Pishon

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The Pishon is one of four rivers (along with the Tigris, Euphrates, and Gihon) mentioned in the Biblical Genesis (2:11). In that passage, it is described as branching off from a single river within Eden. The river is described as encircling "the entire land of Havilah", which cannot be positively identified.

The only two identified rivers of the four streams said to issue forth from Eden, the Tigris (Hiddekel, from Genesis 2:14) and the Euphrates, do not now rise in the same place. It must therefore be assumed that either the topography of the area has changed, or the geographical notions of the Genesis writer(s) were inaccurate. However, some scholars have questioned English translations that say the rivers issued forth from Eden, and claim Hebrew renderings are more flexible in their description. This interpretation would allow Eden to be a confluence point for four rivers originating elsewhere.

In the Biblical Table of Nations, Havilah is associated with Arabia. If the two can be equated, the Pishon may correspond to an ancient dry riverbed that rose in the Hejaz region ( 24°30′0″N, 41°45′0″E) and flowed north east for 600 miles through the Wadi Al-Batin and terminated in the Persian Gulf, supporting the 'Persian Gulf' theory propounded by Juris Zarins. Evidence of this river was first discovered by Farouk El-Baz of Boston University researching satellite photos which showed the course across the desert and a telltale, fan-shaped delta of gravel deposits at the old river mouth. Such identification is necessarily tentative. This research also places the source of the Pishon, also dubbed the Kuwait River, in the region of the Cradle of Gold at Mahd adh Dhahab. Archaeological research indicates that the river system was active 2,500-3000 BC.[1]

Together with the Tigris, the river Pishon is briefly mentioned in the book of Ecclesiasticus (24:25), but this reference throws no more light on the location of the river. "Calumet, A. D. 1672-1757, Rosebmuller, 1768-1835, Kell, 1807-1888, and some other scholars 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."[2]

The Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus, in the beginning of Antiquities of the Jews (1st century AD) identified the Pishon with the Ganges.

David Rohl identified Pishon with the Uizhun and placed 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 the Genesis account (2:11).

Certain Christian fundamentalists have sometimes appealed to the effects of the Noachian Flood to explain the seeming disappearance of the Pishon river and the supposed change in the upper courses of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Names from the Bible like Havilah and Cush have come to mean different places at different times.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Salabach, C. A. "The Pishon River--Found!" Focus Magazine
  2. ^ Duncan, George S. (October 1929) "The Birthplace of Man" The Scientific Monthly 29(4): pp. 359-362, p. 360.