Nimrod
Nimrod is a biblical figure mentioned in the Book of Genesis and the Books of Chronicles. The son of Cush and thus the great-grandson of Noah, Nimrod was described as a king in the land of Shinar. The Bible states that he was "a mighty hunter before the Lord ... began to be mighty in the earth". Nimrod became a symbol of defiance against God.
Biblical and non-biblical traditions identify Nimrod as the ruler associated with the Tower of Babel; Jewish, Christian, and Islamic accounts variously portray him as a tyrant who led its builders, turned people from God, and opposed Abraham, even attempting unsuccessfully to kill him by fire. Over time, legends identified him with other figures like Amraphel, Ninus, or Zoroaster, and credited him with innovations such as wearing the first crown and introducing idolatry.
There is no direct evidence that Nimrod was an actual person in any of the non-biblical historic records, registers, or king lists. Historians have failed to match Nimrod with any historically attested figure, or to find any historical, linguistic or genetic link between the Sumerian and Semitic Mesopotamians and the distant and later emerging Kingdom of Kush in modern Sudan. Yigal Levin suggested that the biblical Nimrod was inspired by one of the exclusively Mesopotamian historical figures, Naram-Sin of Akkad, grandson of Sargon, and other scholars have attempted to attribute the inspiration behind Nimrod to one or more Assyrian, Akkadian or Babylonian kings, or to the Assyro-Babylonian god Ninurta.
During the more recent Islamic era, several sites of ruins in the Middle East have been named after Nimrod. He appeared in Dante’s Divine Comedy as a chained giant. In modern slang, a nimrod is a synonym for a fool.
Biblical account
The first biblical mention of Nimrod is in the Generations of Noah. He is described as the son of Cush, grandson of Ham, and great-grandson of Noah; and as "a mighty one in the earth" and "a mighty hunter before the Lord". This is repeated in 1 Chronicles 1:10, and the "Land of Nimrod" is mentioned as a synonym for Assyria or Mesopotamia in Micah 5:6:Genesis 10:10 says that the "mainstays of his kingdom" were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Calneh in Shinar. This is understood variously to imply that he either founded these cities, ruled over them, or both. Owing to an ambiguity in the original Hebrew text, it is unclear whether it is he or Ashur who additionally built Nineveh, Resen, Rehoboth-Ir and Nimrud ; both interpretations are reflected in various English versions. Walter Raleigh devoted several pages in his History of the World to reciting past scholarship regarding the question of whether it was Nimrod or Ashur who had built the cities in Assyria.
Traditions and legends
In Jewish and Christian tradition, Nimrod is considered the leader of those who built the Tower of Babel in the land of Shinar, although the Bible never states this. Nimrod's kingdom included the cities of Babel, Uruk, Akkad, and perhaps Calneh, in Shinar. Josephus believed that the building of Babel and its tower probably began under his direction; this is also the view found in the Talmud, and later midrash such as Genesis Rabba. Several of these early Judaic sources also assert that the king Amraphel, who wars with Abraham later in Genesis, is none other than Nimrod himself.Josephus wrote:
Since Akkad was destroyed and lost with the collapse of the Akkadian Empire in the period 2200–2154 BC, the stories mentioning Nimrod seem to recall the late Early Bronze Age. The association with Erech, a city that lost its prime importance around 2000 BCE as a result of struggles between Isin, Larsa and Elam, also attests the early provenance of the stories of Nimrod. According to some modern-day theorists, their placement in the Bible suggests a Babylonian origin—possibly inserted during the Babylonian captivity.
Judaic interpreters as early as Philo and Yohanan ben Zakkai in the 1st century interpreted "a mighty hunter before the Lord" as signifying "in opposition to the Lord"; a similar interpretation is found in Pseudo-Philo, as well as later in Symmachus. Some rabbinic commentators have also connected the name Nimrod with a Hebrew word meaning 'rebel'. In Pseudo-Philo, Nimrod is made leader of the Hamites, while Joktan as leader of the Semites, and Fenech as leader of the Japhethites, are also associated with the building of the Tower. Versions of this story are again picked up in later works such as Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius.
The Book of Jubilees mentions the name of "Nebrod" only as being the father of Azurad, the wife of Eber and mother of Peleg. This account would thus make Nimrod an ancestor of Abraham, and hence of all Hebrews.
The Babylonian Talmud attributes Titus's death to an insect that flew into his nose and picked at his brain for seven years in a repetition of another legend referring to the biblical King Nimrod.
An early Arabic work known as Kitab al-Magall or the Book of Rolls states that Nimrod built the towns of Hadāniūn, Ellasar, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, Rūhīn, Atrapatene, Telalān, and others, that he began his reign as king over earth when Reu was 163, and that he reigned for 69 years, building Nisibis, Raha and Harran when Peleg was 50. It further adds that Nimrod "saw in the sky a piece of black cloth and a crown". He called upon Sasan the weaver and commanded him to make him a crown like it, which he set jewels on and wore. He was allegedly the first king to wear a crown. "For this reason people who knew nothing about it, said that a crown came down to him from heaven." Later, the book describes how Nimrod established fire worship and idolatry, then received instruction in divination for three years from Bouniter, the fourth son of Noah.
In the Recognitions, one version of the Clementines, Nimrod is equated with the legendary Assyrian king Ninus, who first appears in the Greek historian Ctesias as the founder of Nineveh. However, in another version, the Homilies, Nimrod is made to be the same as Zoroaster.
The Syriac Cave of Treasures contains an account of Nimrod very similar to that in the Kitab al-Magall, except that Nisibis, Edessa and Harran are said to be built by Nimrod when Reu was 50, and that he began his reign as the first king when Reu was 130. In this version, the weaver is called Sisan, and the fourth son of Noah is called Yonton.
Jerome, writing c. 390, explains in Hebrew Questions on Genesis that after Nimrod reigned in Babel, "he also reigned in Arach , that is, in Edissa; and in Achad , which is now called Nisibis; and in Chalanne , which was later called Seleucia after King Seleucus when its name had been changed, and which is now in actual fact called Ctesiphon." However, this traditional identification of the cities built by Nimrod in Genesis is no longer accepted by modern scholars, who consider them to be located in Sumer, not Syria.
The Ge'ez Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan also contains a version similar to that in the Cave of Treasures, but the crown maker is called Santal, and the name of Noah's fourth son who instructs Nimrod is Barvin.
However, Ephrem the Syrian relates a contradictory view, that Nimrod was righteous and opposed the builders of the Tower. Similarly, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan mentions a Jewish tradition that Nimrod left Shinar in southern Mesopotamia and fled to Assyria in northern Mesopotamia, because he refused to take part in building the Tower—for which God rewarded him with the four cities in Assyria, to substitute for the ones in Babel.
Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer relates the Jewish traditions that Nimrod inherited the garments of Adam and Eve from his father Cush, and that these made him invincible. Nimrod's party then defeated the Japhethites to assume universal rulership. Later, Esau, ambushed, beheaded, and robbed Nimrod. These stories later reappear in other sources including the 16th century Sefer haYashar, which adds that Nimrod had a son named Mardon who was even more wicked.
In the History of the Prophets and Kings by the 9th century Muslim historian al-Tabari, Nimrod has the tower built in Babil, God destroys it, and the language of mankind, formerly Syriac, is then confused into 72 languages. Another Muslim historian of the 13th century, Abu al-Fida, relates the same story, adding that the patriarch Eber was allowed to keep the original tongue, Hebrew in this case, because he would not partake in the building. The 10th-century Muslim historian Masudi recounts a legend making the Nimrod who built the tower to be the son of Mash, the son of Aram, son of Shem, adding that he reigned 500 years over the Nabateans. Later, Masudi lists Nimrod as the first king of Babylon, and states that he dug great canals and reigned 60 years. Still elsewhere, he mentions another king Nimrod, son of Canaan, as the one who introduced astrology and attempted to kill Abraham.
In Armenian legend, the ancestor of the Armenian people, Hayk, defeated Nimrod in a battle near Lake Van.
In the Hungarian legend of the Enchanted Stag, King Nimród, often described as "Nimród the Giant" or "the giant Nimród", descendant of Noah, is the first person referred to as forefather of the Hungarians. He, along with his entire nation, is also the giant responsible for the building of the Tower of Babel—construction of which was supposedly started by him 201 years after the biblical event of the Great Flood. After the catastrophic failure of that most ambitious endeavour and in the midst of the confusion of tongues, Nimród the giant moved to the land of Evilát, where his wife, Enéh gave birth to twin brothers Hunor and Magyar. Father and sons were, all three of them, prodigious hunters, but Nimród especially is the archetypal, consummate, legendary hunter and archer. Hungarian legends held that twin sons of King Nimród, Hunor and Magor were the ancestors of the Huns and the Magyars respectively, siring their children through the two daughters of King Dul of the Alans, whom they kidnapped after losing track of the silver stag whilst hunting. Both the Huns' and Magyars' historically attested skill with the recurve bow and arrow are attributed to Nimród.. The 16th-century Hungarian prelate Nicolaus Olahus claimed that Attila took for himself the title of Descendant of the Great Nimrod.
The hunter god or spirit Nyyrikki, figuring in the Finnish Kalevala as a helper of Lemminkäinen, is associated with Nimrod by some researchers and linguists.
The Nimrod Fortress on the Golan Heights - actually built during the Crusades by Al-Aziz Uthman, the younger son of Saladin - was anachronistically attributed to Nimrod by later inhabitants of the area.
There is a very brief mention of Nimrod in the Book of Mormon: "".