We may not know all the rivers--yet. But one thing we do know---they are not in Missouri!! Not one single, tiny, little bit of Evidence to even come close to Missouri!
11 The name of the first is Pishon; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
The name Pishon comes from the root
puwsh,6 which means to grow fat, spread out, or be scattered. If a traveler went south on the Tigris this is exactly the condition they would find as the river gives way to marshland.
12 and the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
Following the river into the sea and continuing along its eastern bank will take a traveler around the harsh deserts of southern Iran and Pakistan. Indeed the word Havilah can be traced to the root
chuwl which means circular, to twist or whirl, or writhe in pain and the root
chowl which means sand.7
The identification of Havilah as a source for bdellium, a resin for incense making, and onyx further points to Iran and Pakistan. The Greek writer Theophrastus,8 and Pliny the Elder9 both identified areas in Afghanistan as the source of bdellium and even today Pakistan is one of the few suppliers of Onyx.
13 And the name of the second river is Gihon; the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Cush.
Gihon comes from the root
giyach10 which means to gush forth. This may well have described how an ancient traveler would experience the mighty Euphrates as it finally emptied into the Persian Gulf. By following the western bank of this course the traveler would eventually find themselves rounding the Arabian peninsula and encountering Africa wherein lies the expected land of Cush, ancient Ethiopia.
The Four Rivers of Eden -Arianna Ravenswood
14 And the name of the third river is Tigris; that is it which goeth toward the east of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
Modern maps still show how the Tigris River follows the eastern flank of the land known as Assyria by the Greeks and Asshur by its inhabitants. The Euphrates was presumably so well known that it needed no appellation. This leaves us with four rivers that are joined by canals forming a large x-shaped river network.
So where does this place the garden? If we look for a river that flows out of the steppe and enters near the joint course of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers the eye cannot help but be drawn to the Diyala River in eastern Iraq. Even today Iraq’s Diyala Province is known for its oranges and boasts one of the largest olive groves in the region.
Was the Garden of Eden really a trading port near the Diyala River?
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
The description of the garden frames it as being the center of a trade network. Locating the Garden of Eden based on the worldview of merchant trade coincides with the actual term for garden in the ancient text which is
gan.11 The word
gan specifically refers to a fenced in area that was likely used to corral animals as well as to secure property, in this case presumably for trade.
The introduction of man into the garden to “dress and keep” further reveals the language of commerce. The term “dress” is
abad12 in Hebrew.
Abad means to serve as a laborer or in this case perhaps as a husbandman. This meaning is reinforced by the word “keep” which in the ancient text is
shamar,13 a word that means to stand guard over.
The records from ancient Iraq are replete with contractual arrangements between landlords who owned large herds and groves and the shepherds and guardsmen who tended their flocks and foodstuffs as specialized laborers. The advent of large scale animal husbandry and irrigated agriculture together with the connection to the world by vast trade networks is part of the legacy of Mesopotamia. Fenced in groves and secure animal pens would have been commonplace.
For over two thousand years the commercial center of the world was Babylonia, where the Jews languished in exile. Here kings claimed dominion over the four quarters of the earth and the earth’s markets could be reached by following one of its four great waterways to the North, South, East and West.