Table of Contents
Tarshish is a far harbor in the Bible, and Ophir is a land of gold. Both are tied to Solomon’s fleet. Neither has a location everyone accepts.
A son of Javan
Tarshish enters the Bible as a person. Genesis 10 – Noah’s offspring lists the sons of Javan as Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim. Ophir sits in the same chapter as one of the sons of Joktan.
Islands mentioned in the Bible shows why that matters for geography. Genesis 10:5 says the coastland peoples spread out from the sons of Javan, and Psalm 72:10 names the kings of Tarshish and of the islands together. Chronological Nations and Tribes lists Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim as trading partners of Israel, often placed in Spain, Cyprus and Greece.
Solomon’s ships
The Island Tarshish collects every verse that names the place. The best known is 1 Kings 10:22:
For the king had a fleet of ships of Tarshish at sea with the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years the ships of Tarshish came bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.
1 Kings 10:22
The page also lists the proposed locations. Tartessos in southern Spain is the one it says many accept. Carthage and places in the eastern Mediterranean or Anatolia come next. The page also asks where gold, ivory, apes and peacocks could have come from, and it lists India, East Africa, Arabia and Southeast Asia. It reads the three-year cycle as a voyage of about 18 months each way.
Jonah’s ship
Jonah boards a ship at Joppa and sails for Tarshish to get away from his task. The Island Tarshish says Tarshish is thought to be the farthest known place west of Israel at the time, and that it may match a region in today’s Spain.
Confirmation from the Deep. The find that revolutionizes the history of navigation is a video summary of Mauro Biglino. He starts from a shipwreck found at a depth of (0.62 miles), (88.5 kilometers) off the coast of Israel, and says it suggests sailors of the 14th or 13th century BCE crossed open water by the stars. He then connects that to Jonah, with Tarshish read as Spain.
Onffroy de Thoron and the Amazon
In 1869 the French explorer Onffroy de Thoron argued that Solomon’s and Hiram’s ships crossed the Atlantic and went up the Amazon. The article is on this site in a full English translation (see the related pages). He places Ophir, Tarshish and Parvaim in the upper basin, and he calls the Atlanteans the elders of the Phoenicians in navigation.
He argues that the name Tarschisch comes from the Kichua language:
Tarschisch is therefore the place where fine gold is discovered and gathered.
Onffroy de Thoron, Le Globe, vol. 8, 1869
That is a nineteenth century argument and I read it as one. It sits well beside The Chronicle of Akakor, which places an Ofir harbor city on the Great River in an account told a century later.
Related pages
- The Island Tarshish
- Genesis 10 – Noah’s offspring
- Islands mentioned in the Bible
- Chronological Nations and Tribes
- Confirmation from the Deep. The find that revolutionizes the history of navigation
- Onffroy de Thoron (1869): Solomon’s Voyages to the Amazon — Ophir, Tarshish and Parvaim (English Translation)
- The Chronicle of Akakor
For every page I tagged with Tarshish, see the Tarshish tag archive.
