Newly Discovered -- The First River of Eden!

While most people worry little about pebbles unless they are in their shoes, to geologists pebbles provide important, easily attained clues to an area's geologic composition and history. The pebbles of Kuwait offered Boston University scientist Farouk El-Baz his first humble clue to detecting a mighty river that once flowed across the now-desiccated Arabian Peninsula. Examining photos of the region taken by earth-orbiting satellites, El-Baz came to the startling conclusion that he had discovered one of the rivers of Eden -- the fabled Pishon River of Genesis 2 -- long thought to have been lost to mankind as a result of the destructive action of Noah's flood and the eroding winds of a vastly altered weather system. This article relates the fascinating details!

While two of the four rivers mentioned in this passage are recognizable today and flow in the same general location as they did before the Flood, the other two have apparently disappeared from the face of the earth.

Great changes occurred in the topography of the earth during the Noachian flood and also at other times in the earth's history since; so it is not that remarkable that some of the pre-Flood geographical features changed or disappeared altogether. As an example of this, scientists have found evidence of floods in Mesopotamia, deep lakes in Africa, grasslands and lakes in Arabia and heavy forest cover along the eastern Mediterranean coast. This provides testimony that a lengthy wet period once enveloped the ancient Near East.

Some researchers, such as Ernest L. Martin, claim that the Karun River (which flows into the Euphrates/Tigris river system) is the Pishon, while the Karkheh, which also flows into the Euphrates/Tigris river system, is the Gihon. However, these two rivers are minor in nature and do not fulfill the requirements of the Book of Genesis.

In an attempt to correctly locate and identify the Pishon and the Gihon rivers, we need to closely evaluate Genesis chapter 2.

Since the Tigris and the Euphrates have their sources in the mountainous region of Armenia, it is usually assumed by theologians today that the Garden of Eden was located in that same area. Therefore, they claim, the Gihon could be the Araxes which flows into the Caspian Sea and the Pishon could be the Cyrus which joins with the Araxes.

Smith's Bible Dictionary states: "...most probably, Eden was situated in Armenia, near the origin of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and in which same region rise the Araxes (Pison of Genesis) and the Oxus (Gihon)" (page 155).

Insight On the Scriptures (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1988. Page 676) maintains that "the traditional location for the garden of Eden has long been suggested to have been a mountainous area some 225 Km (140 mi) SW of Mount Ararat and a few kilometers S of Lake Van, in the eastern part of modern Turkey." Also: "The Hebrew text points rather, to a location in the mountainous region N of the Mesopotamian plains, the area where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers have their present sources."

While all of this may appear quite reasonable to the average person, the geography is very confusing when this interpretation is applied -- and is actually unintelligible to our modern understanding of the topographical features in the region of Armenia.

Martin goes on to say: "In truth, the river system of Moses has such mysterious factors associated with it that most interpreters today throw up their hands and say: 'Only God knows what Moses meant because it doesn't make any sense to us."'

Do these passages in Genesis have to be so baffling? Can we make sense of these apparent anomalies in the geography of Moses?

The main reason the account of the rivers of Eden is so difficult to understand is because the interpreters of the Bible have completely missed the point of what Moses was saying.

Martin goes on to explain that when the Bible talks about the Land of Eden, it is not referring to a small plot of land. It is, in fact, referring to a HUGE region comparable to Old Testament countries such as Assyria, Cush (Ethiopia), Egypt or Canaan! And it was inside this vast territory called Eden that God planted the Garden -- which in itself was quite large. Martin notes that the Garden itself had to be spacious because four rivers could be traced from the Garden into adjacent geographical areas. These regions were NOT small insignificant parcels of land as most people imagine today.

Now let us take note of what Moses said in the Book of Genesis about the river system associated with the Land of Eden and the Garden. "He said that 'a river went out of Eden to water the Garden, and from there [from the garden] it divided and became into four heads' (Genesis 2:10). The use of the word 'heads' (Hebrew: rosh) in relation to the four rivers gives the impression to us in the western world that Moses is talking about the HEAD-streams or HEAD-waters of the four rivers -- their sources!"

However, this is NOT what Moses meant! In M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclopaedia (Vol. III, p. 53) we read: "In no instance is rosh (literally, 'head') applied as the SOURCE of a river."

It is very important to understand this point because it is precisely THIS misconception that has given Bible interpreters the most difficulty in trying to comprehend the pre-flood river system as penned by Moses.

We must realize that in the first ages of the world in Middle Eastern society, THE HEAD OF A RIVER WAS AT ITS MOUTH -- NOT ITS SOURCE!

A number of scholars, including Professor R. K. Harrison, have understood this. He noted that "probably the most suitable answer concerning the actual location of the Garden of Eden is to think of the river that watered the garden and thereafter became four 'branches' as actually comprising the beginning or juncture GOING UPSTREAM from a point in southern Mesopotamia" (ISBE, new edition, vol. II, p. 17) Emphasis mine).

The bottom line is that Moses understood the four rivers of Eden as coming together to form one river at the Garden -- NOT that one river separated to become four rivers! When we understand this concept clearly, then Moses' account becomes sensible. Moses is showing that the Land of Eden had its southern border at the HEAD OF THE PERSIAN GULF and that the Garden itself was located a few miles UPRIVER at the place where the four rivers came together. Explains Ernest Martin:

When we get these geographical indications of Moses firmly in mind, it becomes quite easy to identify the location of the Land of Eden and the Garden. "Since we are told that the Euphrates and the Tigris were two of the four rivers that came together to form the SOURCE of the one large river that debouched into the Persian Gulf" reminds Ernest Martin, "then the Land of Eden had to have (as its southern boundary) the coastal region of the Persian Gulf" (ibid., p. 12).

The first extra-biblical evidence of the Garden of Eden was discovered by English archaeologist George Smith. When deciphering some Assyrian cuneiform tablets which contained, along with the usual lists of kings and their conquests (and digests of legal codes) several texts of purely literary character included descriptions of the Assyrian version of the Genesis garden. As Smith continued translating the hoard of clay tablets he had unearthed in the library of Assurbanipal at Nineveh, he soon realized that the Assyrian texts were based on an earlier non-biblical literary model; and that the idea of the Garden of Eden, even the word "eden" itself was originally Sumerian.

Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia backs this up by stating that "the name Eden is probably connected with EDINN (the Sumerian name for THE PLAIN OF BABYLON), and the author of Genesis may have had in mind the verdant landscape of Mesopotamia" (vol. 8, pp. 311-312).

In the story of Enki and Ninhursag, the Sumerian paradise was actually called TILMUN or DILMUN -- a happy land that was "pure, bright, and fair, where the lion does not make his kill nor the wolf carry off the sheep." S. N. Kramer, in his book The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, states that "Dilmun is a land that is 'pure,' 'clean,' and 'bright,' a 'land of the living' which knows neither sickness nor death. What is lacking, however, is the fresh water so essential to animal and plant life. The great Sumerian water-god, ENKI, therefore orders Utu, the sun-god, to fill it with fresh water....Dilmun is thus turned into a divine garden, green with fruit -- laden fields and meadows" (1963. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 147-148).

In this book, Kramer clearly thinks that there are "numerous parallels" between this "divine paradise" myth and the Biblical Garden of Eden. He suggests that Eden, "a garden planted EASTWARD in Eden," may have "originally" been identical with Dilmun, "a land somewhere to the EAST OF SUMER."

The New Bible Dictionary (article, Eden) says that the tablets uncovered by Smith showed this area to be a pleasant place in which neither sickness nor death were known. Ernest Martin discloses that "it was called 'the land of the living' and the home of the immortals. THIS AREA WAS LOCATED NEAR THE HEAD OF THE PERSIAN GULF."

Researchers Calvin and Delitzsch have argued in favor of Eden's location somewhere NEAR THE HEAD of the Persian Gulf in Lower Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) -- approximately at the place where the Tigris and the Euphrates draw near together. One recent expedition has proposed the site of Hor, in Iraq, where the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates meet in the marshy delta of the Shatt-al-Arab. This region is about four thousand square miles in area, which makes it about twice the size of the state of Delaware.

Author E. A. Speiser, in search of the Biblical Garden of Eden, refers to DILMUN, "the land of the living," -- which lay near the HEAD of the Persian Gulf. He tries to identify the Pishon and the Gihon with actual rivers not far from the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates ("The Rivers of Paradise," pp. 175-82 in I Studied Inscriptions Before the Flood, ed. R. S. Hess and D. T. Tsumura. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns).

Speiser goes on to say that "the original narrator...has to be visualized as looking FROM THE PERSIAN GULF INLAND" and hence "the 'four heads' (v.10) are meant to be viewed UPSTREAM rather than down."

Whatever the exact location, it is quite clear that the Garden of Eden was located around the northern end of the Persian Gulf. Remarkably, this is exactly where Moses in the book of Genesis said his four rivers came together to form the source of the one river that flowed into the Persian Gulf. Reiterates Ernest Martin: "All of this is easily determined if one realizes that Moses was giving directions about his river system GOING UPSTREAM, DOWNSTREAM!"

Boston University scientist Farouk El-Baz had long wondered about the pebbles of granite and basalt that are abundant throughout Kuwait. The problem was that these pebbles are not indigenous to the area. The nearest source for these rocks lies in the Hijaz Mountains -- 650 miles to the west in Saudi Arabia! How did the pebbles reach Kuwait? Intrigued by this puzzle El-Baz examined photos of the region taken by satellites orbiting the earth, and to his amazement easily detected a dried riverbed (known today as Wadi Al-Batin) cutting through the limestone of north-central Saudi Arabia. He noticed that the riverbed petered out as it reached the sand dunes of central Saudi Arabia.

The Biblical Archaeology Review (July/August 1996) relates that "when he extended the line of the river across the sand dunes...EI-Baz noticed that the patterns of the desert's sand dunes 'changed precisely when they crossed this line. To the right (southeast), the dunes appear pockmarked, to the left (northeast) they are striated. Sand patterns like these are created by the circulation of the air in the desert, which in turn is influenced by the topography. Thus, El-Baz realised that something beneath the sand was the source of the variations in the sand. He determined that the river ran underground here, along a fault line" (p. 55).

For a long period of time after the recreation of Genesis 1, the river (in places 3 miles wide) dragged granite and basalt from the Hijaz mountains and dumped the pebbles along its fan-shaped delta, which covered two-thirds of modern Kuwait and part of southern Iraq. In memory of the pebble strewn region that led him to the river-bed, El-Baz christened his discovery the Kuwait River.

Now the interesting thing is that this ancient river (which gradually dried up sometime after 3,500-2000 B.C.E.) fulfills all the requirements for one of the rivers of Eden! Notice what Genesis 2:11-12 says: "The name of the first [river] is Pishon; it is the one which ENCOMPASSES THE WHOLE LAND OF HAVILAH, WHERE THERE IS GOLD. And the gold of that land is good. BDELLIUM [FRAGRANT RESINS] and the onyx stone are there" (NKJV).

An important key to determine WHERE the river Pishon ran is the phrase "the gold of that land is good." There is only one place in the area that has such a deposit -- the famous site of Mahd edh-Dhahab, the famous "Cradle of Gold." Located about 125 miles south of Medina in Saudi Arabia, huge fissures on the hillside are the remnants of ancient mining that took place as early as 1000 B.C. Adds the Biblical Archaeology Review, "Rediscovered in 1932 by American mining engineer Karl Twitchell, the mine currently produces more than 5 tons of gold a year" (July/August 1996, p. 57).

Another clue in Genesis 2:11-12 is the phrase "Bdellium and the onyx stone are there." The Arabian peninsula is RICH with bdellium and precious stones. In the Bible dictionary Insight On the Scriptures we find the following: "It [Bdellium gum] is obtained from a tree (commiphora africana) found in NW Africa and ARABIA..." (page 264).

Summing all this up the dictionary goes on to say: "The description of its [Havilah's] resources is considered by some to be TYPICALLY ARABIAN, and it is associated by some WITH A REGION IN ARABIA. On the basis of the Biblical reference to 'the entire land of Havilah,' J. Simons suggests that the term 'Havilah' may take in THE ENTIRE ARABIAN PENINSULA ..."

Further evidence that Havilah was a good portion of the Arabian peninsula is found in Genesis 25:18 and Exodus 15:22: "They dwelt from Havilah as far as SHUR, which is EAST OF EGYPT as you go toward Assyria," and "So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the WILDERNESS OF SHUR."

In our articles Is Jebel Musa the Correct Mt. Sinai? and The Mountain of Moses, we show that the Israelites crossed the Gulf of Aqaba -- not the Gulf of Suez -- and that Mt. Sinai is located in the NW corner of modern-day Saudi Arabia (ancient Midian) -- not the Sinai peninsula. The text of Genesis 25:8 therefore shows that the nomadic Ishmaelites ranged from the land of Midian clear across northern Arabia and into Mesopotamia.

With the location of Havilah clearly delineated by the scriptural references and extra Biblical sources, there can be no doubt that the ancient river bed discovered by Farouk El-Baz from the satellite photographs is none other than that once used by the waters of the River Pishon that flowed through the Garden of Eden to the Persian Gulf.

The other river mentioned by Moses in Genesis 2:13 was the Gihon. Moses mentioned that it was also "circuitous" and encompassed all the LAND OF CUSH. Where did this river flow from?

While most people and most references to "Cush" in the Bible equate Cush with Ethiopia, this is not always the case. Notice what the Insight On the Scriptures has to say about the land of Cush:

Ernest L. Martin claims that "true to what Moses said, just to the north and east of Babylon were the mountains of the Cassites (mentioned in the early Mesopotamian records and certainly representing the Cushites). This river [the Gihon] also flowed into the Euphrates/Tigris river system in southern Mesopotamia just as Moses stated. It is today called the Karkheh" (Solving the Riddle of Noah's Flood, p. 14).

This idea is echoed by Delitzsch and Speiser who hold that the term "Cush" in Genesis 2:13 is "the eponym of the Kassites" rather than the name for the region of the Ethiopians in Africa and that "only a Kassite context can accord with the phrase 'in the east' of Genesis 2:8." What about it -- does this hold water?

Notes the Bible dictionary insight On the Scriptures: "Still others suggest that the 'land of Cush' encircled by the Gihon was on the ARABIAN PENINSULA, since the name 'Cushan' is used to parallel 'the land of Midian' at Habakkuk 3:7, Midian being located generally in the vicinity of the Gulf of Aqaba. It is possibly with reference to such an ARABIAN 'CUSH' that Moses' Midianite wife Zipporah is called a 'Cushite."'

This dictionary then goes on to say that "following the breakup at Babel because of the confusion of language, the main body of Cush's descendants appear to have migrated southward. Whether they reached Africa by first CROSSING INTO THE ARABIAN PENINSULA and then crossing over the Bab al-Mandate or whether they settled initially in Africa AND THEN CROSSED OVER INTO ARABIA is uncertain....The name of Cush's son Seba is associated with E. Africa, WHILE THOSE OF HAVILAH, SABTAH, RAAMAH, AND SABTECA ARE GENERALLY ASSOCIATED WITH REGIONS ON THE ARABIAN PENINSULA."

Under the heading "Cushan" this same dictionary relates the following information:

Smith's Bible Dictionary adds that "the Cushites appear to have spread along tracts extending from the higher Nile to the Euhrates and Tigris. History affords many traces of this relation of Babylon, ARABIA and Ethiopia" (article "Cush", p. 131).

While Ernest Martin's location of Cush "to the north and east of Babylon" and that "the mountains of the Cassites" represent the Cushites is a possibility, all the evidence points to the "Cush" mentioned in Genesis 2:13 as being somewhere ON THE ARABIAN PENINSULA.

It is also rather interesting that the only water source that flowed out from Jerusalem was the Gihon Spring. And isn’t it strange that the only other mention of Gihon in the Bible is in connection with the Garden of Eden. Is it just a coincidence, or is it vital information? (There are other springs in the general area today because the area that encompasses the city has grown considerably, but we are talking about Jerusalem at the time of the building of Solomon’s Temple, and the Gihon was the only spring within that city. The Temple was built directly over the Gihon Spring.)

The Gihon Spring flowed from beneath the Temple. The hill of Zion, on which the Temple was built, was the meeting place between YEHOVAH God and His people Israel. (Not to be confused with the hill that is called Zion today, where the Dome of the Rock sits.) Mount Zion in Solomon’s day was the hill where he built the Temple.

At the time of creation, as we have seen, a river flowed from within the Garden of Eden, and then after it left the Garden it divided into four “heads.” If unimpeded by the works of Hezekiah, or by other diversions of today, the water from the Gihon would flow through the Kidron valley and eventually find its way down to the Dead Sea. Yet, many have suggested that the Gihon, mentioned in Genesis, is the Nile river.

Today, the Aswan High Dam is located at the first cataract of the Nile in southern Egypt, while the third cataract lies in present-day Sudan -- south of Egypt. As a result, it would be fair to assume that the Gihon River was located in the area of what is today southern Egypt and northern Sudan.

The late 2nd century B.C. Book of Jubilees also portrayed the Nile as being the Gihon. The first century A.D. Judahite historian Flavius Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, written after 70 A.D., apparently followed the Septuagint and Book of Jubilees in identifying the Nile with the Gihon. The early Church Fathers of the Christian Church accepted these identifications. The Gihon is described as flowing about or through the land of Cush (Genesis 2:13) which may have suggested to the 3rd century B.C. Judahite authors of the Septuagint that Egyptian Cush or Kush (modern-day Sudan) was meant.

To the degree that Gihon might refer to the Nile "in" Cush, it is worth noting that several maps on the Internet appear to label a village on the Nile as Wadi el Gineina or Wadi al Junaynah -- south of Lake Nasser and the Aswan Dam. In antiquity Cush's northern border began at the first cataract of Nile which is near Aswan (Greek Syene). So the village of Wadi Gineina south of Aswan in antiquity apparently lay in Cush. Does Gineina (Junaynah) preserve in Arabic the Gihon which flowed through Cush? And, surprisingly, the Muslims teach that the Nile was one of the rivers of Paradise!

A map, made in 1831 by Daniel Lizars, shows that the second cataract, which would have lain in antiquity in Cush, is called el Gianadel (the cataract is north of Wadi Halfa). It is conjectured that Gian[adel] preserves, in Arabic Hebrew, the word Gihon. To the degree that Strong's Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary defines Gihon as derived from a root meaning "to gush" as in "water gushing," this is an apt name for the gushing waters of the Nile at the Cushite second cataract of el Gianadel. It is likely that Genesis' Gihon River in Cush is then preserved in the regional land area's name of Wady Kenous and the second cataract of el Gianadel. Titled Arabia with the Adjacent Countries of Egypt and Nubia, the map is available on the internet at the David Rumsey Historical Maps Archive.

The Septuagint Bible, written in Greek by Judahites for Judahites at Alexandria, Egypt circa 275 B.C. in the reign of Ptolemy II, renders Gihon as Geon. Christians used the Septuagint so it is possible that when Islam conquered Byzantine Christian Egypt in the 7th century A.D., the Septuagint's Greek form, Geon, passed into Arabic possibly as Gian (Gianadel).

Translators used the same Greek word in Ecclesiasticus 24:27 in the Catholic version of the Bible when speaking of the Nile. For those who cannot read Greek, the word is pronounced ghi' hon -- Geon or Gihon.

Why would the scholars who translated the ancient Hebrew texts into Greek, use the Greek word Gihon when speaking of the Nile? Perhaps they knew something we don’t.

The people of Ethiopia have long insisted that the Nile River is actually the Gihon and, because of this and through their Christianity, have also claimed “historical rights” over the Nile. They claim that Mary, the mother of the Messiah, declared that the Nile, the biblical Gihon, was Ethiopia’s.

The only way this could be true is if the terrain had been changed by the great Flood. And it probably was!

If these ancient sources identified the Gihon as being the Nile, then perhaps we should take another look. Today the Nile flows from the equator north to the Mediterranean Sea. The Gihon Spring is directly north of that entrance into the Sea. The Nile flows through a branch of the Great Rift Valley, being evidence that the terrain had at one time changed, forming the great gash in the earth that runs from Lebanon down into southern Africa.

Geologists have suggested that there was a time, prior to the opening of the “Gates of Hercules” by seismic forces, when there was no Mediterranean Sea. So, if we eliminate the water from the Mediterranean, we have the flow from the Gihon matching the northern end of the Nile. This permits the possibility, and even likelihood, that the Gihon, as mentioned in Genesis, actually had its beginning at the Gihon spring, which was beneath Mt. Zion.

Now, what is highly significant to this discussion is the possibility of an underground waterway or channel that exists between modern Israel and Egypt. Notice what Peter A. Michas says:

Also, according to Mendal Nun in The Sea of Galilee and Its Fisherman in the New Testament, "This is a unusual fish, the sole representative of its African family....Josephus Flavius refers to the catfish by its Greek name of 'Korakinos,' meaning Water Raven; he notes that it is found in the Nile. In his opinion, this fact supports the popular belief that there was an underground connection between the Nile and the lake, and that it emerged from below the ground at the largest spring at Tabgha" (p. 10).

Evidently fishermen today, in the area of the Sea of Galilee, believe that this underground channel or river does indeed exist, and that it emerges from the largest spring at Tabgha on the northwestern shore of the sea. If there is an underground river linking the river Nile to the Sea of Galilee, then it must pass underground somewhere near to or under the city of Jerusalem -- is there any evidence of this?

If the Gihon Spring, as the Bible indicates, is the source of life-giving water, is there any evidence to show that it fed an underground river beneath the city of Jerusalem? Writes Peter Michas:

It seems quite evident that an underground waterway flows beneath the land of Israel -- including the city of Jerusalem. In addition to this, it has been shown that an underground channel connects the Sea of Galilee to the Nile River in Egypt. "In this regard," writes Peter Michas, "the underground waterway fits the description of the Gihon River which flowed throughout the land of Cush." He goes on to say that "In fact, a spring located near Mount Moriah is called the Gihon and represents an essential link to the Gihon River" (The Rod of the Almond Tree in God's Master Plan, p. 73).

As we have seen, this is entirely consistent with the description of the river that watered the Garden of Eden. Therefore, without a doubt, this underground waterway represents the Gihon River, and that it originally shared a common source with the other three rivers in eastern Turkey.

Hope of Israel Ministries -- Expounding YEHOVAH's Truth to the Modern Descendants of Ancient Israel.

Hope of Israel Ministries
P.O. Box 853
Azusa, CA 91702, U.S.A.
www.hope-of-israel.org

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