Paradise

Lore & Background

The use of the word 'paradise' to describe such a place originates from the Vulgate's use of the Latin word paradisus in its translation of Genesis 2:8: 'And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure' (Latin: 'plantaverat autem Dominus Deus paradisum voluptatis'), this word in turn being borrowed from the Septuagint's use of the Greek word paradeisos meaning 'garden' or 'orchard'. Although Jerome translated from the original Hebrew, he borrowed the Greek translation's terminology, paradeisos, and added the 'pleasure' qualification (voluptatis) by making explicit the word play in the original Hebrew verse: the garden is located in a place with the name Eden, from a root meaning 'pleasure' (as in adin 'voluptuous').

In eschatological contexts, paradise is imagined as an abode of the virtuous dead. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, heaven is a paradisiacal belief. In Hinduism and Buddhism, paradise and heaven are synonymous, with higher levels available to beings who have achieved special attainments of virtue and meditation. In old Egyptian beliefs, the underworld is Aaru, the reed-fields of ideal hunting and fishing grounds where the dead lived after judgment.

For the Celts, it was the Fortunate Isle of Mag Mell. For the classical Greeks, the Elysian fields was a paradisiacal land of plenty where adherents hoped the heroic and righteous dead would spend eternity. In the Zoroastrian Avesta, the 'Best Existence' and the 'House of Song' are places of the righteous dead. On the other hand, in cosmogonical contexts 'paradise' describes the world before it was tainted by evil.

The concept is a theme in art and literature, particularly of the pre-Enlightenment era. John Milton's Paradise Lost is an example of such usage.

Reader's Guide

The word 'paradise' entered English from the French paradis, inherited from the Latin paradisus, from Greek parádeisos, from an Old Iranian form, from Proto-Iranian parādaiĵah- 'walled enclosure', whence Old Persian p-r-d-y-d-a-m /paridaidam/, Avestan pairi-daêza-. The literal meaning of this Old Iranian language word is 'walled (enclosure)', from pairi- 'around' (cognate with Greek περί of identical meaning) and -diz 'to make, form (a wall), build' (cognate with Greek τεῖχος 'wall').

The word's etymology is ultimately derived from a PIE root dheigʷ 'to stick and set up (a wall)', and per 'around'. By the 6th/5th century BCE, the Old Iranian word had been borrowed into Assyrian pardesu 'domain'. It subsequently came to indicate the expansive walled gardens of the First Persian Empire, and was subsequently borrowed into Greek as παράδεισος parádeisos 'park for animals' in the Anabasis of the early 4th century BCE Athenian Xenophon, Aramaic as pardaysa 'royal park', and Hebrew as פַּרְדֵּס pardes, 'orchard' (appearing thrice in the Tanakh; in the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes and Nehemiah).

In the Septuagint (3rd–1st centuries BCE), Greek παράδεισος parádeisos was used to translate both Hebrew פרדס pardes and Hebrew גן, 'garden' (e.g. Genesis 2:8): it is from this usage that the use of 'paradise' to refer to the Garden of Eden derives. The same usage also appears in Arabic and in the Quran as firdaws فردوس. The idea of a walled enclosure was not preserved in most Iranian usage, and generally came to refer to a plantation or other cultivated area, not necessarily walled.

For example, the Old Iranian word survives as Pardis in New Persian as well as its derivative pālīz (or 'jālīz'), which denotes a vegetable patch.

Did You Know?

• The Greek word παράδεισος appears three times in the New Testament: Luke 23:43, 2 Cor. 12:4, and Rev. 2:7.
• In the apocryphal Apocalypse of Moses, Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise after the Fall of man.
• In the Zohar, the word 'Pardes' is associated with four kinds of Biblical exegesis: peshat, remez, derash, and sod.