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THREE
There was a stunned silence for several minutes. Nikolai broke it. 'Is that why we have formed this team? To locate these weapons?'
Ben laughed. 'Not likely. This not our problem at all. I only bring this point up because Major McRae was wrongly treated over them. His reward, if you like, is that I have placed evidence with the United Nations which will prove his integrity. Now that Saddam's regime has been overthrown, there is no longer a good reason for a cover-up. The evidence will be released and it will be up to either the New Iraqi government or the US forces to use the information as they wish. Our mission is a far more peaceful one.'
'We have heard that each member of the team will be rewarded for simply considering the mission and greatly rewarded if the mission is successful. So what are you getting out of this?'
Ben held up his hand. 'Not necessarily successful. There is the very strong likelihood that the mission can never be completed. I intend to reward the team simply for attempting it.'
'You mentioned finding the Garden of Eden to me,' said Nikolai. 'That in itself would seem to be an impossible search. So why try?'
Ben sat on the edge of the polished dining table. 'I have a very sick mother for whom doctors say there is no cure. I have considerable resources at my disposal. If I can locate the Tree of Life….'
'The Tree of life which stood in the center of the garden,' continued Nikolai, nodding with understanding.
'Are you totally insane?' said Ibraham. 'There is nothing left of it after all these centuries.'
'If it ever existed,' murmured Archie.
Ben turned to him. 'As an atheist, I do understand your cynicism. However, I am a Christian and therefore believe. As long as I believe and am prepared to pay for it, then, to be frank, whether you personally believe in its existence or not is actually irrelevant. As an Israeli, I know that Hannah believes, as does Ibraham as a true Moslem. Nikolai was brought up as part of a Communist way of life but was baptized as a member of the Russian Orthodox Church.'
'I still believe,' said the man in question.
'So what are you getting out of this?' asked Ibraham.
Ben answered him. 'Nikolai holds the key to where to look. He will gain recognition for this. I offered him more, but the man who can locate the hardest place on Earth to find will be recognized as the expert that he truthfully is.'
'So where do we begin?'asked Archie.
'With the Bible. Nikolai probably has the best understand of ancient and modern languages known to man. He may understand from the ancient texts things that others may have missed.'
'Such as?'
'Why not let him explain?'
He nodded to Nikloai who moved to the table. Ben sat down next to Hannah.
Nikolai began. 'First of all let's deal with the things that we do know. The most certain of these is that the place we seek was NOT called the Garden of Eden.'
Hannah and Ibraham gasped. Ben was surprised but not shocked by the news.
'How do I know this? From my knowledge of languages and also from the Biblical text itself. The word Eden did not come into common usage until about two thousand years after the days of Adam and Eve.'
'But the word is Hebrew,' said Hannah. 'It means beautiful park or paradise.'
Nikolai smiled. 'It does now. But that is not its original meaning. And beware of using “paradise” which is a Persian word meaning a walled park – from two Parsi words “para” – against or separated from – as in parallel or parasol, and “disos” – we only have the Greek equivalent today which means “distress” or “trouble”. Paradise literally means a place separate or protected from, distress.'
'This would accurately describe the Garden of Eden,' said Ibraham.
Nikolai laughed. 'I did not say that the word was inappropriate in this case. The word simply was not in use six thousand years ago.'
'But it is Hebrew, right?'
The old man shook his head. 'No, it was later adopted into Hebrew but is was originally from another language – the one most likely to have been used in ancient times.'
'And this is not Hebrew?'
'Highly unlikely. In fact, virtually impossible.'
'But the earliest scrolls of the Bible were written in Hebrew. It must be the earliest language. Genesis was written in Hebrew.'
'Yes it was. But by whom.'
'Moses.'
'Exactly. And when did Moses live?'
'In the early sixteenth century BC.'
'Yes, when Hebrew was in common usage among the Jews. But this was twenty-five centuries after the time of Eden. Tell me, from where do most languages originate?'
Hannah frowned. ' God confused the languages when Nimrod tried to build the Tower of Babel.'
'Precisely. Almost a thousand years before Moses and seventeen hundred years after Eden. But whose language did he confuse?'
'Hebrew?'
Nikolai shook his head. 'No, it is more likely that Hebrew was one of the languages which resulted from Babel.'
'But you must be wrong. The Bible was written in Hebrew so this must be the oldest language.'
'Actually, only half of the Bible was written in Hebrew. Parts, like the book of Daniel, were written in Aramaic and so was the book of Matthew. The rest of the New Testament was written in Greek, a relatively modern language. God intended to have the Bible understood, so he had it written in the most used language of that day. When Hebrew began to wane around three centuries BC, the Septuagint translated the Hebrew part into Greek because it had become the universal language.'
'So when was Hebrew first used? From Babel?'
Nikolai nodded. 'Almost certainly. In fact, Genesis describes Shem, the middle son of Noah, as “the father of all the sons of Eber.” Eber is where we get “Hebrew” so, in effect, Shem was the forefather of the Hebrew-speaking peoples. There would be no point in mentioning this in scripture if Hebrew was in use at the time of, or even shortly after, the flood. Verse twenty-five of that same Genesis ten tells us that the son of Eber was Peleg, during whose lifetime the Earth was divided.'
'Divided?'
'Yes, divided by language barrier. The people were forced to split up and seek lands of their own with people who spoke the same language. Language is the greatest divider of people.'
'More than religion?' said the cynical Archie.
'Oh, far more than religion. Think of the wars between fellow Christians of different languages, and Moslems of differing sects. Language is the biggest barrier known to man.'
'But you believe that the original language survived.'
Nikolai nodded. 'Yes. It survived among the people who were never at Babel.'
'And who was that?'
'Genesis tells us that after the ark came to rest, the sons of Noah began to spread out, as they had been commanded. The sons Shem and Ham went south and became the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Africans, Canaanites, Arabs, Jews and the like. Although Nimrod was Ham's grandson, there were also Shemites in the area. We know this because Abraham moved to Palestine from Ur which was quite close to Babel.'
'So where did the third son go?'
Nikolai smiled. 'Actually, Japheth was the oldest. His descendants went to Persia, India, China, Russia and Europe. In fact, they went almost everywhere except…'
'Except Babel.'
'Precisely. So there was no need for their language to be confused. They had no share in constructing the Tower at Babel.'
'So what did we call this language?'
'I don't know.'
'You don't know?'
'No-one knows what it was originally called. Today, linguists call it Proto-Indo-European. It is the root of virtually every language north of Ararat.'
'But there are hundreds of languages in Europe and Asia.'
'Yes, there are, but most are related and can be traced back to PTE. We know very little about Proto-Indo-European. We do know that all European languages come from Indo-European and that most Asian languages stem from Indo-Iranian. And these two have a lot in common. So the technical term is Proto (before) Indo-European. You can call it almost anything you like. Cimmerian would be an accurate term, as would Celtic. Not modern Gaelic, but the Ancient Celtic of the early Gauls.'
'So is this language spoken anywhere on Earth today?'
'It's funny you should ask that. There is, in effect, one language which is very close to the original although the pronunciation is probably completely wrong.'
'And what language is that?'
'English.'
'English? You have to be kidding.'
'Oddly, it is not as strange is it may first seem. English is a hybrid language, one made up from other languages. But the languages which were used as the roots for English are the very same languages that Proto-Indo-European split into over the course of time. That's why it is so much easier for other Europeans to learn English than it is for English-speaking people to learn other European languages. Language has now gone full circle in that English is probably the closest thing we have to that spoken in the Garden of Eden.'
'The same Garden of Eden which was not called the Garden of Eden?'
'Well, yes and no. The meaning of some words change over time. Words like burg appear in almost every European and Asian language and mean much the same as they did sixty centuries ago. Others, such as field and ton, now mean the exact opposite of the original. This is because man's way of living has changed a great deal over time.'
'So how about Eden?'
'Eden is in two parts. The first, Ea, is about water. The ancient Sumerians had a God, Ea, who was the equivalent of the more recent Neptune. It appears in one form or another as part of place names all across Europe and much of Asia. If the name of your town ends in ea or ey, it is almost certain to be near the sea or some great waterway.'
'What about whiskey?' asked the doubting Archie.
Ben laughed. 'Even my favourite Jack Daniels is made up of ninety percent water.'
'And den?' persevered Hannah.
'The ancient Celts had several words which meant different kinds of valley. Today, we just tend to use the one. If the valley was described as a denu or danu, it was a valley, regardless of its size, which was used as a trade route. There are literally dozens of river valleys named dee, don or similar, all of which were important routes and a corruption of danu. Probably the best know in Europe was known for centuries as simply “the Danu” and is now called Danube.'
'So if we put Ea and danu together?'
'We get Eden – literally an important valley full of water, and of course, used for trade.'
'Any guesses as to where this one was.'
'You don't need to guess. There was only one valley. It contained not one, but two major rivers plus numerous tributaries and lakes and has been used as a trade route as long as historical documents have been available. Mesopotamia – literally, the land between the rivers, Euphrates and Tigris.'
'So to look for Eden, we have to go to Iraq?'
Nikolai shook his head. 'Very unlikely. Genesis did not say that Mespotamia was Eden. It simply said that the garden was IN Eden, or somewhere in that long valley stretching from the Gulf right up to Armenia. Tributaries are sourced in Iran, Syria and Turkey, all used for trade over the centuries.'
'That is one almighty great area,' said Ben.
'Yes, but we can narrow it down considerably.'
'How?'
'For a start, we have to accept that the geology of the whole area must have changed somewhat during the flood. The weight of all that water is bound to have made alterations to the landscape. Secondly, the Gulf coast is moving southwards as a considerable rate due to silting. In Abraham's day, Ur was a seaport. But today the ruins are over a hundred miles inland. It is quite possible that before the flood, the entire land of Mesopotamia, much of modern Iraq and Kuwait, were under water. The valley is certainly sedimentary in composition.'
'So we could be talking about Northern Iraq?'
'Perhaps even further north-west than that.'
'Please explain,' said Hannah.
'Let's look at the clues in the Bible. But bear in mind that Moses was writing in about 1500BC to a totally Hebrew readership whom he wanted to understand full what he was writing. We can tell that from the clues he gave them. He actually wanted them to know where the garden was. Otherwise, he would not have been so detailed in his description.'
'Where can we find these clues?'
'In Genesis. I have taken to liberty of bringing along a selection of Bibles in your own languages so that you may follow along. First, turn to the second chapter of Genesis.'
They each did this in their own copies, including the intrigued Archie McRae.
'Verse eight,' said Nikolai. 'God planted a garden in Eden, toward the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.'
'Towards the east?'
'The east side of the land of Eden. Look at verse ten. There was a river issuing out of Eden to water the garden , and from there it became, as it were, four heads.'
'Four heads?'
'Interesting thing that. Not four tributaries, but four heads, four DIStributaries.'
'In other words,' said Ibraham. 'An impossible situation.'
'Not entirely. There are two situations where this can and does occur. The first is a delta. There are dozens of rivers on earth which have a number of outlets across a delta.'
'This would place Edan close to the sea, would it not?'
'It could, yes. But there is another possible explanation. Just suppose that the river issuing out of Eden to enter and water the valley ran into a lake at the foot of the garden. It is not impossible for a lake basin to have more than one outlet. Not common, but plausible.'
'So how do you picture this kind of set-up?'
'I picture a garden of a few acres in a narrow valley with land each side of the river. I see an impassible waterfall at one end of the garden and a narrow crevasse as an outlet flowing into a lake with four outlets.'
'Why only a few acres?'
'It had to be of the right size to be cultivated by one man, with the help of his woman.'
'And who only accessible at one end?'
'Because when man was banished from the garden after his sin, God set angels to guard “the entrance to the garden”, one entrance. And this was at the east side of the garden. So the river flowed out of Eden, or at least the pass from which the trade route was formed. It ran into the garden, through it, and out on the east side. When Cain was sent away after murdering his brother, it is said that he took up residence in the land of Nod, meaning fugitiveness, to the east of Eden, or downstream.'
'Ok, in the absence of other info, we'll go along with you for now.
'What was the name of this river?'
'We don't know. We must assume that it was insignificant or Moses would have mentioned it. Either that or it had ceased to exist because of the flood.'
'And the outlets?'
'See verses eleven and twelve. “The first one's name is Pishon; it is the one circling the entire land of Havilah where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. There also are the bdellium gum and the onyx stone.”'
'Where is Havilah? Or where was it at the time of Eden?'
'At the time of Eden, it did not exist. Havilah was a man who lived after the flood and had his resident home named after him. Moses was using the names of places which existed in his day so that the readers would have a clue as to its location.'
'So where did this Havilah guy live?'
'In what is now the Sinai Peninsular, between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba.'
Ibraham frowned. 'But there is no river at that location, certainly not one encircling it.'
Nikolai smiled at him. 'Of course not. But there possibly was before the flood.'
'One flowing from the area north of Iraq? Or maybe north east of Iraq?'
The old man nodded. 'You live in Lebanon. What is the largest natural feature of your land?'
'The mountains, of course.'
Nikolai nodded again. 'Newly-formed fold mountains. Thousands of years ago, the structural plates moved, raising the height of the range. There is a river which today rises in those mountains, one important to many Middle Eastern nations.'
'The Jordan?' suggested Hannah.
'Exact. Now suppose that prior to the mountains being lifted the source was much father north. There are many geologists who believe that the Jordan once flowed through Damascus from the north and that the source was very close to that of the Euphrates, possibly out of the same Edenic lake.'
'But the Jordan flows into the Dead Sea, not to Sinai.'
'True. But I have taken the liberty of brining along a satellite map of the Negeb, the area between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba.'
The group moved closer to see.
'Look at these lines. They are gulleys, once flooded with water. And you notice that they all flow from north to south into a valley which no longer exists. I believe, as do others, that the Jordan once flowed all the way down the rift valley to the Gulf of Aqaba and into the Red Sea, thus encircling the “entire land of Havilah.” These gulleys in the Negeb were tributaries of that river.'
'You are suggesting that the Jordan is this Pishon and that it flowed out of Eden, past Damascus, through Palestine, across the Negeb and into the Red Sea.'
'Perhaps further than that. There is evidence that suggests that the Nile once joined the Red Sea so the Pishon, Jordan or whatever flowed into either the Mediterranean or the Indian Ocean.'
'What changed its course into the Dead Sea?'
'Sodom and Gomorrah. When Abraham first arrived in Palestine, he called the Jordan Valley, “the Garden of Eden”. Not literally, of course, but it was luxurious and beautiful, unlike today. God disapproved of the conduct and the people was destroyed by fire and brimstone, likely caused by a vertical shift within the Great Rift Valley which, incidentally, continues right down the east coastal areas of Africa, across Ethiopia and Somalia. It is beyond impossibility for this to have been the Pishon. The other details certainly fit.'
'Other details?'
'In the verse. It mentions gold. Not just gold but good gold. This is the area in which King Solomon's Mines are thought to have existed. Then there is Bdellium and Onyx, both found along this valley.'
'That is one hell of a long river.'
'Yes, verse eighteen of chapter twenty-five describes the dwelling of the Arab peoples as being in Havilah and Shur which is in front of Egypt. Of course, it was not called Egypt at that time.'
'Hang on, now you are really confusing us. If not Egypt, then where had Moses and the Israelites just come from?'
Nikolai laughed. 'Oh, they had come from Egypt all right. It just was not called Egypt. The land at the mouth of the Nile was first called Egypt by Alexander the Great who set up his southern capital there at Alexandria.' He chuckled. 'Now there was a man with a serious ego.'
'What was it called before?'
'Misraim, after the grandson of Noah by that name who settled there. A son of Ham, probably big and black.'
'So why did Moses call it Egypt. I know my history is a little rusty but I am sure he lived before Alexander.'
'I mentioned earlier that the initial Hebrew text had been translated into Greet by the Septuagint. This was done shortly after Alexander's day. In the process, some place names were altered to represent the modern names. So Moses would not have called it Egypt. He would have called it Misraim and the name got updated by the Sopherim.'
'Does not this cast doubt on all these texts?' asked Archie.
'Not at all. We still have the Dead Sea Scrolls which were written prior to Alexander. A comparison between these and later Greek manuscripts shows that, apart from minor name differences, the text was the same. Whether you used Misraim or Egypt was in fact irrelevant. The Israelites knew by tradition where Egypt, or Misraim, were located.'
'What about the second river?'
'Verse thirteen. “And the name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one encircling the entire land of Cush.”'
'Cush? Was that not the old name for Africa?'
'It was the name for several locations of the descendants of Ham's dark-skinned son. I have to admit that this is the river we know the least about. Although Africa did become the main habitaion for Cushites there was a considerable Cushite civilization in what is now the borderlands between Armenia, Turkey and Iran. It is possible, nay, probable, that the river no longer exists and perhaps was already very slight in the time of Moses. If we are to believe that the Gihon encircled the continent of Africa, then the land features much have changed during the flood beyond all imagination, thus making all Moses' guidelines entirely useless. It would make us wonder why he would even mention them.'
'Does not the Gihon run through Jerusalem?'
'There is a spring in Jerusalem named Gihon but not the same one. There are, in fact, several, none of which could possibly have been the Edenic one.'
'And the other rivers?'
'They are relatively easy. Hiddekel is the old name for the Tigris and the Euprhrates is still called the same today. However, the course of both rivers has changed very much over the millennia. However they have always flowed through Mesopotamia.'
'So put us out our misery. What is the most likely conclusion to all this?
'Tributaries of the Tigris today flow through Mosul from the north or Iraq and, by the lie of the land, could easily have once originated as far north as Armenia, maybe even Ararat itself – where the Ark settled after the flood. The Eurphrates does flow from Ararat, passing very close to the Black Sea coast of Turkey, before turning south into Syria and then Iraq. Evedence suggests that this may not have been the original course which may have flowed via Urfa, modern Sanliurfa. Thuis would mean that the Pishon, modern Jordan, could have drained the area around Aleppo, modern Halab. The Gihon most likely ran into the Mediterranean near Adana or even into the Black Sea. There are several possibilities.'
'All of which puts the Garden of Eden where?'
Nikolai opened up another map and placed his finger upon it.
Ibraham gaped. 'Van? You think it was near Lake Van?'
'More likely, UNDER it.'
'Under it?
'When God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, He flooded the Jordan valley. And not with just water, it was high concentration salt water, impossible to probe effectively.'
'And Van is similar, is it not?'
Nikolai nodded. 'Almost a carbon copy. Once, Van was a small lake, not unlike the one we are looking for, in the land of Assyria, nowadays called Kurdistan. But there was an earthquake which caused a landslide, blocking the original outlet. The lake is now considerably larger and deeper, without exit and, as you say, similar in salty consistency.'
'By Allah, how do we find out?'
'Not we,' grinned Ben. 'You do. You are one of only a handful of people who have ever attempted any kind of dive into the Dead Sea. I realize that this requires specialized sonar and viewing equipment, but this his being shipped to the area as we speak. You can do it and find the garden. With the help of Mademoiselle Goldstein.'
'It's still an impossible task.'
'That's what they said when one of your ships was leaking oil and sinking after being mined in the Gulf. But you fixed it. They also said “impossible” when you said you intended to refloat your father's company using only small capital. But your own guts and determination is all that has kept your business going till today. If I were to look for any man capable of doing the impossible, I would have to look at you.' Ben looked around the room at the faces. 'I would have to look at all of you. You all have differing skills but the same guts and determination.'
'What about you?'
'Me? A black man in a white man's world? A Successful banker and baptist lay preacher in a part of the USA where dark skin still equals stupid? I cannot do this, you cannot do this. But if this can be done, WE can do it.'
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