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 (Lower Mesopotamia). The Bible states that he was "a mighty hunter before the Lᴏʀᴅ ... 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 (including the Mesopotamian ones, which are considered older than the biblical record). 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.