Dilmun or Telmun or Eden?

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Dilmun, or Telmun, was an ancient Semitic-speaking polity in Arabia mentioned from the 3rd millennium BC onwards.

Based on textual evidence, it was located in the Persian Gulf, on a trade route between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilization, close to the sea and to artesian springs.

Snip.

The great commercial and trading connections between Mesopotamia and Dilmun were strong and profound to the point where Dilmun was a central figure to the Sumerian creation myth.

Dilmun was described in the saga of Enki and Ninhursag as pre-existing in paradisiacal state, where predators don't kill, pain and diseases are absent, and people don't get old.

Dilmun was an important trading centre. At the height of its power, it controlled the Persian Gulf trading routes. According to some modern theories, the Sumerians regarded Dilmun as a sacred place, but that is never stated in any known ancient text. Dilmun was mentioned by the Mesopotamians as a trade partner, a source of copper, and a trade entrepôt.

The Sumerian tale of the garden paradise of Dilmun may have been an inspiration for the Garden of Eden story.

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Dilmun - Wikipedia

 

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The Garden of Eden as recast Mesopotamian Myth
by Walter R. Mattfeld
(Millbury, MA)

Some Liberal PhD scholars trained in biblical studies and ancient Mesopotamian myths understand that the Garden of Eden story is a Hebrew recast of Mesopotamian myths which explained how man came to be created and where, and how he acquired godly-forbidden knowledge but was denied immortality.

All this was figured out over 100 years ago and published (in 1887 by Professor A.H. Sayce of Oxford University). Man was created to care for the gods' city-gardens surrounded by a plain called edin in the Sumerian language.

The gods had built cities to live in _before_ man's creation. The gods had bodies of flesh and could die if they did not eat food grown in their city-gardens watered by irrigation canals from the Euphrates and Tigris.

They tired of this work, it was back-breaking! So they created man to bear the back-breaking work in their gardens of edin! Man is portrayed in Sumerian art forms as working in their gardens in a state of nakedness like Adam.

The gods didn't want man at first to possess their knowledge, the Sumerian _me_ (pronounced may)the secret workings of Heaven and Earth including laws about good and evil, right and wrong. At Eridu in Sumer, next door to Ur of the Chaldees where Abraham lived and Ea was worshiped, a man (Adapa) is warned by his god

Ea "not to eat of food of death or he will die," prefiguring Yahweh's warning to Adam. Both men, Adapa and Adam, are blamed for losing out on obtaining immortality for themselves and for mankind.

The warning "don't eat" was given in (1) Eridu and recast by the Hebrews (Abraham?)as being given in the Garden of Eden.

Thus Eridu is a pre-biblical prototype of Eden's garden. But Eridu is not exclusively the one location behind Eden's garden, there are other locations in the myths: (2) Nippur, where "Man" (the Igigi gods being called euphemistically "man") are expelled for an act of rebellion against Enlil the god of Nippur, recast at Adam rebelling and being expelled from Eden's garden;

The Igigi at Eridu rebel against Enki/Ea and are expelled from that city-garden too and man is created to replace them as garden-laborers.

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The Garden of Eden as recast Mesopotamian Myth

 

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More from wiki

Dilmun was an important trading center from the late fourth millennium to 800 BC.

At the height of its power, Dilmun controlled the Persian Gulf trading routes. Dilmun was very prosperous during the first 300 years of the second millennium.

Dilmun's commercial power began to decline between 1000 BC and 800 BC because piracy flourished in the Persian Gulf. In 600 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and later the Persian Empire, ruled Dilmun.

The Dilmun civilization was the centre of commercial activities linking traditional agriculture of the land—then utterly fertile due to artesian wells that have dried since, and due to a much wetter climate—with maritime trade between diverse regions such as the Meluhha (suspected to be Indus Valley Civilisation), Magan (Oman), and Mesopotamia.

The Dilmun civilization is mentioned first in Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets dated to the late third millennium BC, found in the temple of goddess Inanna, in the city of Uruk.

 

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Clyde 154

Thousands of years ago, in ancient Mesopotamia, Bahrain used to be known as ‘Dilmun’. Dilmun was the “land of immortality” and a meeting place for the gods.

“The land of Dilmun is holy, the land of Dilmun is pure” is how Dilmun was described in one of the world’s oldest poems written down some 4,000 years ago in the ancient Sumerian city of Nippur near the Euphrates:

The poem tells about the doings of the gods at the dawn of time in a sacred island paradise called Dilmun, a place closely resembling the Garden of Eden, where death and sickness did not exist and sweet waters flowed.

 

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Dilmun, or Telmun, was an ancient Semitic-speaking polity in Arabia mentioned from the 3rd millennium BC onwards.

Based on textual evidence, it was located in the Persian Gulf, on a trade route between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilization, close to the sea and to artesian springs.

Snip.

The great commercial and trading connections between Mesopotamia and Dilmun were strong and profound to the point where Dilmun was a central figure to the Sumerian creation myth.

Dilmun was described in the saga of Enki and Ninhursag as pre-existing in paradisiacal state, where predators don't kill, pain and diseases are absent, and people don't get old.

Dilmun was an important trading centre. At the height of its power, it controlled the Persian Gulf trading routes. According to some modern theories, the Sumerians regarded Dilmun as a sacred place, but that is never stated in any known ancient text. Dilmun was mentioned by the Mesopotamians as a trade partner, a source of copper, and a trade entrepôt.

The Sumerian tale of the garden paradise of Dilmun may have been an inspiration for the Garden of Eden story.

continued

Dilmun - Wikipedia

They were polytheists, right?

 

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They were polytheists, right?

Yes. A thousand years before the Hebrews. Its actually a fascinating idea. The whole Arabian Peninsula tilts to the east so fossil waters run west to East. That's why there are so many fresh water springs in Bahrain and in the coastal waters.

 

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Yes. A thousand years before the Hebrews. Its actually a fascinating idea. The whole Arabian Peninsula tilts to the east so fossil waters run west to East. That's why there are so many fresh water springs in Bahrain and in the coastal waters.

So the key distinction between the Jews and Sumerians was monotheism versus polytheism, right?