431 CHAPTER XIV. On the Situation of Paradise; together with both Critical and Geological Evidences of the spurious Character of that descriptive account of it, found in all Modern Copies and Translations of the Book of Genesis. a As the chief object of this treatise has been to shew, from the evidence of history, corroborated by physical facts, that the greater part of the present dry lands of the earth formed the bed of the antediluvian sea, and that the former lands were utterly destroyed at the period of the Deluge, "the earth, that now is," being thus distinct from "the earth that then was, question respecting the situation of the Paradise in which our first parents were placed by their Creator, has probably arisen in the mind of every one; and but for the interruption to the general course of the subject which this question must have given rise to, it should undoubtedly have been considered at an earlier period of this work; as there is, perhaps, no part of the Old Testament, as found in our translations, which * 2nd Epistle of Peter, iii. 6. of has been so fruitful a source of error and misconception, as the descriptive account of the rivers of Paradise. These rivers are described as being four in number, of which the only one at present known, is the Euphrates. The names of the other rivers, and the extraordinary and inconsistent geographical account of their supposed courses, have long been a source anxious critical enquiry, as well as of local research for almost all travellers who have visited the East, and had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the course of the Euphrates, have anxiously sought for the situation of Paradise; and have, invariably, been obliged to relinquish the subject, from the utter impossibility of applying the description, in the slightest degree, to any part of the course of that noble river. Mr. Granville Penn, in his " Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies," has entered, at considerable length, and with his usual ability, into a critical examination of this subject; and has most clearly shewn the high probability, amounting almost to certainty, of the descriptive part of the Garden of Eden, as found in all modern translations of the original text, having been originally annexed, as an explanatory note, to the margin of an early MS. and having been, subsequently, incorporated into the body of the work, by the ignorance of a subsequent transcriber, as has also occurred in some other parts of the Sacred Writings. In support of this opinion, he shews, on the authority of the most learned critics, both ancient and modern, that copies of the Hebrew Scriptures formerly existed, which exhibited variations, arising from marginal glosses and insertions, originally designed as illustrations of the text, but which illustrative glosses had become, in some instances, incorporated into the text in subsequent copies. One remarkable example, given by this able writer, of an incorporated gloss in the New Testament, and which is not so generally known as it deserves to be, is well adapted to shew the nature of similar incorporations, and of the serious mischief to which they invariably lead; for truth is, in all instances, so consistent and simple, that any deviation from the plain tenor of its course, must, generally, excite observation, as the following remarkable instance has frequently done. This example is found in the remnant of a very ancient Greek MS. of the New Testament, in the Royal Library at Paris, entitled the Codex Ephremi, which has been pronounced, by Wetstein, to be of the same date as the celebrated Alexandrian M.S. In this work, the first five verses of the 5th chapter of St. John's Gospel are thus read: For an angel went down at a certain season into the bath, and troubled the waters: whosoever, then, after the troubling of the waters, first stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. After this, there was a feast of + Waiting for the troubling of the waters. "In the MS. in question," says Mr. Penn, "the text, and the marginal sentences, though "both are in the same uncial character, are "written by different hands; and it is evident, "from the language, and from an itacism, perceptible in the latter, that they are of a date posterior to the former. It is equally "manifest, that they were marginal notes, "annexed with the design of illustrating the popular superstition, under which the infirm 66 66 66 man was waiting at the bath: but, at the same time, they adopt the superstition, and "aver it to be true. The original text was free "from that blemish; and the simplicity and "close sequence of the recital, bear internal "evidence that these marginal passages are " alien to it. The superstitious clause, therefore, does not pertain to the evangelical historian, but has become incorporated into "his history in the progress of transcrip"tion."* 66 Although the passage we are now to consider in the second chapter of Genesis, in which the descriptive account of the situation of Paradise is found, has not the advantage of so clear and distinct an evidence of its spurious character, as that of St. John above mentioned, yet there does appear, in the narration itself, the strongest internal evidence of the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th verses of that chapter, having been, subsequently, inserted into the original text, in a manner precisely similar, from a marginal note, intended, by some ignorant transcriber, as an illustration of the subject. When we add to this internal critical evidence, the remarkable geological proofs of the correctness of this view of the subject, the mind becomes fully confirmed in this opinion; and this, the only part of the Inspired Writings which stood in contradiction to the Geology exhibited in the |