Genesis 2:10-14
"A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."
Genesis 3:24
After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
To determine where the Garden of Eden is, we have to first garner the geographic locations of the four rivers it's described as flowing from Eden.
The Tigris and Euphrates rivers are easy, as they still exist and we recognize that they reside in Ancient Mesopotamia (or modern day Iraq.) Already, we have a basis for Eden's geographic location.
Pishon and Gihon are a little harder to pinpoint. A few theories on Pishon:
Unlike the Tigris and the Euphrates, the Pishon has never been clearly located. It is briefly mentioned together with the Tigris in the Wisdom of Sirach (24:25), but this reference throws no more light on the location of the river. The Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus, in the beginning of his Antiquities of the Jews (1st century AD) identified the Pishon with the Ganges. The medieval French rabbi Rashi identified it with the Nile.
Some early modern scholars, including A.D. Calumet (1672–1757), Rosenmüller (1768–1835), and Kell (1807–1888), believed the source river [for Eden] was a region of springs: "The Pishon and Gihon were mountain streams. The former may have been the Phasis or Araxes, and the latter the Oxus." James A. Sauer, former curator of the Harvard Semitic Museum, made an argument from geology and history that Pishon referred to what is now the Wadi Bisha, a dry channel which begins in the Hijaz Mountains near Medina to run northeast to Kuwait. With the aid of satellite photos, Farouk El-Baz of Boston University traced the dry channel from Kuwait up the Wadi Al-Batin and the Wadi Al-Rummah system originating near Medina.
David Rohl identified Pishon with the Uizhun, placing Havilah to the northeast of Mesopotamia. The Uizhun is known locally as the Golden River. Rising near Mt. Sahand, it meanders between ancient gold mines and lodes of lapis lazuli before feeding the Caspian Sea. Such natural resources correspond to the ones associated with the land of Havilah in Genesis.
A few on Gihon:
The Gihon is described as "encircling the entire land of Cush", a name associated with Ethiopia elsewhere in the Bible or Kush. This is one of the reasons that Ethiopians have long identified the Gihon (Giyon) with the Abay River (Blue Nile), which encircles the former kingdom of Gojjam. From a current geographic standpoint this would seem impossible, since two of the other rivers said to issue out of Eden, the Tigris and the Euphrates, are in Mesopotamia. However, the scholar Edward Ullendorff has argued in support of this identification. The city in the Mesopotamian area which best fits the description is called Kish (derivative of Kush or Cush) located in a plain area (Sumerian 'edin') and resembles an area that is repeatedly flooded by the rivers Euphrates and Tigris.
Nineteenth century, modern, and Arabic scholars have sought to identify the "land of Cush" with Hindu Kush, and Gihon with Amu Darya (Jihon/Jayhon of the Islamic texts). Amu Darya was known in the medieval Islamic writers as Jayhun or Ceyhun in Turkish. This was a derivative of Jihon, or Zhihon as it is still known by the Persians.
Gihon has also been associated with the Araxes (modern Aras) river of Armenia. Another proposed idea is that the Gihon river no longer exists, or has significantly altered its course, since the topography of the area has supposedly been altered by the Noachian Flood.
Some scholars argue that the Gihon river remains unidentified since the geographical ideas of the author of Genesis cannot be reconstructed and need not conform with actual geography as known today.
First-century Jewish historian Josephus associated the Gihon river with the Nile.
A lot of this seems to be speculation and almost all of it is unsubstantiated. I say we defer to science if we're to find an answer.
Jeffrey I. Rose of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research conducted a study called "New Light on Human Prehistory in the Arabo-Persian Gulf Oasis" that sought to review "new paleoenvironmental, archaeological, and genetic evidence from the Arabian Peninsula and southern Iran to explore the possibility of a demographic refugium dubbed the “Gulf Oasis,” which is posited to have been a vitally significant zone for populations residing in southwest Asia during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene."
The significance of this study to what we're discussing is where it describes the Iranian Plateau region as a "large oasis, which, before being submerged beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean, was well watered by the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun, and Wadi Batin rivers as well as subterranean aquifers flowing beneath the Arabian subcontinent."
Already, we have a trend:
* A large oasis.
* Four rivers.
* Tigris and Euphrates.
* Wadi Batin.
Of the theories posited above, there is a nexus between the study and former skeptic, James A. Sauer, in identifying Wadi Batin among the four rivers. Interestingly enough, of the theories posited for Pishon, Wadi Batin is perhaps the only one with supporting evidence.
Missouri State University professor and archaeologist, Juris Zarins, similarly purports Pishon to correspond with Wadi Batin and Gihon to correspond to -- oh, hey, look -- Karun. He bases this conclusion on LANDSAT imaging that supports the notion of a large oasis with the four rivers jutting out and through it. This blog chronicles a series of statements on the subject:
"The search began in the 1980’s, when Juris Zarins,
a professor from Southwest Missouri State University,
discovered that the northern tip of the Persian Gulf
(where the Tigris and Euphrates end) had once been a
lush, fertile region. "
--The Bible Encounters Modern Science
by Stephen Caesar; Harvard University
Masters Degree in Anthropology and Archaeology
[...]
"Scrutinizing satellite images of the Middle East,
he spotted a "fossil river" that seems to be the lost
Pison river. Therefore Eden, Zarins concludes, lies
under the mouth of the present Persian Gulf between
Iraq and Iran."
-"The Hunt for a Lost Holy Past,"
Newsweek, 22 June 1987, pg. 56
[...]
"Satellite photos show two fossil river beds,
one across N. Saudi Arabia and one across
S. Persia (Iran) which join the Tigris-Euphrates.
This reconfirms, with new photos, the feasibility of
the existence of a river named Pison or Gihon
(as recorded in the Bible)."
--Smithsonian May 1987 pp 127-135.
"Has the Garden of Eden been located at last?"
[...]
"In support of locating the Garden of Eden in the
present day Iran/Iraq area - "Thousands of animal
remains found in the Persian Gulf (Iran/Iraq) area
suggest that game was abundant. Furthermore, the
presence of stone tools provides evidence of early
human habitation."
-Reader’s Digest
Mysteries of the Bible
(Pleasantville (NY)/Montreal:
The Reader’s Digest Association, 1988), 24-25.
[...]
"Dr. Zarins is no longer alone in his discovery."
"Boston University geologist Farouk El-Baz emulated
Prof. Zarins by closely examining satellite photographs
of the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf area."
"He detected a fossil river running diagonally through
Arabia that ended in Kuwait, at the northern tip of the
Persian Gulf — exactly where Zarins had located the
Garden of Eden."
-"How to Find a River — No Divining Rod Needed,"
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August (1996): 55.
This magazine goes on to say :
"The Kuwait River [the Batin] also has a probable
Biblical connection. It may well be the Pishon River,
one of the four rivers, according to the Bible,
associated with Eden."
-Biblical Archaeology Review
Creation Story Preserves Historical Memory
July/August 1996 issue
"The name of the first is Pishon;
it is the one that flows around
the whole land of Havilah,
where there is gold;
and the gold of that land is good;
bdellium and onyx stone are there."
(Genesis 2:11-12)
"This passage describe a river flowing into the head
of the Persian Gulf from the low mountains of western
Arabia, the path followed by the recently discovered
Kuwait River. An important key is the Biblical phrase
"the gold of that land is good." Only one place in
Arabia has such a deposit — the famous site of
Mahd edh-Dhahab, the "Cradle of Gold."
This ancient and modern gold mining site is located
about 125 miles south of Medina, near the headwaters
of the Kuwait River."
-Biblical Archaeology Review
Creation Story Preserves Historical Memory
July/August 1996 issue
Given the information, we can thus conclude that the Garden of Eden does in fact have a geographical location. And it resides underneath the northern tip of the Persian Gulf beginning at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia, the Karun River (Gihon) draining off the Iranian Plateau, and the Wadi Batin River (Pishon) flowing across northern Arabia.
More.
"A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."
Genesis 3:24
After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
To determine where the Garden of Eden is, we have to first garner the geographic locations of the four rivers it's described as flowing from Eden.
The Tigris and Euphrates rivers are easy, as they still exist and we recognize that they reside in Ancient Mesopotamia (or modern day Iraq.) Already, we have a basis for Eden's geographic location.
Pishon and Gihon are a little harder to pinpoint. A few theories on Pishon:
Unlike the Tigris and the Euphrates, the Pishon has never been clearly located. It is briefly mentioned together with the Tigris in the Wisdom of Sirach (24:25), but this reference throws no more light on the location of the river. The Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus, in the beginning of his Antiquities of the Jews (1st century AD) identified the Pishon with the Ganges. The medieval French rabbi Rashi identified it with the Nile.
Some early modern scholars, including A.D. Calumet (1672–1757), Rosenmüller (1768–1835), and Kell (1807–1888), believed the source river [for Eden] was a region of springs: "The Pishon and Gihon were mountain streams. The former may have been the Phasis or Araxes, and the latter the Oxus." James A. Sauer, former curator of the Harvard Semitic Museum, made an argument from geology and history that Pishon referred to what is now the Wadi Bisha, a dry channel which begins in the Hijaz Mountains near Medina to run northeast to Kuwait. With the aid of satellite photos, Farouk El-Baz of Boston University traced the dry channel from Kuwait up the Wadi Al-Batin and the Wadi Al-Rummah system originating near Medina.
David Rohl identified Pishon with the Uizhun, placing Havilah to the northeast of Mesopotamia. The Uizhun is known locally as the Golden River. Rising near Mt. Sahand, it meanders between ancient gold mines and lodes of lapis lazuli before feeding the Caspian Sea. Such natural resources correspond to the ones associated with the land of Havilah in Genesis.
A few on Gihon:
The Gihon is described as "encircling the entire land of Cush", a name associated with Ethiopia elsewhere in the Bible or Kush. This is one of the reasons that Ethiopians have long identified the Gihon (Giyon) with the Abay River (Blue Nile), which encircles the former kingdom of Gojjam. From a current geographic standpoint this would seem impossible, since two of the other rivers said to issue out of Eden, the Tigris and the Euphrates, are in Mesopotamia. However, the scholar Edward Ullendorff has argued in support of this identification. The city in the Mesopotamian area which best fits the description is called Kish (derivative of Kush or Cush) located in a plain area (Sumerian 'edin') and resembles an area that is repeatedly flooded by the rivers Euphrates and Tigris.
Nineteenth century, modern, and Arabic scholars have sought to identify the "land of Cush" with Hindu Kush, and Gihon with Amu Darya (Jihon/Jayhon of the Islamic texts). Amu Darya was known in the medieval Islamic writers as Jayhun or Ceyhun in Turkish. This was a derivative of Jihon, or Zhihon as it is still known by the Persians.
Gihon has also been associated with the Araxes (modern Aras) river of Armenia. Another proposed idea is that the Gihon river no longer exists, or has significantly altered its course, since the topography of the area has supposedly been altered by the Noachian Flood.
Some scholars argue that the Gihon river remains unidentified since the geographical ideas of the author of Genesis cannot be reconstructed and need not conform with actual geography as known today.
First-century Jewish historian Josephus associated the Gihon river with the Nile.
A lot of this seems to be speculation and almost all of it is unsubstantiated. I say we defer to science if we're to find an answer.
Jeffrey I. Rose of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research conducted a study called "New Light on Human Prehistory in the Arabo-Persian Gulf Oasis" that sought to review "new paleoenvironmental, archaeological, and genetic evidence from the Arabian Peninsula and southern Iran to explore the possibility of a demographic refugium dubbed the “Gulf Oasis,” which is posited to have been a vitally significant zone for populations residing in southwest Asia during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene."
The significance of this study to what we're discussing is where it describes the Iranian Plateau region as a "large oasis, which, before being submerged beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean, was well watered by the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun, and Wadi Batin rivers as well as subterranean aquifers flowing beneath the Arabian subcontinent."
Already, we have a trend:
* A large oasis.
* Four rivers.
* Tigris and Euphrates.
* Wadi Batin.
Of the theories posited above, there is a nexus between the study and former skeptic, James A. Sauer, in identifying Wadi Batin among the four rivers. Interestingly enough, of the theories posited for Pishon, Wadi Batin is perhaps the only one with supporting evidence.
Missouri State University professor and archaeologist, Juris Zarins, similarly purports Pishon to correspond with Wadi Batin and Gihon to correspond to -- oh, hey, look -- Karun. He bases this conclusion on LANDSAT imaging that supports the notion of a large oasis with the four rivers jutting out and through it. This blog chronicles a series of statements on the subject:
"The search began in the 1980’s, when Juris Zarins,
a professor from Southwest Missouri State University,
discovered that the northern tip of the Persian Gulf
(where the Tigris and Euphrates end) had once been a
lush, fertile region. "
--The Bible Encounters Modern Science
by Stephen Caesar; Harvard University
Masters Degree in Anthropology and Archaeology
[...]
"Scrutinizing satellite images of the Middle East,
he spotted a "fossil river" that seems to be the lost
Pison river. Therefore Eden, Zarins concludes, lies
under the mouth of the present Persian Gulf between
Iraq and Iran."
-"The Hunt for a Lost Holy Past,"
Newsweek, 22 June 1987, pg. 56
[...]
"Satellite photos show two fossil river beds,
one across N. Saudi Arabia and one across
S. Persia (Iran) which join the Tigris-Euphrates.
This reconfirms, with new photos, the feasibility of
the existence of a river named Pison or Gihon
(as recorded in the Bible)."
--Smithsonian May 1987 pp 127-135.
"Has the Garden of Eden been located at last?"
[...]
"In support of locating the Garden of Eden in the
present day Iran/Iraq area - "Thousands of animal
remains found in the Persian Gulf (Iran/Iraq) area
suggest that game was abundant. Furthermore, the
presence of stone tools provides evidence of early
human habitation."
-Reader’s Digest
Mysteries of the Bible
(Pleasantville (NY)/Montreal:
The Reader’s Digest Association, 1988), 24-25.
[...]
"Dr. Zarins is no longer alone in his discovery."
"Boston University geologist Farouk El-Baz emulated
Prof. Zarins by closely examining satellite photographs
of the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf area."
"He detected a fossil river running diagonally through
Arabia that ended in Kuwait, at the northern tip of the
Persian Gulf — exactly where Zarins had located the
Garden of Eden."
-"How to Find a River — No Divining Rod Needed,"
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August (1996): 55.
This magazine goes on to say :
"The Kuwait River [the Batin] also has a probable
Biblical connection. It may well be the Pishon River,
one of the four rivers, according to the Bible,
associated with Eden."
-Biblical Archaeology Review
Creation Story Preserves Historical Memory
July/August 1996 issue
"The name of the first is Pishon;
it is the one that flows around
the whole land of Havilah,
where there is gold;
and the gold of that land is good;
bdellium and onyx stone are there."
(Genesis 2:11-12)
"This passage describe a river flowing into the head
of the Persian Gulf from the low mountains of western
Arabia, the path followed by the recently discovered
Kuwait River. An important key is the Biblical phrase
"the gold of that land is good." Only one place in
Arabia has such a deposit — the famous site of
Mahd edh-Dhahab, the "Cradle of Gold."
This ancient and modern gold mining site is located
about 125 miles south of Medina, near the headwaters
of the Kuwait River."
-Biblical Archaeology Review
Creation Story Preserves Historical Memory
July/August 1996 issue
Given the information, we can thus conclude that the Garden of Eden does in fact have a geographical location. And it resides underneath the northern tip of the Persian Gulf beginning at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia, the Karun River (Gihon) draining off the Iranian Plateau, and the Wadi Batin River (Pishon) flowing across northern Arabia.
More.
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