Ancient
writings.
Nimrud
builds or
restores
books of Adam,1 and those of Seth, of Noah, Enoch, and Jasher,2
the contemporary of Moses. These ■writings are now lost, with
the exception of the two last, one of which is considered to be
apochryphal ;s but, be this as it may, such a work must at one
time have been extant in some way or other, since we are told
that Enoch, who was the seventh from Adam, also prophesied,
&c.4 Moses naturally derived his information from his own
line, that of Shem ; but doubtless records of some kind had
been preserved in the line of Ham also,5 and it will be recollected
that Sanchoniatho, like Moses, gives the same number of
generations from Adam to Ham.
We learn that the acquisition of the plains of Dura by the
children of the latter was followed by an increase of territory,
which was at first made gradually by Cush,6 but subsequently
on a greater scale by his son Nimrud,7 who in
the beginning caused to revive or make famous, all the principal
places in his kingdom, as Babel,8 Erech,9 Accad,10 and
1 P a rt of one of the three sacred books of the Sabean Mandaites (now-
called the Christians of St. John), of which an account has been given in the
Journal des Savans, Paris, 1819, by Sylvestre de Saci, has been published
under the title of “ Codex Nasarseus, Liber Adami appellatus,” 5 vols. 4to-
2 Jasher appears to have been the son of Caleb and Azubah; compare
1 Chron. Chap. I I ., v. 18, with Joshua, chap. X., v. 13, and 2 Samuel, chap.
I ., v. 18.
8 The book of Enoch the prophet, supposed for ages to be lost, translated
from an Ethiopic MS. by the Rev. Richard Lawrence, LL.D., Archbishop
of Cashel.
4 General Epistle of Jude, v. 14.
5 Josephus mentions (lib. I ., cap. iii., sec. 8), Antediluvian Records.
6 Called an Ethiopian.—Euseb., Chron. Armen. I ., p. 53.
7 The giant warrior of the Syrian version; the Nebroth, Nebrod, and
Nimrud, or terrible giant of the Arabs (Euseb., Chron. Armen, ed. in folio,
pp. 37, 39) ; the Zohak, or Zohauk, of the Persians (see Bibl. Orient., Art.
Dhohak) ; also the well-known Belus of the Greek writers, and the Nimrod
of Gen., chap. X ., v. 8, 9.
8 Gen., chap. X., v. 10, Bellamy’s translation.
9 Now the mount of E l ’Assayah.—See above, vol. I ., p. 116. I t is supposed
that the city and tower were built to commemorate the descent of the Ark,
and that it represents the A ’rcaa of the Hebrews, and the city of the Ark.
Compare Harcourt’s Doctrine of the Deluge, vol. I ., p. 196, with Bryant’s
Ancient Mythology, vol. I I ., p. 524.
10 The celebrated mound of ’Akar Kuf.—See above, vol. I ., p. 117.