Nimrod
Nimrod is a Hebrew Bible, biblical figure mentioned in the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles, the Books of Chronicles. The son of Cush (Bible), Cush and therefore the great-grandson of Noah, Nimrod was described as a king in the land of Sh ...
, mentioned three times in the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" . '' ''Jewish Encyclopedia'', ''s.v.'' "Calneh" A. S. Yahuda, "Calneh in Shinar" ''Journal of Biblical Literature'' 65.3 (September 1946:325-327).
The verse in Genesis reads:
:
:"And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and
Erech
Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilom ...
KJV
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by ...
)
Historical scholarship proposed candidate locations for the city of "Calneh", but it is now considered most likely, in a suggestion going back to
W.F. Albright (1944), that the word did not in origin refer to a city but has been corrupted from an expression meaning "all of them". In the
Revised Standard Version
The Revised Standard Version (RSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. This translation is a revision of the American St ...
, the English translation of the verse reads:
:''The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar.''
Calneh ("''Chalanne''") was identified with
Ctesiphon
Ctesiphon ( ; , ''Tyspwn'' or ''Tysfwn''; ; , ; Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Ctesiphon — ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified July 28, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/58.) was an ancient city in modern Iraq, on the eastern ba ...
in
Jerome
Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome.
He is best known ...
's ''Hebrew questions on Genesis'' (written ca. 390), following
Eusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. ...
.
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
The ''Illustrated Bible Dictionary'', better known as ''Easton's Bible Dictionary'', is a reference work on topics related to the Christian Bible, compiled by Matthew George Easton. The first edition was published in 1893, and a revised editio ...
Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
ic passage Joma 10a identifying Calneh with the modern
Nippur
Nippur (Sumerian language, Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logogram, logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, ''The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory'': Vol. 1, Part 1, Ca ...
, a lofty mound of earth and rubbish situated in the marshes on the east bank of the
Euphrates
The Euphrates ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of West Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (). Originati ...
, but 30 miles distant from its present course, and about 60 miles south-south-east from
Babylon
Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...
.
A second Calneh is mentioned in the
Book of Amos
The Book of Amos is the third of the Twelve Minor Prophets in the Christian Old Testament and Jewish Hebrew Bible, Tanakh and the second in the Greek Septuagint. The Book of Amos has nine chapters. According to the Bible, Amos (prophet), Amos was ...
, and some have also associated this place with ''Calno'' which is mentioned in similar terms in the
Book of Isaiah
The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amo ...
. (, ) This is identified by some archaeological scholars as Kulnia, Kullani or Kullanhu, modern ''Kullan-Köy'', between
Carchemish
Carchemish ( or ), also spelled Karkemish (), was an important ancient capital in the northern part of the region of Syria. At times during its history the city was independent, but it was also part of the Mitanni, Hittite and Neo-Assyrian ...
Aleppo
Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...
in Northern Syria, about ten kilometers southeast from Arpad.
''Canneh'', mentioned in the
Book of Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Nevi'im#Latter Prophets, Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and one of the Major Prophets, major prophetic books in the Christian Bible, where it follows Book of Isaiah, Isaiah and ...
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
Xenophon of Athens (; ; 355/354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian. At the age of 30, he was elected as one of the leaders of the retreating Ancient Greek mercenaries, Greek mercenaries, the Ten Thousand, who had been ...
mentioned a ''Kainai'' on the west bank of the
Tigris
The Tigris ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the eastern of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian Desert, Syrian and Arabia ...
below the Upper Zab.Xenophon, ''
Anabasis
Anabasis (from Greek ''ana'' = "upward", ''bainein'' = "to step or march") is an expedition from a coastline into the interior of a country. Anabase and Anabasis may also refer to:
History
* '' Anabasis Alexandri'' (''Anabasis of Alexander''), ...
'' 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.