Bible Lexicons

The essential features of this foreign (Iranian) word cling to it in its wide popular use and pass on into the applications found in the Bible. The modern Persian pāt̯z means a garden, as does παράδεισος from the earliest records we have of it in Greek (Xen. Anab. i. 2. 7 etc.). A garden of fruit-trees (protected presumably by a wall) is the general idea of it as seen in the papyri where it is very common. Thus we have P Petr III. 26.6 (iii/B.C.) εἰς ἀλλότριον κλῆρον ἢ παράδεισον ἢ κῆπον ἢ ἀμπ [ελῶ ]να, bringing together ";plot or orchard or garden or vineyard,"; P Tebt I. 5.53 (B.C. 118) τὰς ἀπομοίρας ἃς ἐλάμ ̣β ̣α ̣ν ̣[ο ]ν ἔκ τε τ [ῶν κ ]τηιμάτων καὶ τῶν [π ]αραδεί (σων), ";the tithes which they (the temples) used to receive from the holdings and the orchards,";—and OGIS 90.15 (Rosetta stone—B.C. 196) τὰς καθηκούσας ἀπομοίρας τοῖς θεοῖς ἀπό τε τῆς ἀμπελίτιδος γῆς καὶ τῶν παραδείσων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν ὑπαρξάντων τοῖς θεοῖς. In P Lond 933.12 (A.D. 211) (= III. p. 69) there is a payment on account of an ";olive-orchard,"; ἐλαιωνοπαράδ (εισος). In P Petr I. 16ii. 7 (B.C. 230) Mahaffy translates τὰ γενήματα τῶν ὑπαρχόντων μοι παραδείσων, ";the produce of my parks,"; but the mere mention of produce shows that ";orchards"; are meant : see further Grenfell’s note in P Rev L p. 94 ff. and Wilcken Ostr. i. p. 157 f. From Genesis to Revelation fruit-trees are an essential part of the imagery connected with Eden. Milton’s picture brings in the wall as well. And this part of the word’s connotation suits strikingly the thought of that ";fold"; of God over whose jasper wall ";great and high"; the ";first grand Thief"; shall never climb. Deissmann (BS p. 148) finds the earliest ex. of the word in its technical Biblical meaning in 2 Corinthians 12:4, then Luke 23:43 and Revelation 2:7; Revelation 2:4 Esd. 7:53, 8:52. For the Jewish conception of the ";garden"; as the abode of the blessed cf. Enoch lxi. 12, and see Weber JüD. Theol. pp. 341, 344.