Legend of Nimrod

[Ghola5]

The following is a portion of an article from Wikipedia. It speaks of some of the origins and life in Nimrod, Son of Cush, Grandson of Ham. This Babylonian legend of Nimrod is very similar to the one of our Mother and Savior. Please comment on this issue.

(*One tradition says that after Nimrod was killed, Semiramis ((his wife and mother)) claimed that an *[*evergreen*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen)[*tree*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree)* sprouted from a tree stump, which she said indicated the entry of new life into the deceased Nimrod; every year on the anniversary of Nimrod's birth (December 25th) they would leave gifts at this evergreen tree. This is presented by some as a possible explanation the origin of the Christmas tree. Even though Semiramis claimed to be a virgin she had another son, named *[*Tammuz*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammuz)*, who she said was the reincarnation of Nimrod. She became known as the "Virgin Mother", "Holy Mother" and the "Queen of Heaven" and was symbolized by the *[*Moon*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon)*. So began the worship of Semiramis and the child-god, and the whole paraphernalia of the Babylonian religious system.)*

If anyone knows more about ancient Babylonian mythology and religion please explain to me the similarity between Nimrod and Jesus. I am just going through the Bible on my own and trying to get a picture of that Ancient time of Abraham, his contemporary peoples and cultures. Please comment.

 

[Fidelis]

There is no relation–only similarities in themes common to all mankind. The *Catholic Answers * article “Is Catholicism Pagan?” says in part:

Fundamentalists have made much of the fact that Catholic art includes Madonna and Child images and that non-Christian art, all over the world, also frequently includes mother and child images. There is nothing sinister in this. The fact is that, in every culture, there are mothers who hold their children! Sometimes this gets represented in art, including religious art, and it especially is used when a work of art is being done to show the motherhood of an individual. Mother-with child-images do not need to be explained by a theory of diffusion from a common, pagan religious source (such as Hislop’s suggestion that such images stem from representations of Semiramis holding Tammuz). One need look no further than the fact that mothers holding children is a universal feature of human experience and a convenient way for artists to represent motherhood.

To read the whole tract, go here:

catholic.com/library/Is_Catholicism_Pagan.asp

 

[Reformed_Rob]

OH NO!!

Are you being sandblasted by claims that the Catholic Trinitarianism is a Pagan concept?

Do you fall into the traps of those who claim that Nimrod established the Roman Catholic Church, and his mother/wife Semaramis is worshipped as the Virgin Mary? That the Pope is the Pagan Pontifus Maximus, and is the successor of Janus, aka Dagon the demon God? That the Nativity of St. John is actually when the Catholics light fires and candles to worship Tammuz?

Have you ever wondered where such wild claims come from?

Well, wonder no more! There was a guy named Alexander Hislop in the 19th Century who wrote a mega-boring masterpiece entitled “The Two Babylons” aka “Proof that Roman Catholicism’s practices and beliefs came from pagan Babylonian religion… not from Christ or the Bible.”

What can you do? Where can you turn for information?

You can start by reading the shocking expose at Catholic Answers. However, Fidelis has already recommended that.

An eye opening article that is more in depth, yet only 6 pages long can be read here.

As if that weren’t enough, the good Mr. Ralph Woodrow, who was once himself an advocate of the views and writings of the late Mr. Hislop, has repented of those theories and is now writing against such claims. His best known book on the topic is “The Babylon Connection?” In this work, Woodrow critically disentangles Hislop’s sources of information, historical claims, and (il)logical reasonings. It is not as scholastic as Hislop’s book, but it does the job.

Fortunately, there’s few people that take such theories so seriously that they actually know the ins and outs of how to make it work, so if you are at least lightly armed with some facts and arguments, you will easily make more sense than those who say that Nimrod is worshipped every day in the Catholic Mass.

 

[Reformed_Rob]

Ghola5:

If anyone knows more about ancient Babylonian mythology and religion please explain to me the similarity between Nimrod and Jesus. I am just going through the Bible on my own and trying to get a picture of that Ancient time of Abraham, his contemporary peoples and cultures. Please comment.

Ghola,

That’s great that you’re going through the Bible yourself! Stay with it, diligently and regularly.

Maybe my previous post was overboard, but there are a few good sources there where you can learn a little about what you seem to be wondering about.

Apparently the myth/story as I understand it goes something like this:

Nimrod was a great military leader, an awesome hunter, and started building big cities.  He died in battle with a leopard or something like that, and his wife (Semaramis) realized that she had the chance to be considered a diety of sorts if she could connive a way to get people to worship her, and so she came up with some story that she was pregnant, but was a virgin (yeah right, like we believe she's still a virgin!) and her son was Nimrod reborn.  

Obviously, only about 6 words of all that is to be confirmed in Scripture!  Maybe I've got some of the details wrong, but it's something weird like that.  The legends go on and say that the Egyptians have their own version of the Semaramis/Nimrod story in their deities (Isis and Osiris).  Other civilizations/religions have similar things too.  One problem that Ralph Woodrow points out is that there is plenty of reason to believe that Nimrod and Semaramis lived as much as 17 centuries apart from eachother!

Connections between Nimrod and Christ? Well, I guess that’s like finding connections between Adam and Christ. There are similarities (even pointed out specifically in the Bible), but they’re not the same person.

Even if some of the claims are true, it’s to be expected isn’t it? Satan was probably working throughout all of history to plant seeds to discredit the Gospel and aspects of the Christian faith in so many ways, that we’ve yet to see all of them. Evil is evil, in part, because it distorts that which is good.

Hope some of that is helpful.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Ghola5:

The following is a portion of an article from Wikipedia. It speaks of some of the origins and life in Nimrod, Son of Cush, Grandson of Ham. This Babylonian legend of Nimrod is very similar to the one of our Mother and Savior. Please comment on this issue.

(One tradition says that after Nimrod was killed, Semiramis ((his wife and mother))

Wrong. That “tradition” goes back no further than a book written 140 years ago. It is the principal source on the Net for all this Nimrod & Semiramis stuff. The whole thing is a fantasy​

claimed that an

evergreentree* sprouted from a tree stump, which she said indicated the entry of new life into the deceased Nimrod; every year on the anniversary of Nimrod’s birth (December 25th) they would leave gifts at this evergreen tree.**

Those statements are all untrue​

This is presented by some as a possible explanation the origin of the Christmas tree. Even though Semiramis claimed to be a virgin she had another son, named

Tammuz*, who she said was the reincarnation of Nimrod. She became known as the “Virgin Mother”, “Holy Mother” and the “Queen of Heaven” and was symbolized by the Moon. So began the worship of Semiramis and the child-god, and the whole paraphernalia of the Babylonian religious system.)**

A few facts:​

Semiramis is apparently a jumbled combination of:

A 9th century Assyrian queen named Sammuramat, who was active between 811 and 805;

and

Naq’ia-Zakutu, who was apparently queen regent for Ashur-bani-pal of Assyria, and who may have had a hand in the restoration of Babylon after 678, 11 years after its destruction by Sennacherib.

Sammuramat and Naq’ia-Zakutu were never deified. Few rulers were, and they were never confused with the “great gods”.

The religion of Babylonia and Assyria is far older - the written evidence for it goes back to about 2500 BC. It was largely borrowed from the Sumerians, but was constantly influenced by other peoples too. As is obvious, even a potted account would impossible.

Tammuz was a vegetation-god whose mother was called Sirtur - not Semiramis. His Sumerian name is Dumuzi.

The Moon-god was the father of Shamash the Sun-god & of Ishtar, who in one aspect is the morning-star Venus. “Semiramis” has some Ishtar-features, but that is her only connection with the Moon.

“Semiramis” seems to be a blurred memory of the two queens referred to - the name is not Assyrian.

No ruler named Nimrod is known - there have been about 70 suggestions. He could be the god Ninurta, or, Tukulti- Ninurta I (about 1244-07) of Assyria. (There are long lists of kings of Babylon and Assyria, and of many Sumerian rulers. Nimrod is not an Assyrian or Babylonian name either.) ##

If anyone knows more about ancient Babylonian mythology and religion please explain to me the similarity between Nimrod and Jesus. I am just going through the Bible on my own and trying to get a picture of that Ancient time of Abraham, his contemporary peoples and cultures. Please comment.

All of that is untrue - there is no foundation in any of the evidence from Babylonia or Assyria or Sumer for it.​

How much info do you want ?

There are a lot of books on this, by people far better qualified to comment - if you want a list, pm me

There are plenty of well-informed sites as well.

When some of us criticise this kind of thing, it’s because some of us at least know the facts - not because we don’t have answers. The history & religion of Babylonia bear no relation to what you’ve been told by that article ##

 

[catsrus]

As a side note;

Jehovah’s witnesses rever that Alexander Hislop book, The Two Babylons. Twenty odd years ago, when I “studied” with them, they recommended that everyone read that book. Sort of like their companion book to the Bible.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Additionally, “wikipedia” is not one of the best source materials on the net. It is my understanding that as a “free” encyclopedia, anyone may contribute any material, without due care or regard as to the veracity, probity, or otherwise, of that material, unlike, say, the encyclopedia Brittanica or the Oxford English Dictionary.

So, ghola–a Frank Herbert fan?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

catsrus:

As a side note;

Jehovah’s witnesses rever that Alexander Hislop book, The Two Babylons. Twenty odd years ago, when I “studied” with them, they recommended that everyone read that book. Sort of like their companion book to the Bible.

Now that, is very interesting How important is that book for their rejection of belief in the Trinity ?​

According to A. A. Hoekema, who has plenty to say about them in his book “The Four Major Cults”, they use it to say that Cush, Nimrod and Semiramis are responsible for the Trinity.

Hoekema’s book was published in 1963 - so it would be interesting to know whether Hislop’s book is still as important to them as it was. ##

 

[catsrus]

Now that, is very interesting How important is that book for their rejection of belief in the Trinity ?​

VERY important, not only for their rejection of The Trinity but also for every RC belief that they could argue from it. (veneration of Mary, etc.) As to whether or not they still consider it important, I do not know. I put as much distance from the jws and their “religion” as possible. I no longer know any personally.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

VERY important, not only for their rejection of The Trinity but also for every RC belief that they could argue from it. (veneration of Mary, etc.) As to whether or not they still consider it important, I do not know. I put as much distance from the jws and their “religion” as possible. I no longer know any personally.

OK. Thanks ​

It’s been immensely popular - I’ve seen it on sites advocating Messianic Judaism, the SDAs, Bahais, JWs, Baptists, all sorts.

Quite often without acknowledgement - it’s as popular as Boettner’s list of “Roman Catholic Heresies & Inventions” - which has also been borrowed from without acknowledgement. In fact, Boettner himself drew upon it -Hislop is probably his source for the objectionableness of wax candles, and is quoted as a source of the pagan character of Purgatory (which is not a Babylonian idea at all, despite Hislop.)

From: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Day

“It is an appropriation by early Christians of a day on which the birth of several pagan gods, Osiris, Jupiter, and Plutus, or the ancient deified leader Nimrod, was celebrated.”

[This is all pure Hislop]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Christmas

is the article that started this thread. Why does fiction get believed so easily, and not the actual facts ? Tell people that Nimrod and Semiramis had nothing to do with Babylonian religion, and they don’t want to know. Tell them that Constantine had nothing whatever to do with any Babylonian religion at Nicea I, and they are not interested. As long as something is complete garbage, people will believe it. The bigger the lie, the more they will believe it :banghead: ##

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

What does the Bible say about Nimrod ?​

“Nimrod occurs 4 times in 4 verses:” -

Gen 10:8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.

Gen 10:9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as **Nimrod **the mighty hunter before the LORD.

1 Chronicles 1:10 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be mighty upon the earth.

Mic 5:6 And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver [us] from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.

And about Semiramis?

“Sorry! the word Semiramis doesn’t occur in the KJV.” ##

 

[Ghola5]

Thanks for the help everyone. I wasn’t scared because of this Nimrod legend. I just wanted to know more about it, and hear some comments. I do believe that Nimrod was a great hunter/ruler and that his strength and accomplishments became mythological and others tried to claim diety through him, or something like that.

I read the articles that people have pointed out for me and was thinking about this whole legend. Mary never claimed to be a God/Goddess, nor did any of Jesus’ disciples, so obviously there was a difference between Nimrod and Jesus and the kind of message that people recieve from both of them.

Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, have all attempted to become gods themselves ( Emperors, Pharoahs, etc). While in Jewish and Christian teaching it is never mentioned or suggested that man can become a god.

After I read the articles and thought about it its pretty much clear which is legend and which is Truth.

P.S.

I do like Frank Herbert

 

[empther]

Instead of worrying about a handful of vaguely similar features in the stories of Nimrod and Jesus, why not concentrate on the countless differences?

The Nimrod story is typical of ancient myths.

Who could have dreamed up the story of Jesus? Examine the dialogue in the Gospels. Could Shakespeare have written that? No1

 

[Steve_Andersen]

Ghola5:

… which she said indicated the entry of new life into the deceased Nimrod; every year on the anniversary of Nimrod’s birth (December 25th) they would leave gifts at this evergreen tree. …

Odd that this theory indicates that the Sumerians were using the Roman calendar centuries before there were Romans

The Sumerians used a lunar calendar
With extra days stuck in every few years to keep in sync with the solar year.
jameswbell.com/a005calendar.html

I don’t know what they called the day 3 days after the winter solstice but it’s actual calendar date varied from year to year and it certainly wasn’t called December 25th

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

empther:

Instead of worrying about a handful of vaguely similar features in the stories of Nimrod and Jesus, why not concentrate on the countless differences?

The Nimrod story is typical of ancient myths.

Who could have dreamed up the story of Jesus? Examine the dialogue in the Gospels. Could Shakespeare have written that? No1

And it didn’t need a Shakespeare to make up that Nimrod story - it’s a very recent composition ​

Take away all the Catholic-bashing in it - which is most of it - and one has the skeleton of a promising narrative ##