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EDEN (From BHC’s Memes of the Bible Database)

Introduction: The word “meme,” as it is now used, did not exist before 1976, but the first “engineered memes” were created in the late 19th century.[i] The word meme originated with Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. To emphasize commonality with genes, Dawkins coined the term "meme," which derives from the Greek word mimema meaning "something imitated" (the Greek word mneme means “memory).[ii] A meme is a unit of information in a mind whose existence influences events such that more copies of itself get created in other minds.[iii] A gene is a unit of genetic heredity and a meme is a unit of cultural heredity.[iv] Our genes come from our ancestors through our parents. Our memes come through our senses to our brains. A good way to understand genes and memes is to use the analogy of each of us being like a computer. Genes are the hardware and memes are the software.[v] We are genetic memetic entities.


Meme: A meme is a unit of information in a mind whose existence influences events such that more copies of itself get created in other minds. Words are the vehicle used to copy memes from one mind into another mind.

Now let’s turn to the meme in this study.

Eden: The name of the place YAHWEH selected to plant Its garden; it was not the name of the garden. The Hebrew word translated as Eden has the following definitions: 1) joy, rapture; 2) ornaments, finery; 3) luxuriate, enjoy, the good life.[i]  It was also the name used to describe the great alluvial plain watered by the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers[ii] where Babylon was located.


[i] A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament by William L. Holladay; p. 266.
[ii] The Book of Genesis by S. R. Driver; p. 38.

[iii] Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme by Richard Brodie © 1996; Hays House, Inc., New York, NY; p. 11.
[iv] Virus of the Mind; p. 6.
[v] Virus of the Mind; p. 7

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