Kush, as a person, is the son of Ham and grandson of Noah, who is the founder of Ethiopia, the land that the river went through<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nI believe it is here that you are missing the mark in your statement. The land is given the name because of the people who occupied it. It was already there and the Scripture makes that clear. I am using the NKJV but other translations (WEB) say the same or very similar thing: “The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush.” But\u00a0Genesis 2:13 (WEB) says, “The name of the second river is Gihon: the same river that flows through the whole land of Cush.”<\/p>\n
The name of the land could have had any other name, but it would have been the same land because the river flowed through it.<\/p>\n
I am more <\/i>than convinced that God masked a great many things that took place in the Old and New Testaments such that we would not be able to rely on stuff to prove His existence, especially the seemingly impossible events and places. Some speak of earthquakes dividing the land such that Saudia Arabia was pulled from Africa and the rivers were lost. That may be, but it’s still speculation and unfounded. We need not strive to root our faith in facts of man but only in what God said.<\/p>\n
When we trust fully in Him and what He said, the facts or dispute of them are like the wrapper on a piece of candy. We discard the wrapper and enjoy the sweetness of the candy, no matter what.<\/p>\n\t
Answer:<\/h2>\n
That the earth’s geography was altered is confirmed by “You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters were standing above the mountains. At Your rebuke they fled, at the sound of Your thunder they hurried away. The mountains rose; the valleys sank down<\/strong> to the place which You established for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass over, so that they will not return to cover the earth<\/i>” (Psalm 104:6-9). I don’t know why you concluded that the alterations would flatten the earth.<\/p>\nA change in geography would also alter the courses of rivers. Eden was described as having a spring from which four major rivers originated. “Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates<\/em>” (Genesis 2:10-14). We have two rivers named the Tigris and Euphrates in today’s world, but they do not originate from a single source. Nor can you find on the map a single source that produces four major rivers. This further supports the idea that the geography has changed at the time of the flood.<\/p>\nThe Hebrew word for “black” is\u00a0shachor<\/em>. We don’t know what\u00a0kush<\/em> means beyond that it was a proper name. There are a few books that assign the meaning of “black” to it, but they do so without evidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Question: Hello, After finding your site, I read an article about Cush, Ethiopia and the rivers that ran through Eden.\u00a0To be clear, I am not writing to dispute your perspective or opinion, but I am writing to question some of what you said more for the sake of biblical study than anything else. You said,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[223],"class_list":["post-7283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-geography"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1706,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-are-cush-and-havilah-today\/","url_meta":{"origin":7283,"position":0},"title":"Where are Cush and Havilah today?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 11, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Where are the land of Cush and the land of Havilah today, and what are their names today? Answer: The first mention of Cush is in Genesis 2:13\u00a0where the Gihon, one of the four mighty rivers flowing from the land of Eden, encompassed this particular region. Because the great\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":970,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-is-the-garden-of-eden\/","url_meta":{"origin":7283,"position":1},"title":"Where is the garden of Eden?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 24, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Where is the garden of Eden located? Answer: The garden of Eden is described in Genesis 2 as being located on the eastern edge of a region known as Eden (Genesis 2:8). Eden was the source of a mighty river that watered the garden and as it exited the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":82183,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-are-there-no-black-people-in-the-bible\/","url_meta":{"origin":7283,"position":2},"title":"Why are there no black people in the Bible?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 17, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Why are there no black people in the Bible? Why don't the people have black names? Answer: There are people mentioned in the Bible whose skin color would have been dark. Moses' wife, who was from Cush (Numbers 12:1) An unnamed Cushite runner (II Samuel 18:21) Tirhakah king of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31507,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-moses-have-one-wife-or-two\/","url_meta":{"origin":7283,"position":3},"title":"Did Moses have one wife or two?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am taking a Bible Study class on the \"Bad Girls of the Bible\" and have a question.\u00a0 There is speculation that Moses may have had a second wife.\u00a0 When referring to his Cushite wife, isn't that Zipporah?\u00a0 I have been unable to find any evidence of another wife\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3883,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-were-the-nations-scattered-and-was-the-world-one-continent-that-was-divided-in-the-days-of-peleg\/","url_meta":{"origin":7283,"position":4},"title":"How were the nations scattered and was the world one continent that was divided in the days of Peleg?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I read the page titled \"Gog and Magog\" and found it very interesting, as well as helpful. But there is one thing I question: I thought, according to the Bible, that Egyptians and Libyans came from Mizraim, Ham's son, not from Put. Could you clarify this for me? Also,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48732,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-get-lost-with-all-the-hes-in-isaiah-378-9-can-you-explain-who-is-who\/","url_meta":{"origin":7283,"position":5},"title":"I get lost with all the “he”s in Isaiah 37:8-9. Can you explain who is who?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 20, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi Jeff, I have a question about these verses. The wording is a bit strange and I'm not sure I understand it right: \"Then Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left Lachish. When\u00a0he\u00a0heard\u00a0them\u00a0say concerning Tirhakah king\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}