60 Scholars On Messianic Expectation At The Turn Of The Era

[Secret Alias]

You might be right about Nimrod and Kalah. So let's look at the passage:

Cush was the father[c] of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.” 10 The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in[d] Shinar.[e] 11 From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir,[f] Calah 12 and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city.

The Hebrew syntax argues on behalf of Resen not Calah as the 'great city' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resen_(Bible) So the question now is not which city is Calah but which city is Resen or as the Samaritans call it Ressaan.

[Secret Alias]

Many people identify Ressaan with Larissa in Xenophon:

After faring thus badly the enemy departed, while the Greeks continued their march unmolested through the remainder of the day and arrived at the Tigris river. [7] Here was a large deserted city1; its name was Larisa, and it was inhabited in ancient times by the Medes. Its wall was twenty-five feet in breadth and a hundred in height, and the whole circuit of the wall was two parasangs. It was built of clay bricks, and rested upon a stone foundation twenty feet high. [8] This city was besieged by the king2 of the Persians at the time when the Persians were seeking to wrest from the Medes their empire, but he could in no way capture it. A cloud, however, overspread the sun and hid it from sight until the inhabitants abandoned their city; and thus it was taken. [9] Near by this city was a pyramid of stone, a plethrum in breadth and two plethra in height; and upon this pyramid were many barbarians who had fled away from the neighbouring villages.

Now it's greatness is explained. Here the Persians were held off for a long time and the city belonged to the Medes and conquered in the Persian period:

Thus, supposing the statement that the cities of Larissa and Mespila were besieged by the Persia king at the time when the Persians gained the supremacy over the Medes were historically true, and Xenophon communicated here not a mere fabulam ab incolis narratam, yet Xenophon would not be found contradicting his Cyropaedia, since, as Kran. has well observed, "it can be nothing surprising that among a people accustomed to a native royal dynasty, however well founded Cyrus' claim in other respects might be, manifold commotions and insurrections should arise, which needed to be forcibly suppressed, so that thus the kingdom could be at the same time spoken of as conquered."

[Secret Alias]

Actually I just see that there is a recent discovery where

t is now known, however, that Larissa was the Greek name of Calah itself (see M. E. L. Mallowan, Nimrud and Its Remains [1966], I, 322 n.6).

https://books.google.com/books?id=6OJvO ... 22&f=false

So there are really two main possibilities which stem from a central fact - Xenophon's testimony about the Persian siege of a Medes city called Larissa. Either Larissa = Rissaan or more likely it is Calah. In the second case the city continued to exist into Persian times. It was not destroyed so the author's ignorance or failure to mention any destruction is perfectly natural.

[Secret Alias]

There seems to be a complicated history here of Medes and Assyrians living in proximity with one another. The reason Xenophon identified Kalhu as Larissa is because it means 'fortress' https://books.google.com/books?id=oSwBA ... on&f=false

[Secret Alias]

The idea that Kalhu continued to exist as a city - undoubtedly also a 'great city' - down to Persian teams seems certain:

Clearly, major Median held cities in the south on the Tigris, Larisa [the former Assyrian Kalhu]84 and Mespila [Nineveh] were abandoned by the time Xenophon passed through.85 https://books.google.com/books?id=uNRiA ... wQ6AEIGjAA

[Secret Alias]

None of this seems to help your arguments and likely supports the authorship of the Pentateuch in the transition from Median to Persian dynasties or better yet the early Persian period.

[Secret Alias]

I do not see how any of these details helps you prove - or even suggest - that the Torah was written much earlier than the Persian period:

In succeeding years, Mesopotamia, including Kalhu, was ruled by the Chaldaean kings of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, until Babylonia was conquered by Cyrus and became part of the Persian Empire in 539 B.C. In 401, the Greek soldier and historian Xenophon led an army of 10,000 Greek mercenaries on a march from Assyria to the Black Sea. He later described Kalhu (which he called Larissa) in Anabasis as a deserted ruins, noting the presence of a volcano-like “pyramid”—the ziggurat, and the stone quay. Kalhu was last occupied from about 240 to 140 B.C., prior to the Parthian conquest of Mesopotamia. https://books.google.com/books?id=oHMBA ... 22&f=false

[Secret Alias]

So in the end there is no argument that be derived from Genesis 10:11 - 12 to determine the date of the Pentateuch. First of all, the 'it the great city' at the end of 10:12 could apply to either Rissaan or Kalah. It is ambiguous. And even if the statement is applied to Kalah the evidence suggests that the fortified city continued to exist through to the Persian period. Xenophon recalling a significant incident where the great walls of the city prevented the Persians from seizing the city from the Median Empire. Most scholars assume or suggest that the Medians

In 614 the Mede Kyaxares took Assur, the southern Assyrian capital (p. 18). Two years later the Babylonian and Median armies attacked Kalah and Nineveh. The Babylonian chroniclers are silent about the capture of Kalah: is this due to the fact that it was given up to the Median armies? https://books.google.com/books?id=MRIcB ... 22&f=false

The archaeological evidence seems to show that the Median armies attacked Fort Shalmaneser and when it was destroyed the city was left mostly intact:

Shalmaneser III undertook a number of building projects in Kalhu, including the ziggurat and its associated temples, and the Governor's Palace. But his most ambitious project was undoubtedly the construction of the complex known to us as Fort Shalmaneser. This modern designation was coined by the excavators as a reflection of the building's function and author, after bricks inscribed with the name of Shalmaneser III revealed him to have been responsible for its construction ... Fort Shalmaneser was located in the southeast corner of the city enclosure, well away from the citadel mound TT which housed the other royal buildings and temples. This became the norm for arsenals in other Assyrian cities. Both Nineveh PGP and Dur-Šarruken PGP , for instance, contained review palaces located in the southeast corner of the city, away from the citadel and adjoining the city wall (Image 2). Presumably this was motivated by practical considerations: citadels were not big enough to house such large complexes, and the constant bustle of troops and equipment was better suited to a less central location. For security reasons, it may also have been thought prudent to keep the military structure and its troops away from the seat of power on the citadel ... Shalmaneser's arsenal continued to be used until the very end of the Assyrian empire. The city suffered a great deal of destruction during the two waves of Median PGP invasion in 614 and 612 BC, and Fort Shalmaneser was no exception. Evidence of fire is clearly marked on many of the objects found in the palace; even the throne room was not exempt. It seems that the inhabitants of Kalhu tried to repair the damage after the first attack, and re-buried foundation deposits TT with apotropaic TT figurines TT in an ultimately futile attempt to ward off further misfortune. After the final sack of 612 BC, the locals returned to the city, burying the dead (Image 6) and making hasty repairs to make the building habitable again. That this "squatter" occupation lasted for a significant period of time is shown by the fact that, in places, 2 metres of debris covered the original 612 BC level of the building.

[Secret Alias]

Every modern reconstruction of the historical events at the end of the Assyrian Empire assumes that Kalhu was a 'great city' (the greatest ivory collection ever found) and that it survived the Persian conquest. Here is yet another recent reconstruction:

The fall of the Assyrian Empire—and with it, Kalhu— was sudden and swift. Under Ashurbanipal, the empire's national unity began to disintegrate. The army relied heavily on war captives and foreign elements; civil wars and revolts further weakened the state, depleting its considerable military and financial resources. In about 626 — a year after Ashurbanipal 's death — incursions into Assyrian provinces began: Babylonian records chronicling Mesopotamian conquests, and the Assyrian collapse, began in 616. An allied force of Babylonians, Medes, and Scythians first raided Kalhu in 614, and finally sacking it in 612. The city was virtually abandoned. When Nineveh, the royal capital, was destroyed in 612, the Assyrian Empire vanished into history—though the kingdom lingered until 609. Fort Shalmaneser may have been the Assyrian army's last stand in Kalhu; when archaeologists unearthed the military palace, they found a large number of arms armor strewn around the gates — and a layer of ashes six feet deep from the city's final fire. In succeeding years, Mesopotamia, including Kalhu, was ruled by the Chaldaean kings of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, until Babylonia was conquered by Cyrus and became part of the Persian Empire in 539 B.C. In 401, the Greek soldier and historian Xenophon ...

[Bernard Muller]

to Secret Alias,

The city suffered a great deal of destruction during the two waves of Median PGP invasion in 614 and 612 BC, and Fort Shalmaneser was no exception. Evidence of fire is clearly marked on many of the objects found in the palace; even the throne room was not exempt. It seems that the inhabitants of Kalhu tried to repair the damage after the first attack, and re-buried foundation deposits TT with apotropaic TT figurines TT in an ultimately futile attempt to ward off further misfortune. After the final sack of 612 BC, the locals returned to the city, burying the dead (Image 6) and making hasty repairs to make the building habitable again. That this "squatter" occupation lasted for a significant period of time is shown by the fact that, in places, 2 metres of debris covered the original 612 BC level of the building.

I agree these findings weaken my argument but:
The city was considerably damaged in 614-612 BC. After that it was populated by "squatters" who fled when Cyrus the Great (558-529 BC) besieged the city. Then the Greeks in 401 BC found the city deserted.
I still think Kalhu could not be have been considered a great city after 612 BC. I also note Babylon is not qualified as great city, even if, in the time of Ezra, Babylon would be by far the greatest city in Mesopotamia (perhaps of the whole world). I also note that the Medes & Persians are not among the tribes and/or nations listed in Genesis 10.

Cordially, Bernard