«Եդեմի երկիրը» - Ռուբեն Ատոյան

Ruben Atoyan's article is devoted to an analysis of the centuries-old historical-geographical tradition of localizing the biblical earthly Paradise on the territory of the Armenian Highland and to an examination of the theological, philological, and cartographic sources connected with this question.

Introduction and Methodology

The author draws on a wide range of sources: the biblical text (the Book of Genesis in Hebrew, Greek, and Armenian translations), patristic exegesis, medieval cosmographic treatises, and contemporary studies on the history of cartography, in particular Alessandro Scafi's monograph "Mapping Paradise" (2006). The article's method is a comparative analysis of theological, linguistic, and geographical interpretations of the narrative of Eden.

Conceptions of Paradise: Three Traditions

Referring to S. Averintsev, the author identifies three lines in the Christian tradition of conceiving Paradise — as a garden, as a city (the Heavenly Jerusalem), and as the heavenly spheres. The article concentrates exclusively on the first line — the conception of an earthly Eden.

Allegorical and Literal Interpretations

Two main approaches are examined:

the allegorical (Philo of Alexandria), which treats Eden and its rivers as symbols of virtues;
the literal-geographical, which seeks to establish the actual location of Paradise and its insurmountable boundaries (a wall, a ring of fire, a belt of mountains and deserts).

The Problem of the Rivers of Paradise

The key issue of the article is the identification of the four biblical rivers — Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel (the Tigris), and the Euphrates. The author notes that only the Tigris and the Euphrates, which have their sources in the Armenian Highland, can be reliably localized, whereas the Pishon and the Gihon have been identified by scholars at various times with the Nile and the Ganges, or with the Danube, giving rise to geographical contradictions and prompting some authors to return to an allegorical understanding of the text.

The Armenian Version of Paradise's Localization

The central place in the article is occupied by an examination of the European tradition of the 16th–18th centuries that linked Eden with Armenia:

the mention by Fausto da Longiano (1544) of the identification of the Araxes and the Kura with the Pishon and the Gihon;
the treatise of Marmaduke Carver (17th c.), who compiled a schematic map of Paradise based on Ptolemy's map of Greater Armenia and placed the Garden of Eden in the region between Mount Masius and the Anti-Taurus (Sophene);
the continuation of this line of research by the French abbé Augustin Calmet.

Conclusion

Atoyan shows that, despite the diversity and contradictoriness of medieval and early modern constructions, a stable tendency emerges to link the biblical Eden precisely with the sources of the Tigris and the Euphrates, that is, with the Armenian Highland. The article's key conclusion is that the Armenian localization of Paradise rests not only on the biblical text but also on a persistent European scholarly tradition that, from the 16th century onward, has consistently refined the geographical, philological, and cartographic arguments in its favor.