Nimrod the Mighty, King of Kish, King of Sumer and Akkad

Levin, Yigal

doi:10.1163/156853302760197494

Cited by 38 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Then again, the passage gives details about an ancient monarch and about the beginning of post-diluvian urban civilization. Various scholarly attempts to identify Nimrod with an historical Mesopotamian king or with a mythological god have been suggested (Levin 2002). Perhaps Nimrod is a composite figure of the ideal Mesopotamian king.…”

Section: Hammentioning

confidence: 99%

The Genesis of Jewish Genealogy

Demsky

2023

Genealogy

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This paper examines the structure, message, and content of biblical genealogies in light of literary analysis and social anthropology. In particular, the focus is on the so-called “Table of Nations” in Genesis 10. My basic assumption is that most biblical genealogies are a literary genre employing various devices that carry a message using symbolic numbers, chiastic structure, and anticipation. These lists interact and supplement the narrative, sometimes as a foil to the story line. They are inserted at relevant points of change in the story of mankind from Adam and Eve to Joseph and his brothers. I even propose that these insertions are the earliest form of dividing the book of Genesis into installments, a precursor to weekly Torah readings and to the later division into chapters as in the printed text. The underlying message of this chapter is the value concept of the brotherhood of mankind stemming from one father—Noah. This innovative idea of universal kinship breaks with the common pagan view prevalent in antiquity that man’s place is to serve the gods and to have little or no personal identity. Note that the great urban cultures of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia have left us no real records of family lineage other than the long king lists that reflect dynastic power. No doubt the importance of oral and written lineage stems from a tribal culture like that of the ancient Hebrews and their kindred. This overriding view even shaped the Nimrud pericope, describing his founding the urban centers of Babylon and Assyria. Genealogy became the natural medium expressing this message of universal kinship. Basic to understanding biblical genealogies is discerning two patterns of kinship, one, linear, stretching up to ten generations, and two, segmented genealogies, noting an eponymous “father” and his segmented offspring or wives. Our understanding of these structures in the Bible is shaped by the research of social anthropologists who studied oral genealogy among analphabetic tribes in Africa and the Middle East. I apply these observations and methodology in a detailed commentary on the Table of Nations.

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Section: Hammentioning

confidence: 99%

The Genesis of Jewish Genealogy

Demsky

2023

Genealogy

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“…22 The author of this chronicle uses two sources in 18 Some important or recent contributions on Genesis 10 20 Oded 1986. andNimrod are: Lipinski 1966;Speiser 1967;Oded 1986;21 According to Jacob (1934: 283) the latter is the only van der Toorn and van der Horst 1990;Machinist 1992;possibility. Uehlinger 1999;Levin 2002. "Editions: Dindorf 1832 and Migne PG 92. The 19 Lipinski 1966;Speiser 1967;van Seters 1992; Chronicon Paschale is cited as Chron.…”

Section: Christian Historiographymentioning

confidence: 99%

The founding of Nineveh and Babylon in Greek historiography

Vlaardingerbroek¹

2004

Iraq

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“Well, as for Nineveh, skipper, it was wiped out long ago. There's not a trace of it left, and one can't even guess where it was. Babylon's over there [pointing it out], the place with great towers and a huge wall round it — but before long it will be just as hard to find as Nineveh” (Lucianus Charon 23). Lucianus evidently did not know much about the Assyrian Empire and its capital Nineveh. The same goes for most Greek authors. Xenophon passed by Mespila, which he calls a Median city, without being aware that it was Nineveh (Xen. An. 3.4.10–12). The Greeks knew even less about the Neo-Babylonian empire, but they thought they knew quite a lot about the city of Babylon. Classical authors were especially interested in the wonders of Nineveh and Babylon and in the founding stories of both cities. Unfortunately, most texts discussing the founding of Nineveh and Babylon have been lost, but enough remains to get a picture of the development of these founding stories, which show a mixture of Babylonian and Greek elements. The founding of Nineveh is always attributed to Ninos, and the founding of Babylon sometimes to Semiramis and sometimes to Belos. When Christianity began to spread, new motifs were introduced, as historians tried to reconcile the Greek founding stories with what was said about Babylon and Nineveh in the Bible.

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“…135-137 on Judaeo-Christian authors on the descendants of Ham. On the difficulties of harmonizing biblical Nimrod's Mesopotamian field of action with his purported Kushite genealogy, and possible explanations, seeLevin 2002.…”

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confidence: 99%

Armeno-Aethiopica in the Middle Ages: Geography, Tales of Christianization, Calendars, and Anti-Dyophysite Polemics in the First Millennium

Pogossian

2022

Aethiopica

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Research for this article had the purpose of exploring medieval Armenian–Ethiopian connections. The investigations revealed three main contexts where Ethiopia and Ethiopians feature in the Armenian sources of the first millennium, without necessarily implying real-life encounters. Firstly, the earliest Armenian texts locate Ethiopia and discuss the genealogy of its people in line with the biblical account of the Diamerismos, as well as notions based on Eusebius of Caesarea’s Chronicle translated into Armenian from Syriac in the fifth century. Each author, then, interpreted this information according to his narrative needs or the purpose of a given composition. The discussion of these sources reveals the circulation of classical and Hellenistic notions on Ethiopia and the Ethiopians in Armenian, too, such as the confusion between Ethiopia, Arabia, and India, as well as anthropological or spiritual features attributed to Ethiopians already by classical authors. Secondly, the article analyses a series of calendrical treatises, starting with one authored by the seventh-century polymath Anania Širakac‘i, that passed on a short tale about a sixth-century gathering of scholars in Alexandria in order to determine the date of the Easter and establish tables for its calculation in the future. An Ethiopian wise man Abdiē was part of this international endeavour too, according to this tradition, and his presence marked Ethiopia as part of the eastern Mediterranean learned world, with its own cultural traditions. Armenian language hemerologia also preserved month names in Gǝʿǝz, reproduced in the Appendix. Thirdly, the article draws attention to a completely new way of viewing Ethiopia in ninth- to eleventh-century Armenian anti-dyophysite (antiByzantine) treatises where the Armenian Church and its doctrines or ritual practices were imagined as part of a vast, non-dyophysite orthodox world that included the Ethiopian Church. Intriguingly, this argumentative technique, formulated in terms that one may callanti-colonial ante litteram, may be traced among Coptic and Syriac polemicists as well, a subject of research that would benefit from further analysis.

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Nimrod the Mighty, King of Kish, King of Sumer and Akkad

Cited by 38 publications

References 3 publications

The Genesis of Jewish Genealogy

The Genesis of Jewish Genealogy

The founding of Nineveh and Babylon in Greek historiography

Armeno-Aethiopica in the Middle Ages: Geography, Tales of Christianization, Calendars, and Anti-Dyophysite Polemics in the First Millennium

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