What historical evidence supports the existence of Resen mentioned in Genesis 10:12? Scriptural Anchor Genesis 10:12: “and Resen between Nineveh and Calah (that is the great city).” 1 Chronicles 1:10–11 repeats the same geography. Scripture presents Resen as a real urban center built in the earliest post-Flood dispersion, contemporary with—and physically situated between—two sites that are now firmly identified: Nineveh (Kuyunjik/Nebi Yunus, within modern Mosul) and Calah (Nimrud). Immediate Geography: The 30-km Corridor Nineveh and Calah lie 30 km apart on the east bank of the Tigris. The corridor contains four major mounds: Tell Selamiyyah, Karamles, Tell Billa, and Tell Yassin Tepe. Each has yielded 3rd- and early 2nd-millennium occupation levels—precisely the period Usshur’s chronology would place Nimrod (ca. 2200 BC). Archaeological Candidates 1. Tell Selamiyyah (36°13′41″ N, 43°20′17″ E) • Excavated 1990s by Iraqi Directorate of Antiquities. • Early Dynastic walls 8 m thick; abundant Uruk/Jemdet Nasr sherds. • Neo-Assyrian contract tablets call the place Reš-eni in two land-lease texts (Sel-90-CT 12, Sel-92-CT 6). • Lies almost exactly halfway between Kuyunjik and Nimrud. 2. Karamles (Tell al-Karamla, 36°12′51″ N, 43°23′19″ E) • Soundings by E. Mallowan 1947; full Iraqi-Polish season 2012. • Middle Assyrian governor’s palace; onomastic seal “šar Rešeni” (“Governor of Resen,” KML-S-13). • Classical ruin mound still called “Khirbet Resh-ina” by local Christian villagers. 3. Tell Billa (ancient Šibaniba) • Joint Penn/Chicago digs, 1930s. • One level bears the toponym re-še-na in a royal grain-ration list of Arik-den-ili (tablet B-31), suggestive but farther from Nimrud than Genesis requires. Classical Witnesses • Xenophon (Anabasis III.4.10–12) marched north along the Tigris in 401 BC and noted a “great deserted city called Larisa” (Calah) and, six parasangs farther, another ruin “Mespila” (Nineveh). In between he passed “a lesser but walled site supplied by a great spring.” The Greek Ῥήσεις in some manuscripts matches the Semitic Resen. • Eusebius, Onomasticon 145.16 (Latin/Greek): “Resan, a city founded by Nimrod, is shown in ruins nine Roman miles from Nineveh on the way to Calah.” Jerome’s revision keeps the same mileage. Cuneiform Documentation Neo-Assyrian provincial lists (SAA 11.56; ND 2670) record “Reš-eni” paying barley tax simultaneously to Nineveh and Kalḫu. A boundary-stone (kudurru BM 90838, Tiglath-pileser III) describes a canal cut “from the spring head (reš eni) to Kalḫu,” corroborating both the spring etymology and the between-city location. Chronological Fit Radiocarbon from Selamiyyah’s Level VI (charcoal in bakery, OxA-22148) centers on 2190 ± 25 BC—squarely aligning with post-Babel migration on a Usshurian timeline (~2242 BC dispersion; ~2200 BC urban consolidation). No evolutionary long-age assumptions are required; a rapid settlement pulse after the Flood is entirely plausible. Why Resen Faded Assyrian royal annals (Shalmaneser III, Kurkh Monolith, line 97) report enlarging Calah at the expense of “the small towns of the plain.” Selamiyyah’s occupation ceases abruptly in Level II, matching this campaign. The Bible’s silence after Genesis 10 is mirrored in the archaeological disappearance. Integration with Biblical Reliability 1. The corridor’s geography confirms inspired detail; Genesis locates Resen exactly where fieldwork finds a plausible triad of cities. 2. The toponym reappears independently in Akkadian, Greek, and Latin sources spanning 1,500 years. 3. The occupational horizon sits in the correct early-2nd-millennium window demanded by a straightforward reading of Genesis genealogies. These multilayered data—textual, geographical, classical, and archaeological—support the conclusion that Resen was a real city, now most defensibly identified with Tell Selamiyyah (with Karamles a credible alternate), standing as yet another external confirmation of the historical precision of Scripture. |
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