syracuse,
My personal studies on the topic, lead me to believe there were 2 Edens/Edins. The Fields (which could also be the steppes, the plains), and the
Garden, which was encompassing a "ziggurat" (a holy mountain) of that time frame. this is where the story really gets interesting.
According to the Enuma Elish, Gilgamesh searches out the gates of the Paradise/Garden, so he can learn from the equivalent of the biblical Noah, the
secret of immortality. When he arrives at the Garden gates, there are two sentries posted who will not let him pass. they are described as scorpion
beings. They appear to have some type of radiation emitting from their eyes (think of the oracles in the never ending story), and the entire gate
and guardians of the gate, are surrounded by some type of shimmering shield that encompasses the entire area, and spreads across the mountain (which
i'm assuming is in fact a ziggurat). Compare this to the biblical story of the Garden of Eden and how the gates were blocked by two cherubim and a
fiery sword that went back and forth (the shimmering shield, almost sounds like a force field).
Gilgamesh explains who he is and the guardians of the gate determine he is capable of using the gate (he's referred to as being 2/3rds god, 1/3
human --et.al, he's a hybrid nephilim king and well, that's borne out by the passages that claim that kingship descended from the heavens to the
earth). He then passes into the gates and has a trip in the dark, which ends at a Garden in which the plants don't grow fruit, but crystals.
There he finds the "Noah" figure, who has been placed in paradise (the Garden of Eden) and given an immortal body as a result of his good works and
so on.
This lead me to believe that the gate was in fact a star gate/wormhole (thus the passage in the dark and the need to be biologically capable of
passage threw the gate), and that paradise was originally located on another planet. In support of the theory, I found a map from ancient Babylon of
constellations that indicated a connection, not only to the events in the Enuma Elish but to the stories surrounding the sumerian Enki, who's
ziggurat was said to connect to the Field Constellation. The star map places the Field constellation in the Great Square of Pegasus. Pisces is
depicted as the two rivers of Euphrates and Tigris, which surround, on two sides, the Great Square of Pegasus. And Pegasus, is depicted as a
cherubim/sphinx. It all fits into each other, hand in glove, like an intricate puzzle. It dawned on me at this point, that the Garden of Eden was
probably at the other end of a star gate passage somewhere in the Field Constellation (the Great Square of Pegasus).
This is further substantiated in the biblical texts when it refers to the "serpent" as the most subtle beast of the field. Which in fact, may have
been a reference to the Field (constellation) and Enki's "ziggurat" which was connected to the Field Constellation in the sumerian-akkadian story.
To add another layer of interest to it, the possibility exists that our "fall" as a race, may have been that we were cast out of paradise via the
star gate, to this planet, because we had been genetically modified by the "Serpent", (Enki, who was called the great dragon in their texts)
Of course, I could be wrong.
[edit on 20-11-2006 by undo]
[edit on 20-11-2006 by undo]