For those who remember the “four rivers” discussion, I thought you might be
interested in the following pen and ink revision to The Origins Solution.
Here
is the Scripture reference:
Genesis 2:11-14: "The name of the first is Pishon: that is it which compasseth
the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is
good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river
is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Cush." (Because
cush
also means "black," translators guessed at "Ethiopia." This is in some
translations.) "And the name of the third is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth
toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates."
Although one could get the impression that one river separates into four, "and
from thence it was parted, and became into four heads" (Gen.2:10), it can also
be interpreted that four rivers become one, a confluence of rivers, which
better suits the topography of Mesopotamia and the nature of rivers.
... the term "heads" can have nothing to do with streams into which
the river breaks up after it leaves Eden, but designates instead four
separate branches which have merged within Eden. (1)
The fourth river is easiest to identify as the well-known Euphrates, and it is
joined by the other rivers before emptying into the Persian Gulf. The
Hiddekel is the Tigris, the "great river" Daniel stood beside (Dan. 10:4). It
originates in the region of Assyria, flowing southeast until it joins the
Euphrates at a point east of Assyria, just as stated in the Bible.
M'Causland identifies the Gihon as the "Gyudes" of the ancients, (2) the
modern
Karkheh joined by the Kashkan river in the region of Cush, or Kush, in Eastern
Mesopotamia. Today it is called Khuzistan, a province in the southwest corner
of Iran.
Driver places Havilah "most probably" in the northeast of Arabia on the west
coast of the Persian Gulf: "The gold of Arabia was famed in antiquity." (3)
In
an article titled, “Has the Garden of Eden been located at last?,”
archaeologist Juris Zarins identified an ancient river bed from LANDSAT space
photos. Zarins says this:
"Genesis was written from a Hebrew point of view. It says the Garden
was "eastward,' i.e., east of Israel. It is quite specific about the
rivers.
The Tigris and the Euphrates are easy because they still flow. At the
time Genesis was written, the Euphrates must have been the major
one because it stands identified by name only and without an
explanation about what it "compasseth.' The Pison can be identified
from the Biblical reference to the land of Havilah, which is easily
located
in the Biblical Table of Nations (Genesis 10:7, 25:18) as relating to
localities and people within a Mesopotamian-Arabian framework.
Supporting the Biblical evidence of Havilah are geological evidence
on the ground and LANDSAT images from space. These images
clearly show a "fossil river,' that once flowed through northern
Arabia
and through the now dry beds, which modern Saudis and Kuwaitis
know as the Wadi Rimah and the Wadi Batin. Furthermore, as the
Bible says, this region was rich in bdellium, an aromatic gum resin
that can still be found in north Arabia, and gold, which was still
mined
in the general area in the 1950s." (4)
Farouk El-Baz, a Boston University scientist, studied pebble distributions in
Kuwait and was led to the same conclusion, a river once flowed into this
country from the Hijaz mountains in Saudi Arabia. He dubbed it the “Kuwait
River.” In an article for Biblical Archaeological Review, James A. Sauer
associates the Kuwait River with the Pishon:
"Bible scholars have identified Havilah with the Arabian peninsula
because it is rich with bdellium (fragrant resins) and precious
stones,
but they have been unable to pinpoint the location of the river in
this
arid region. The recent discovery of the Kuwait river adjacent to
the
Cradle of Gold, the only Arabian source for such “good gold,” has led
James Sauer to suggest that this dry riverbed may be the Pishon." (5)
Put in perspective, the most ancient cities of Southern Mesopotamia, Eridu and
Ur, were located less than 90 miles from this junction of rivers. Eridu was
furnished water via canal from the Euphrates, and is the home of “Alulim” the
first king, according to the Sumerians, and home to “Adapa,” the one who was
offered immortality.
NOTES
1. E. A. Speiser, The Anchor Bible GENESIS (New York: Doubleday & Company,
Inc.,
1964), 20.
2. Dominick M'Causland, Adam and the Adamite (London: Richard Bentley, 1864),
171.
3. S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis (London: Methuen & Co, Ltd., 1938), 39.
4. Dora Jane Hamblin, "Has the Garden of Eden been located at last?,"
Smithsonian (May, 1987), 132.
5. James A. Sauer, 1996. "The River Runs Dry - Biblical Story Preserves
Historical Memory," Biblical Archaeological Review 22(4) (1996), 57.
Dick Fischer - The Origins Solution - www.orisol.com
"The answer we should have known about 150 years ago."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Jan 22 2000 - 21:58:40 EST