Calneh
Calneh was said to be one of the four cities founded by Nimrod, according to Genesis 10:10 in the Bible. Its identity is uncertain, and remains a mystery.[1] The verse in question reads, ...the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar, and W.F. Albright proposed[2] that this is not actually a proper name, but merely the Hebrew word meaning "all of them".
Calneh ("Chalanne") was identified with Ctesiphon in Jerome's Hebrew questions on Genesis, ca. 390 CE.[3] Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary silently follows Sir Henry Rawlinson in interpreting the Talmudic passage Joma 10a[4] identifying Calneh with the modern Nippur, a lofty mound of earth and rubbish situated in the marshes on the east bank of the Euphrates, but 30 miles distant from its present course, and about 60 miles south-south-east from Babylon.
Calneh is also mentioned in Amos 6:2, and some have also associated this place with Calno — in Isaiah 10:9, located in Northern Syria between Carchemish on the Euphrates River and Arpad near Aleppo. This is identified by some archaeological scholars as Kulnia, Kullani or Kullanhu, modern Kullan-Köy about ten kilometers southeast from Arpad.[5] Canneh, mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel 27:23 as one of the towns with which Tyre carried on trade was associated with Calneh by A.T. Olmstead, History of Assyria. Xenophon mentioned a Kainai on the west bank of the Tigris below the Upper Zab.[6]
Calneh figures among the conquests of Shalmaneser III (858 BCE) and Tiglath-Pileser III
[edit] Notes
- ^ Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Calneh"; A. S. Yahuda, "Calneh in Shinar" Journal of Biblical Literature 65.3 (September 1946:325-327).
- ^ Albright, "The End of 'Calneh in Shinar'", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 3 (1944:254f, note 17; Yahuda 1946 registered objections to Albright's emended reading of the Masoretic text.
- ^ Jerome followed Eusebius of Caesarea in this identification (Jewish Encyclopedia).
- ^ Rawlinson is credited in the Jewish Encyclopedia; A "guess", according to E.G. Kraeling and J.A. Montgomery "Brief Communications: Calneh Gen. 10: 10", Journal of Biblical Literature 1935:233.
- ^ Albright 1944:255; Yahuda 1946:327.
- ^ Xenophon, Anabasis ii.4, noted in this connection by I J. Gelb, "Calneh" The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 51.3 (April 1935:189-191) p. 189 note 2.
