Gihon
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- For the Okinawan king, see Gihon (Ryukyu).
Gihon is the name of a river first mentioned in the second chapter of the Biblical book of Genesis. The Gihon is mentioned as one of four rivers issuing out of the Garden of Eden that branched from a single river within the garden. The name (Hebrew Giħôn) may be interpreted as "Bursting Forth, Gushing".
The Gihon is described as "encircling the entire land of Cush", a name associated with Ethiopia elsewhere in the Bible. As a result, Ethiopians have long identified the Gihon with the Abay River, which encircles the former kingdom of Gojjam. However, 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. The city in the Mesopotamian area that best fits the description is called Kish located in a plain area (Sumerian 'edin') and resembles an area that is repeatedly flooded by the rivers today called 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 (Dghon in Arabic) because Amu Darya was known in Arabic antiquity as Jayhun[1]. This was a derivative of Dgihon, or Gjhon as it is still known by local Afghani, and Uzbeki tribes[2][3].
Gihon has also been associated with the Araxes (modern Aras) river of Turkey. 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 modern secular scholars note that the Gihon river remains unidentified, since the geographical ideas of the author(s) of Genesis cannot be reconstructed and need not conform with actual geography as known today: In Genesis 2, the Euphrates, Tigris, Gihon and Pishon rivers are all said to issue out of Eden and become 'four heads', but the Euphrates and the Tigris do not take their rise in the same place, and the Pishon river remains as unidentified as the Gihon. None have critically examined the nineteenth century identification with the Jayhun or Amu Darya.
First-century Jewish historian Josephus associated the Gihon river with the Nile (Jewish Antiquities, 1.39). However, a quite different Hebrew word is used to designate the Nile elsewhere in the Bible, and even in ancient times it should have been obvious that the Nile could not have a common source with the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Gihon is also the name of the only natural spring of water in the vicinity of Jerusalem. It feeds the Pool of Siloam. See "Gihon Spring".
The Book of Jasher refers to the "Great Sea Gihon", which is believed to mean the Atlantic Ocean.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online: Amu Darya
- ^ William C. Brice. 1981. Historical Atlas of Islam (Hardcover). Leiden with support and patronage from Encyclopaedia of Islam. ISBN 90-04-06116-9.
- ^ Svat Soucek. 2000. A History of Inner Asia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-65704-0.
