Ophir

Published February 29, 2020

Ophir is referred to in the Bible as a source of gold, silver, precious stones and exotic animals. King Solomon was reputed to have received a cargo of such goodies every three years, a detail which seemingly points to Ophir having been a considerable distance from Israel.

>>The location of Ophir has been the subject speculation from at least the beginning of the 16th century, when Peter Martyr, In a letter written in May 1500, claimed that Christopher Columbus identified Hispaniola with Ophir^(k).

Later in the same century, Benito Arias Montano proposed Peru as the location of Ophir, an idea popular with others at that time according to José de Acosta. The suggestion has not been abandoned as the American explorer, Gene Savoy (1927-2007), was still promoting it in the 21st century^(l).<<

The exact location of Ophir is the subject of continuing controversy. In broad terms the most popular regions suggested are, or have been, India^(g), Africa^(f) and the Americas^(a), but they were not the only proposed locations, even Australia and the Solomon Islands were considered. Emilio Spedicato has opted for Tibet, where an ancient goldmine fits the bill, which he outlines in his paper entitled Ophir, It’s Location Unveiled^(h).

>>The Jewish Encyclopedia offers the suggestion that “The most probable view is that Ophir was situated in Arabia. This is indicated, as mentioned above, by the Biblical reference in Gen. x. 29. An old tradition recorded by Eupolemus (c. 150 B.C.) also assigns Ophir to this region, identifying it with the island of Uphre in the Red Sea.”^(j)<<

There is also a claim that the Batanes Islands off the Northern Philippines held the site of Ophir^(b). Further west, Dhani Irwanto has claimed that Punt was also known as Ophir^(d) and was situated on Sumatera (Sumatra) in Indonesia^(c). However, he went further and also located Atlantis in Indonesia in his book, Atlantis: The lost city is in the Java Sea ^[1093]. His chosen site is just north of Bawean Island in the Java Sea.

However, Irwanto was not the first to link Atlantis with Ophir, Theodore L. Urban was the author of a paper delivered to the Lancaster County Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1897. In it, he denied that Atlantis had been completely destroyed and argued that the biblical Ophir was in fact Atlantis, suggesting that it had been located in the Americas, which explained the three years that the round trip took^(e).

Jason Colavito has published articles written by Thomas Crawford Johnston in 1892⁽ⁱ⁾ that he later developed into his 1913 book Did the Phoenicians Discover America ^[1902+] in which he places Ophir in America!

^(a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophir#Americas

^(b) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZqYQpmRCx0

^(c) https://atlantisjavasea.com/2015/11/14/land-of-punt-is-sumatera/

^(d) https://atlantisjavasea.com/2019/06/16/land-of-ophir/

^(e) https://openlibrary.org/works/OL10326701W/American_Indians (p.91)

^(f) https://www.historicmysteries.com/lost-mine-ophir/

^(g) https://www.britannica.com/place/Ophir

^(h)Ophir, its location revealed (2010-q-conference.com) *

OPHIR 27-10-09 (2010-q-conference.com)

⁽ⁱ⁾ Phoenicians in America – JASON COLAVITO

^(j) OPHIR – JewishEncyclopedia.com *

^(k) Ophir – Wikipedia *