The Footprints of Nimrod in the Ancient World

K. G. Powderly Jr.

When names move from language to language, certain

rules generally apply... The hard consonants remain most stable Followed by easily transformed “softer”

consonants, like N to M, R to D, F to V—or P, B to V—or D, or close hards like D to T,

Vowels and the softest consonants, like H, are like silly putty

Nimrod’s name takes many forms, some as titles

Close association exists between the Sumerian King of Uruk (Erech), Enmerkar and the Genesis Nimrod, in which there are more historical similarities than theoretical problems...

En-mer-kar has the same consonants (NMR) if you consider that the “rolling R” had an RD effect that shows up elsewhere in Genesis 10-11 (Rhodanim is sometimes rendered Dodanim), then he also has the D

Kar is Sumerian for hunter, and may be a title En and Nim (or Nin) are both words for lord in the

priestly or deified sense (the name Ninurta means both fish and Lord Who Completes the Foundation—the first being the name’s original meaning, the second what it later came to mean. The Hebrew form of it came to mean Let Us Rebel.)

Ancient Uruk—the Erech

of Genesis 10

A statuette of one of Uruk’s kings (right)

Striking similarities between Nimrod and Enmerkar...

Both are associated with the building of a “tower” Both are in accounts (one Sumero-Akkadian, the

other Hebrew) that describe the confounding of languages from a single original tongue

Both are described as “great hunters” Both are described as having been the ruler of Uruk

(the Erech of Gen. 10) early in their careers Both are described as military expansionists Both are associated with the goddess Inanna /

Ishtar by Sumero-Akkadian myth and by Hebrew legends

Was the great warrior-hunter god Ninurta a deified Enmerkar / Nimrod?

There are also some problems that require adequate examination...

Enmerkar is the 2nd King of Uruk in a 2nd post-Flood dynasty preceded by a long 1st Dynasty

Archeology seems to show evidence of lengthly occupation of Mesopotamia before Enmerkar

Archaeological evidence seems to suggest a fairly wide human dispersion by Enmerkar’s time

While it is impossible to harmonize all of the documentary evidence—much of it being polytheist historic revisionism—there is a need for more robust YE Creationist historical models for this period

There are lines of inquiry that may help explain these problems in the future... On the dynastic question, there are no hero epics of

the 1st Dynasty, even though one king in it—Etanna—was said by the list to have been “taken into heaven”

Hero epics begin suddenly, and prolifically with Meshkiagashar, Enmerkar, Lugalbanda, Dumuzi and Gilgamesh—the first 5 kings of the 2nd Uruk Dynasty

Some scholars suggest the 1st and 2nd Dynasties were contemporary with each other because the 1st Dynasty names are mostly Akkadian, while the 2nd Dynasty names are Sumerian, which greatly shortens the portrayed time between the Flood and Enmerkar

More on Nimrod and Enmerkar... The fact that Genesis 10 does not list Nimrod with

Cush’s 5 other sons in verse 7, but only after Raamah’s son’s (Cush’s grandsons), in a special parenthetical verse, allows for the possibility that Nimrod was a grandson or great grandson of Cush

Enmerkar’s father, Meshkiagasher, is also quite possibly a Sumerian representation of Cush

It is important to remember that the inspired original autograph of Genesis gives us true truth, but not often exhaustive detailed explanation—we need to be conscious of the assumptions we carry to the text even as we seek to interpret it straightforwardly

Genesis on NimrodGen 10:7 And the sons of Cush were Seba and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha. And Raamah's sons were Sheba and Dedan. Gen 10:8 And Cush fathered Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one in the land. Gen 10:9 He was a mighty hunter before Jehovah; so it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before Jehovah. Gen 10:10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Gen 10:11 From that land he went forth to Assyria and built Nineveh, and Rehoboth the city, and Calah, Gen 10:12 and Resen between Nineveh and Calah, which is a great city.

The Other Cities of Nimrod

Kalhu (Calah in Genesis)Ziggurat at Nineveh

Akkad as a city is undiscovered, but it is likely a region name rather than a city. Calneh has not been identified

Rehoboth means room or space—likely the expanded part of Nineveh. Resen is an outpost on the road to Kalhu

Babel or Bab-ilu means “Gate of God” in Akkadian—the earliest known Semitic Language. It was virtually synonymous to the

Temple of Etemenanki, “The Foundation of Heaven and Earth”The Sumerian term Etemenanki was used to describe both the ziggurat temple at Eridu and the later great Babylonian temple of Marduk. This might mean the original Babel is at Eridu, Sumer’s 1st city, instead of Babylon—or it may be that the reconstructed Babylon totally excavated the original away, but that would be most untypical because all Mesopotamians built over and included their older temples when they expanded

Nun-Ki Ziggurat at Eridu “The more the gods become like men, the easier it is for men to believe the gods. When both have only human appetites, then rogues may worship rogues...” Miller 1977

As for the archaeological suggestions of long post-Flood human habitation and dispersal...

The questions should be studied by YEC archaeologists in detail, though tentative possibilities are...

That what are often taken for hundreds or more years of previous habitation may actually represent rebuilding and remodeling over a much shorter time...

Especially with immediate post-Flood longevity and rapid population growth

Some human expanse beyond Mesopotamia is not unthinkable—refusal to “scatter abroad” could have been driven by Nimrod’s propaganda magnifying dangers to small clans that had already moved away, and it is not clear that lack of dispersal was the heart of the revolt anyway

Sumer’s Revisionist Theo-history:Enmerkar’s Grandson Gilgamesh Slays the

Flood-sending Monster “Hu-Wa-Wa”

Hu-Wa-Wa is described as a humaniform monster (not a dinosaur) who dwelt west of Mesopotamia in the cedar forests of what is now Lebanon. Sumer still feared him (This doesn’t mean that Nimrod

didn’t hunt dragons too) Hu-Wa-Wa sent floods Is Hu-Wa-Wa a post-Babel

mockery of Noah’s God Ya-Ha-WaH?

Sumerian depictions of Hu-Wa-Wa

A Temporary Historical Backlashor Son Nimrod Sacks Papa Cush

Shem temporarily gains an upper hand in Akkad and exiles Nimrod with his father Cush, or...

Nimrod sacks Cush himself, and sends him, with his other sons, and troublesome ancestors into exile by sea

Meshkiaggasher the father of Enmerkar “vanished into the sea” according to the Sumerian accounts

Gilgamesh later finds the Sumero-Akkadian “Noah” on Dilmun, on or near the Island of Bahrain

This “Noah” may be Ham, or possibly Noah, or Shem—people politically troublesome to Nimrod’s revisionist history and his claims as God-King, but who would even be more troublesome as martyrs if executed

Advantages of the “Temporary Semitic Backlash” Hypothesis:

It gives Shem and Japheth a window to bring enough short-lived order to the post-Babel chaos to divide the lands to the 70 original tribes of Genesis 10, as it is hard to imagine how they could do this without holding Nimrod back in some way

The mythologies of Sumer, Canaan, and Egypt are defined by central “mother-son” deities in which the “son” is in some sense the return of a “father” either killed or in some other way lost—in Egypt the myth takes the form of an “avenging son” of Osirus—Horus “Aha” the Falcon

These myths differ as they spread—they are not “resurrected gods”—Osirus remains in the underworld as its god, Sumer’s Dumuzi (Tammuz) is returned from Underworld without dying at the plea of his grieving wife Inanna (Akkadian Ishtar)

Like the reforms of Josiah in Judah, this temporary victory did not have popular support—a “son of Nimrod” overthrew it quickly

The ‘Exodus’ of Cush and Nimrod

Dilmun

Ninurta = “fish” in Assyrian, while Narmer = “catfish” in Egyptian

Earliest Pharaohnic Dynasty comes from Cush

“This Falcon tribe (of Horus) had certainly originated in Elam (Susiana), as indicated by the hero and lions on the Araq knife handle. They went down the Persian Gulf and settled in ‘the horn of Africa.’ There they named the ‘Land of Punt,’ sacred to later Egyptians as the source of the race. The Pun people founded the island fortress of Ha-fun which commands the whole of the coast, and hence came the Punic or Phenic peoples of classical antiquity. ... Those who went up the Red Sea formed the dynastic invaders of Egypt entering by the Kuseir-Koptos road. Others went on to Syria and founded Tyre, Sidon and Aradus, named after their home islands in the Persian Gulf.” Legend―the Genesis of Civilisation, David Rohl, 1998, pp. 304-305

Boat petroglyphs from southern Egypt—Invaders from across the Red Sea into a “New Cush” colony

Rohl’s Migration Map

David Rohl is NOT a YE Creationist or even a Supernaturalist, but he favors a corrected Egyptian chronology that fits the Old Testament much better than Manetho’s “Long Chronology”

Boats were sacred to the pharaohs of the Egyptian “Old Kingdom,” particularly the 1st

Dynasty though to that of Pyramid-builder Khufu Unlike the Egyptian-type boats (left & right) Earlier boats, like earlier pyramids had a much more Sumerian style

The earlier Sumerian-styled square-hulled boat in a Southern Egyptian petroglyph Egypt’s earliest pyramid

The 1st Pharaoh, Horus-Aha (a.k.a. Menes), son of Narmer, united Upper & Lower Egypt with a

Sumerian-styled “pear-shaped” mace

The Gebel el-Arak Knife, found in “Upper (Southern) Egypt,” has square-hull ships, Sumerian dogs, and a “beast-master” clad in Sumerian hair-style and long coat

The “Narmer Pallette” shows Narmer executing his foes with a pear-shaped mace. Note the long-necked animals looping necks in a common Sumerian motif

The Footprints of Nimrod appear on 2 levels: historical & mythical

In Egypt he shows mythically as Osirus, but historically as Narmer

Both myth systems should be read as hostile revisionist theo-history to the God of Noah

In Sumer he appears mythically as the war-god Ninurta, but historically as Enmerkar

Osirus is “deceived” by his “evil” uncle/brother Set, killed, and dismembered to prevent any “magical reanimation” (one wonders if “Set” might not be a title of Shem as the appointed “Son of Seth”)

Osirus’ wife Isis hid their son Horus while she chased down the separated pieces of Osirus’ corpse, sewed them back together (except the phallus, which was eaten by fishes), and re-animated him to become God of the Underworld—not a resurrected god who made appearances “to over 500 people” in the world of the living

Egypt’s religious ritual is modeled on this entire account

Nimrod is the prototype “god-emperor”

Osirus (green because he’s dead) and Isis blessing a falcon-headed pharaoh entering the Underworld

As such, he has set the mold for human history—at least as far back as extra-Biblical sources can go. Only the Bible goes “outside the box” to give us the freedom & clarity to escape the abyss of that tyranny

Incurably religious Humanity—even in America—has yet to outgrow this mold on its own