one in which all the others found their sources, was the extension of the mouth; and as this river ran onward in its course, compassing or encircling that which suffers pain and brings forth fruit, the character of its waters was constantly changing by reason of its giving food and receiving refuse from the land through which it ran; and in this land there were things of great value, besides the bdellium and the onyx-stone.
“And the second river of the garden bursts forth as a fountain, or from the womb, from the valley of grace, in which valley it flows in darkness and in heat.
“The third river of the garden runs with a swift current and a sharp sound into the light.
“Furthermore, this river, being in that part of the land known as Mesopotamia, which, interpreted, means ‘in the midst of the rivers,’ is surrounded by the other rivers of the garden, and is, therefore, situated in their midst.
References:
A Complete Concordance to the Holy Scripture (1737) by Alexander Cruden.
· The Garden of Eden; or The Paradise Lost & Found” (1890) by Victoria Claflin Woodhull,
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