In what country is the Gihon River located?

Answer 1

A:

The Garden of Eden is defined in the Book of Genesis by indicated by the four widely separated rivers, the Gihon, the Pishon, Tigris and Euphrates that supposedly flowed into it. Leon R. Kass examines this in his excellent book The Beginning of Wisdom. He says that there can be no single terrestrial place that would serve as the common source of the four widely separated rivers of Genesis. The Gihon and Pishon rivers have never been located and appear to have been entirely mythical.

The one clue is that there is a small stream that flowed from a spring into the city of Jerusalem, far from the Tigris and Euphrates. This stream was not the river of Genesis, but the name of that stream could have inspired the name of the biblical river.

Another answer:

No one knows what the topography of the earth looked like before the flood. For all we know [and we don't]... "the dry ground that appeared" that God caused to rise out of the "water" in the creation account in Genesis 1, could have been "all one single continental mass." Or the continents as we know them today may not have risen to the surface until after the flood.

The King James Version translates "Gihon" as compassing "Ethiopia"... which, today, is in Africa. The rivers in and around modern Ethiopia are many, and begin with almost every letter of the alphabet... none of which, under the letter "G" is "Gihon."

Other translations... and the "Literal Bible" say "Gihon" surrounded "Cush"... a land [and a people] that remains in dispute among men as to its location and who they are. Although, today, the "Hindu CUSH" mountains are located in and around the regions of Afghanistan. But, no rivers compass Afghanistan today... it's a landlocked country.

The Bible tells us... even shortly after the flood... that people spoke "one language" [Gen.11:1]. It wasn't until after the confounding of the languages [after the flood] that people began to separate themselves from one another, and "countries" [the various nations] began to form. So, the "land" that "Gihon" surrounded [Cush] wasn't a "country" in the sense of the "nations" as we know them today... but an unknown area of "land mass" that sank and was lost in the flood.

The same goes for the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, today. Are they the same rivers as named in Genesis 2... or were they lost to the flood, also, and the early post-flood generations, with fond memories of that "world they once knew," renamed the modern Tigris and Euphrates as a memorial to what once was [memorializing things being something for which modern man is still known]?

The Genesis account, which has become a "myth" to the modern world... is verified by certain "inspired writers" of the New Testament... not to mention Jesus Christ, Himself [whom some say is also a myth]:

"When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah's day. In those days BEFORE THE FLOOD..." (Matt.24:37-38 NLT New Living Translation).

Jesus reveals that the Bible, the Word of God, is TRUTH [see John 17:17]. Therefore... while we can know that the "Gihon" and other rivers of biblical renown did exist as the Genesis account says they did... it still remains that we have no clue as to what land masses [or one single land mass, as the case may be] existed before the flood. And no one knows where those rivers flowed in those days.