132 THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 
direction. It may mean that the garden was in the eastern part of 
the land, and many theologians hold this view ; but let us not forget 
that the word Miqquedem, here translated eastward, is frequently 
translated “in the beginning.” It is only the Septuagint translates 
Miqquedem “in the east,” or eastward. Other Greek versions and 
Jerome, Vulgate, the Chaldee paraphrase, and the Syriak render it 
“from the beginning,” so that the verse with this rendering of the 
word Miqquedem reads: “And the Lord God in the beginning 
planted a garden in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had 
formed.” But our enquirer reads verses 10 to 14—“ And a river 
went out to Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted 
and became four heads. The name of the first is Pison, the name 
of the second river is Gihon, the name of the third is Hiddekel, and 
the fourth river Euphrates.” Our reader. has difficulty with all these 
rivers but the last one, and here he thinks that all is plain. Con- 
sulting theologians, however, he finds difficulty with even this fourth. 
Some one expresses a doubt about the genuineness of the verse. 
Another considers it an interpolation. At last he finds that the 
word Perath or Phrath, that is the Hebrew name for a river, is from 
the older form Buratti or Puratti, a word signifying ‘‘ the broad” or 
“‘the deep,” and, of course, such a term was used to describe other 
ancient rivers. Moreover, I think it can be clearly shown that in 
ancient times Phrat or Eu Frata, Euphrates, was the name of pos- 
sibly two rivers in Persia ; one of these even in Pliny’s time bore 
the name in the hardly changed form Ophradus. Many of the best 
Biblical scholars do not hesitate to consider the Phrath of the 
khorda-avesta identical with the Persian River Helmend. Africa 
also had its sacred broad Phrath or Euphrath, Euphrates ; therefore 
if this passage in Genesis is genuine, and if Moses wrote of the 
Phrath, it is not absolutely certain what Phrath or abounding river 
he had in his mind. Moreover, in ‘any case the Euphrates ot 
Mesopatamia is not one of the four off-shoots into which the one 
river proceeded out of Eden, dividing itself according to the statement 
of the text. Its source is from mountain springs, not from another 
river, hence then the Euphrates of Mesopatamia could not have 
been one of the rivers from Adam’s home. I think we should be 
reminded here of the language of Josephus, according to which the 
Ganges, Tigris, the Euphrates and the Nile are all parts of one river 
