Location of the garden
So, two more rivers. According to the Old Testament, the Pishon winds its way around the land of Havilah which is said to be rich in gold and other material, while the Gihon is flowing into the Land of Cush. Now that Land of Cush is what's misled those in search of Eden for the last 200 years. Because it is not the African Cush, what we call today Sudan. And the reason for that will become apparent in Part Two.
The first of these two - still unidentified - rivers is seen to flow into the Caspian Sea over here and out round in this direction. It also has streams that flow into this quarter. The modern name of this river is Aras (in Greek: Araxis). But if you check on this sort of things, the thing you do is to go back to local topper names from different periods and you try to find out what the names where as well in ancient times. And if you go back to the Islamic invasion of this region, the Islamic historians called this river something quite different. They called it the Gaihun. And in fact in older commentaries on the Bible, like last century ones, you'll see it called the Gaihun Aras or the Gaihon Araxis which, of course, is the biblical Gihon (notwithstanding the fact that near Jerusalem there is also a river called Gihon which, incidently, may also have had another name in ancient time). So we've got three rivers out of four.
The fourth river is also very important; it empties into the southern end of the Caspian Sea and flows through this quarter, winding its way through the land. The modern name of this is the Uwzon or Uizon. Now that doesn't sound like Pishon until you realise that there is a linguistic problem which is that the letter "U" can become the letter "P". I'll give you an example, there is a site down here in the Zagros Mountains which is called Pishdeli today. When they made archeological excavations there, they found tablets naming the place as Uishdeli, i.e. transfer from "U" to "P" and "P" to "U". So there is extra-biblical archeological support for substituting the Uizon's "U" with a "P", with the result that you come reasonably close to the biblical Pishon.
So we have all four rivers located and they point to these central section. Now where is that? Let's put two lakes on that now. Let's put Lake Van and lets put in Lake Urmia. And let's put that great mountain range which separates Eden from Suma, i.e. the Zagros Mountains moving down in a great chain, a great barrier. It separates paradise from the mundane.
Nod
What reportedly was East of Eden? The garden. And what lies to the East of Urmia? Again the garden! There is a mountain range going this way, which is very schematic, there is a huge volcano here called Mount Sahand, a natural cone, and another range of mountains going in this direction. And acrosss this way there is a mountain range like that. And right in the middle of this is a lush valley. A river flows through this valley and empties into this lifeless Lake Urmia. At its mouth there is a large swamp and salty estuary. And then beyond that estuary here is a very beautiful section of the river valley which today is full of orchards, every kind of trees. The waters of this river flow from the mountains and one source in particular flows down from the volcano Mount Sahand.
And where is this in modern terminology? Well, this is the valley of Tabriz. And Tabriz is located at the heart of this lush valley. Tabriz is at the end of the silk road from China, so it is very important in different parts of history. It's a bit of a dump now, sadly, but never mind - Eden will not always remain Eden. Now this river has a Persian name. The Persian name of the river is Medan. And you might have heard that word before, Medan-el-sha, which in Persian means the Royal Garden of the King, or the public square as it's become today. The river is named the Garden, and where does that tradition come from?
Over here there is a high mountain, this is not a volcano but it is a very high peak. And there is a pass which leads from Tabriz over the mountain range to the North here into the valley of the Gihon. That mountain today is called Cushedag, the Mountain of Cush. The Gihon flows to the Land of Cush. Descend the valley, the road rises up, out of the valley and goes through a pass and as it drops down the other side it goes to the town of Ardabil where all the earth quakes are. I went out there and I discovered that all over this region there are villages called Nod. In fact they are called Nod-i (belonging to Nod), like pakistani (belonging to Pakistan), inglesi (belonging to England): "i" of a belonging. The villages are all called of Nod.
This is the Land of Nod of the Bible where Cain is exiled from the garden. So even today, the topper names of this region still reflect the biblical story. It's being there for thousands of years and in the recent millennia people seem to have forgotten. At any rate, according to the written record, nobody seems to have noticed the striking correlations. And those who may have added one and one may have preferred to keep their insights for themselves. But it's also another illustration of the forest you don't see for reason of all the trees in front of you.
Taken from: David Rohls Presentation on the Garden of Eden
Garden of Eden
This message has been edited by jimrlong.com, 08-03-2005 06:20 PM