The Bible never says Nimrod was Evil

I've gone over before how the popular view that Nimrod was behind the Tower of Babel doesn't hold up Biblically.  Nimrod's career took place after the scattering clearly as there are multiple cities.  But in the past even knowing that I still went along with the assumption that he was clearly bad, the first proto-type of The Antichrist.

It doesn't matter how universal an extra-Biblical traditions seem to be.  Titus 1:14 tells us to give no heed to Jewish Fables, and all these legends about the great villain Nimrod were Jewish fables before the Christians and Muslims adopted them.

However, Ephrem the Syrian (306–373) relates a contradictory view, that Nimrod was righteous and opposed the builders of the Tower. Similarly, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (date uncertain) 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.

In fact none of these extra-Biblical traditions about Nimrod can be proven to predate the Greeco-Roman era.  The Babylonian captivity could have been the beginning of a desire to vilify anyone linked to Babylon.  Extra-Biblical Jewish traditions about Nebuchadnezzar often forget we're explicitly told he was saved.

The attempt to justify condemning him from the Biblical text begins with "Before the LORD", they say the Hebrew word for "Before" here really means "In the face of" or "in opposition to".  But I've looked at other uses of this word, and that doesn't pan out, it's often used of Godly worship before The Ark of The Covenant, including of David. The Hebrew word for "face" is one of the word's roots, but "in the face of" does not have an inherently negative connotation in Hebrew usage.

In fact it looks to me like any other time someone is doing something "Before The LORD" it is consistently an expression of them worshiping or serving God.  Maybe sometimes serving him badly, but still serving him, not being intentionally against him.

When we get into Nephlim theories, people like Rob Skiba make a big thing out of Gibbor (Gibborim when plural) being used (translated mighty) which was also used of the presumed Angel-Human hybrids in Genesis 6.  But it's just a standard Hebrew word for Mighty, it's used of David's mighty men, and of Saul in 1 Samuel 9.  It's used of Jeroboam in 1 Kings 11:27-28.  The name of Gabriel relates to the same root.  Also when Jesus is called The Mighty God in Isaiah 9:6, it's the same word for mighty.

What Skiba specifically says is that "he became a mighty hunter" means he genetically engineered himself, some sort of ancient gene-splicing.  That is a horrible twisting of Scripture.  Mighty isn't even really the proper noun here, it's just describing the kind of Hunter he was.  No one is born a Hunter, that is a skill you learn.

Or better yet if you still insist Gibborim implies being a giant/nephilim/raphaim, then the title Nimrod is given would make sense to interpret as a "giant hunter" as in "hunter of giants".  That is exactly what Ninurta of Sumerian mythology is said to have hunted, giant mythical monsters that are also confusingly to modern readers described as heroes.

While the word Hunter itself is not used against him in anything I've seen yet.  I still want to look at it.  According to Strongs, the exact Hebrew word used here is translated in the KJV as a noun rather then a verb only three times.  Twice when referring to Nimrod, and in Genesis 25:27 of Esau.  Esau in-spite what you may think of him from his descendants legacy was not a bad person according to The Bible, flawed like his brother but not bad.  But he too was popularly defamed by Jewish fables, though not as seemingly universally as Nimrod.

As a verb it is translated hunting twice, but also catcheth, provision, food, venison and victuals.  There are similar words translated similarly.  The word seems to also carry the meaning of providing food for others not just yourself.

Then there is the often repeated claim that the name Nimrod means Rebellion, or "let us Rebel" or "He Rebelled" or The Rebel.

First off, while names are often meaningful in The Bible, people are named by their parents at birth, it's not always an accurate description of them.  Mered is directly identical to the Hebrew word for rebellion appealed to here, no one assumes he was bad, or a rebel of any kind.  In fact the name Miriam/Mary is a feminine form of that name.

Most of the Biblical types of The Antichrist if they have Hebrew names have Godly or positive sounding ones, Adonijah, Adonizedek, Jehu, King Manasseh. 

One theory is it's not his real name but a descriptive title.  But is rebellion even inherently bad?  Rebellion against God is, but Gideon was a Rebel too.  Maybe he rebelled against the Babel system?

Putting a Nun before Mered does mean "Let us Rebel". But we can't be 100% certain that's the origin of the name.

At the very least the name could equally likely come from namer, the Hebrew word for Leopard, with a daleth added to the end.  I think an animal name is frankly a more obvious reference for a hunter. On the one hand it could mean he hinted leopards, but on the other it could refer to how the leopard as a carnivore is a hunter of the animal kingdom.

 Jeremiah 13:23 analogizes Cushites, to leopards.  And Ancient Hebrew did use the daleth as a suffix sometimes, regardless of this seemingly not being known to the wikipedia page on Hebrew Suffixes.  Gadad is a Hebrew word often translated Troop, that is another Hebrew word often translated Troop, Gad, with a daleth added at the end.

This online Interlinear Bible interprets Nimrod's name in the Masoretic text as "loves to fit in" but in the Samaritan text as Leopard.

That would give it without the D nearly the exact same spelling the Enmer part of Enmerkar would have in Hebrew.  Kar means Hunter.

Strongs is uncertain about the etymology of Nimrod's name.  It could be a Hebrew rendering of a foreign name with no Hebrew meaning at all.

Ni is a Sumerian prefix (variantly rendered En) that means Lord.  J.D. Price in 1910 argued that Nimrod could come from Ni-Marad, "lord of Marad".

Calnah is the most elusive of the four cities identified as Nimrod's early Empire.  Eridu I've argued is the original Babel, Akkad's ruins haven't been found but what city it refers to is well known (it seems to have been pretty much where Baghdad is and Seleucia was), and Erech is Uruk.

Calnah has been theorized to be the Assyrian city Canneh mentioned in Ezekiel 27.  But that looks spurious to me.  And this isn't listed with the Assyrian cities.

The chief Ziggurat of Marad was called E-igi-kalama.  The letters n and m getting switched somehow in transliteration isn't unheard of.  Having similar sounds means you often switch them to make puns, which The Holy Spirit does in Hebrew a lot.

It's possible that Ziggurat didn't exist yet in Nimrod's day.  Also possible that the city's name changed later and the Ziggurat kept the original name.  Maybe it's possible Marad was originally a name for the region but became just that city for some reason.  Micah's reference to the "Land of Nimrod" could back up viewing Nimrod's name as also a name for the region.

I've talked about another possible Sumerian origin for the name of Nimrod elsewhere, how it could come from Enmerkar.

The Bible tells us nothing one way or the other on if he was good or bad.  Maybe he wasn't particularly either, lots of Kings of Judah got mixed reviews.  Maybe he started good but got corrupted later like Saul and Solomon.  We don't know, not from using Scripture Alone.

The vilification reeks of Racism to me.  The Rabbinic traditions saw how many villains came from Canaan and Mizriam and decided all descendants of Ham were bad.

In the last few hundred years, Racists have wanted to find any reason to apply the Curse of Canaan to Cush's offspring, since it's descendants of Cush we enslaved.  Rob Skiba makes Nimrod vital to his premise that all descendants of Ham carried on genetic corruption from Genesis 6.  A horribly dangerously Racist premise, regardless of Racism not being Skiba's intent.

Now you may be thinking, "Does this ruin your Nimrod is Enmerkar theory?"  I did selectively draw on extra-Biblical traditions there, mostly after making my main thesis.

Enmerkar is a good guy in those Sumerian poems, but he equates to bad for Judeao-Christian readers because he is Pagan in them.  But even those ancient poems were written much latter, the UR III period at the soonest.  Of course these later Sumerians wanted to claim all their old leaders worshiped the gods they worshiped when those poems were written.  Today we got various kinds of Pagans trying to claim Jesus as one of their own.  Mainstream archaeologists don't even consider Enmerkar's existence verified, so clearly we don't know for certain who or what he worshiped.

At the same time, there is no historical evidence Cyrus ever ceased to be a faithful follower of Mithra (he wasn't Zoroastrian as is often assumed, Darius made that the mainstream religion of the Persian Empire).  Yet The Bible speaks of him positively, (and I believe he's saved based on his believing Isaiah message from 44/45) and even called him a Messiah, Anointed of God.  God also had Elisha anoint both Jehu and Hazel of Syria, neither of whom were strict monotheists and only one likely worshiped Yahweh at all.

Maybe Nimrod was someone who fell into Idolatry later like Solomon or Jeroboam.  Who knows.

None of the kings of the Sumerian kings list ruled from Marad.  Marad was near Uruk, Enmerkar's capital.  So it could be that the Ni-Marad theory and the Enmerkar theory could go together.

Amraphel was first of all not the leader in Genesis 14, he's listed first but The Holy spirit often lists Shinar first.  Elam is clearly in charge of this.  If he were Nimrod The Bible would have said so.

As for the obsession people like Rob Skiba have with reading Nimrod into all their Occult research.  Yeah I'm sure the Masons and Theosophists want to claim Nimrod like they claim the Architect of The Temple as well as Solomon, they even claim Jesus as one of their own.  The Antichrist may well seek to compare himself to Nimrod like I've often assumed he'd seek to compare himself to Alexander The Great and Augustus Caesar.

But also all this research is just a flawed Christian twisting of the same comparative religion pseudo-History that lies behind the Christ Myth nonsense.  They just take everyone the skeptics claim Jesus was based on, and say those people were based on Nimrod.  It's Christians unwittingly giving credibility to nonsense claims that were made only to attack Christianity.

Stop opposing the Esoteric New Agers while at the same time assuming 90% of what they claim about their own history is true.

I believe Osiris might be identifiable in Genesis, but he's not Nimrod.

Semiramas was originally a fairly insignificant Assyrian Queen.  Herododtus mentioned her accurately.  Josephus cites Berosus who writing from native Babylonian sources refutes all the Greek myths that developed about her.  But Diodorus in book two of his Library of History preferred to use the fantastical version.  Ninos/Ninus is probably just a name Greek writers invented to explain the origin of Nineveh.

Recognitions of Clement was the origin of identifying Ninus with Nimrod.  That was not actually written by Clement, the Clementine literature was a source of much heresy, and was clearly very Gnostic.

And on the subject of Orion, the Hunter constellation.  The Greek myth of Orion has him never even as a king or anything, he's just a hunter who some goddess (it varies) got mad at and killed via Scorpio for some reason and then Asclepius (identified with the constellation Ophiuchus) resurrected him.  But if you believe Gospel in The Stars type theories, (which any supporter of Jupiter in Leo as the Star of Bethlehem like Skiba is would have to).  Then Ophiuchus and Orion are both among the constellations that represent Jesus in it's repeated referencing of Genesis 3:15.  Orion would be Jesus Slain, and Ophiuchus who is stepping on Scorpio's head would be Jesus Risen.

If Nimrod did get identified with that constellation, maybe it's because his story was used as a type of Christ in some way.

Satan's corruption of that into the Pagan Zodiac definitely creates potential Antichrist parallels with Orion as the Antichrist and Asclepius the False Prophet.  But there is no reason to blame Nimrod for it.

The Basis for identifying Orion with Osiris (which is in turn a major basis for identifying Nimrod with Osiris and/or Horus, which using Hellenistic comparative religion is then a basis for identifying him with Dionysus and Apollo), is that an alternate name for Osiris, Seir, was also as an Egyptian name for the Constellation Orion.

Well it turns out Seir happens to seem identical to a Hebrew word for "hairy" that is a name for a mountain region in Edom, as well the name of a Horite who's descendants intermarried with the Edomites, and the word can be linked to Esau himself who is described as Hairy.  Both Esau and Seir the Horite were ancestors of Amalek according to Genesis 36.  And some Gospel in The Star/Mazaroth researchers have claimed Seir to also be a Semitic name for the Constellation Orion.  As I already mentioned above, Esau was described as a Hunter in Genesis also.

Since I believe the Amalekites were a chief tribe among the Hyksos.  My hunch is it was during the Hyksos period that Seir became a name for Orion The Hunter.  The Hyksos worshiped Set but I see no evidence that Set worshipers vilified Osiris the way Osiris worshipers later would Set.  So they may well also have been Ok with identifying one of their ancestral figures with Osiris.

And a presumed connection between Nimrod and Osiris/Horus is largely why Nimrod gets identified with Apollo and Dionysus, since Greek writers viewed Osiris and Horus as being Egyptian forms of Dionysus and Apollo.  Another reason is a theory on the etymology of Bacchus being Bar-Cush (son of Cush) but there are other more likely theories for the etymology of Bacchus.

If Nimrod's Sumerian deification was as Ninurta, then the Greeco-Roman deities that equate to him would be Ares/Mars, and Saturn/Cronos.

Update 3/12/2016: Nimrod an ancestor of Abraham???

One thing I noticed recently is for some reason the Septuagint renders Nimrod as Nebrod.  Why the M would become a B I can't figure out.  In our Greek texts of Josephus a similar thing happens, it becomes Nabrodes in Antiquities Chapter 2 Section 2.  And Nabrodou in Section 3.

What is interesting is that the Book of Jubliees, which Rob Skiba includes in his "Synchronized texts", and is a far older and more authentic text then the claimed book of Jasher, being attested among the Dead Sea Scrolls and was preserved by the Ethiopian Church, and also older then Josephus being BC in origin.  Never mentions the Nimrod we're used to, it's equivalent Table of Nations in chapter 8 and 9 doesn't mention him among the sons and grandsons of Ham.  Same with the account of the Tower of Babel in chapter 10, no King or Hunter or any other human leader is behind it.

But Chapter 8 verse 7 does mention a Nebrod as the father of 'Azurad the wife of Heber and mother of Peleg (and probably also Joktan but he's not directly mentioned there).  Nimrod was the same generation from Noah as Salah according to Genesis 10, so their kids marrying each other is very plausible.  Our Latin and Ethiopic texts of Jubilees are agreed by scholars to have been translated from a now lost Greek version, so they would have used a Greek form of Nimrod if they mentioned him.

That is interesting given my originally random suggestion above that maybe Nimrod is named "Let us Rebel" because he rebelled against the Babel project.  Because Jewish tradition has long held it was the family of Heber that refused to go along with that project and because of that Heber's family kept the original language and so it became named after him as Hebrew.

And the book of Jubilees kind of alludes to that tradition, in the Babel account in chapter 10 verse 18 is describes Reu being born at this time, and given his name to reflect that.  Reu as you should well know is a direct ancestor of Abraham (as well as Lot and Laban).

Now if Nimrod is an ancestor of Abraham, then that really destroys Skiba's insistence that Nimrod had corrupt DNA.  Since Jesus is the Seed of Abraham.

Nimrod's name coming up in Micah is thought of as proof he's the Antichrist.  Nimrod is the name of a Land there, not the individual Assyrian ruler, I'm not even sure this Prophecy intends us to assume there is one.  And I do not consider that Antichrist relevant, I've argued from my new view of Isaiah 14 that that is after The Millennium.  So Assyria being known by Nimrod's name then must mean God considers his name a worthy name.  Maybe it can even be proof Nimrod will be among the resurrected believers co-ruling during The Millennium.  Yahuah calls it the land of Nimrod because He gave it to Nimrod the same as he gave the other side of the Euphrates to Abraham.

Further proof Nimrod can't be the Antichrist is his name doesn't have a Gematria value of 666.  The Hebrew variants of the name have a Hebrew value of 194 or 200.  In Greek gematria Nemrod would be 999 which is as close as any form gets, but that is unattested.  Nimrod would be 1005.  Nebrod is 961, Nabrodes is 1165 and Nabrodou would be 1427, those three are the attested ones.

Update May 2017: This Nebrod observation is a good time to return to the etymology issue.

I've found there are other precedents for this B=M interchangeability.  Sometimes it goes the other way, it's part of how the Hebrew Jacob becomes James via Greek and Latin transliterations.  But it's not limited to Hebrew and Greek.  Bar is the Aramaic word for Son, but in the older version of that language used in Assyrian inscriptions the word for son is Mar.  This is also why Mecca/Makkah is also called Becca/Bakkah.

You may have heard of Nibiru.  The Planet X pseudo astrology derived from Snitchin is easily debunk-able nonsense.  But it was used in Babylonian texts of some star, which one is debatable, Jupiter is popular, I lean towards Polaris, but other theories exist.  Other spellings of Nibiru include Neberu and Nebiru.

The Mesopotamian city commonly called Nippur was called in Sumerian Nibru and Akkadian Nibbur.  Very similar to Nibiru.

If the Daleth or Vav-Daleth is a suffix in the Biblical references to Nimrod.  And maybe there is a chance Nebrod might be closer to the original.  Then the names of Nibiru and Nippur might be where the name Nimrod is found in Mespotamian records.  And the land of Nimrod may be the land of Nippur.

Nibiru is associated with Marduk/Merodach in the Babylonian references we have.  But Marduk was actually a latter development of Babylonian religion, taking over the traits and roles originally assigned to Enlil.  Marduk however is the son of Enlil's rival and brother Enki/Ea.  Nippur was the center of the worship of Enlil.  But it was also important to Ninurta, Enlil's son, as Ugallu was his consort there.

I've argued that Enki is Satan and Enlil one of Satan's original distorted caricatures of the Biblical God.  Marduk taking Nibiru from Enlil might symbolize Satan's long term plan to claim Nimrod was his son, the Antichrist, when he had really served Yahuah.  Merodach's placement in the Strongs combined with how I've seen people claim Marduk was Nimrod would happen to help the false etymology of his name coming from Mari/rebellion.