504 TH E X t h C H A P T E R OF G E N E S I S .
•
it emanates from one of themselves : — “ But / confess that / have some considerable
dread of the indiscreet friends of religion, /tremble,” wrote the Rev. Sydney Smith,
H at that respectable imbecility which shuffles away the plainest truths, and thinks the
strongest of all causes wants the weakest of all aids. / shudder at the consequences
of fixing the great proofs of religion upon any other basis, than that of the widest investigation,
and the most honest statement of facts. [Auree parole, ‘ golden words,’ as
Lan ci would say]. I allow such nervous and timid friends to religion to be the best
and most pious of men ; but a bad defender of religion is bo much the more pernicious
person in the whole community, that I most humbly hope such friends will evince their
I . zéal for religion, by ceasing to defend it ; and remember that not every man is qualified
to be the advocate of a cause in which the mediocrity of his understanding may
/ possibly comprormise the dearest and must affecting interests of society.” And if, in
consequence, I discard their Cushite suppositions, I can only excuse myself in the
words of Strauss : — “ Les théologiens trouveront sans doute que l’absence de ces suppositions
dans mon livre est peu chrétienne; moi (je) trouve que la.présence de ces
suppositions dans les leurs est peu scientifique.” — G. R. G.]
2 7 . — N M K D — £ Î îim r o d .’
Before us stands the sixth and last affiliation of KUSA — to whom the writer of Xth
Genesis devotes more space than to any other personification secondary to the parental
“ Shem, Ham, and Japhet”— inasmuch as five of the modern and arbitrary divisions
of the text, called verses, are especially set apart for Nimrod and his derivations.
Hence we may infer that, in the mind of that writer, Nimrod’s honor and glory were
inherent elements. Now, the associations, the names of cities attributed to Nimrod, the
language spokçn in different dialects throughout the MesopQtamian vicinities of their
several locations, and their geographical assemblage in Babylonia and Assyria :—these
considerations, we repeat, even were other histories. silent, would lead archaeology to
suspect strong Chaldcean biases on the part of the compiler of Xth Genesis ; and would
increase the probabilities, to be enlarged upon ere we close this discussion, that Xth
Genesis is either a transcript of an older Babylonian composition, or else was compiled
by some Hebrew imbued, like Daniel for example, with “ the learning and tongue of
the Chaldeans.”
Such, primâ facie, would be the archaeologist’s deduction when, disengaging himself
from prejudices, no less than from traditions of comparatively recent origin, he had
sought to evolve facts from the letter of Xth Genesis itself : especially when to this text
he adds the only other passage, (except, of course, the abridged parallel in 1 Chron. i.
10), in which Nimrod’s name occurs throughout the canonical books, (viz: Micahi.
6); wherein ‘‘ the land of Assyria . . . and the land of Nimrod” are Chaldaic
synonymes for the same country.’
But, when once the inquirer steps beyond these simple and natural limitations, what
pyramids of falsehood and misconception intervene to prevent clear understanding of
the words of Xth Genesis ? and how baseless the fabrications upon which these pyramids
rest !
A “ mighty hunter,” whose imaginary deeds in venerie are still proverbial with modern
“ Nimrods,” founds the grandest cities. The traditionary builder of a metropolis
called Babel — BAB-EL, “ gate of the Sun" ; like the Ottoman “ Sublime Porte”
or the “ Celestial Gates” of Chinese autocracy — “ presto” becomes constructor of the
“ Tower of Babel;” when, so far as the letter of Genesis Xth and Xlth be concerned,
neither Nimrod, nor his innocent father KUSA, (save as two individuals out of “ the
whole earth,” Gen. xi. 1), were more guilty in such, impiety than KUS/i’s grandfather
NOAH, who “ lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years ; ” or than anybody else
of th e , seventy-one or two persons—fathers, sons, grand-children, great grand-chil-
dren. uncles, brothers, cousins, and what not — whose cognomina are enumerated in
Xth Genesis.
Cramped -within the factitious limits of biblical computation, English writers m
particular, following neither Scripture nor true history, but the Rabbis; and unable
to reconcile supposed Noachic orthodoxy with the sudden rise of so-called “ idolatry,”
have seized, with rapturous eagerness, upon the earliest writer who is conjectured to
have known anything more on the subject than we do ourselves; and these authorities
behold in Josephus’s Greco-Judaic hallucinations a clew to the enigma.
“ It is vain we know that Nimrod became mighty, even to a proverb, if the nature
and means of his elevation cannot be understood; or that Babylpn was the beginning
of his kingdom, unless we c,an find the means of learning for what purposes, and upon
w h a t principles,'that city was established,” reasons, somewhat illogica,lly, the unknown
author of four very scarce octavo volumes on this speciality,«" in which we abortively
hunted for a fa c t: so that, never having encountered any orthodox commentary .on
Nimrod in which principles of historical criticism were not more or less disregarded,
we are reduced to the necessity of attempting to examine for ourselves: notwithstanding
that the subjoined “ views will doubtless excite astonishment in some, and
displeasure in those who,” avers Godfrey Higgins, the great Celtic antiquary, “ while
they deny infallibility to the Pope, write, speak, and act, as if they possessed that
attribute.” . ■
To begin. Let us frankly disavow partialities, in the words which His Eminence,
Cardinal Wiseman, aptly borrows from the great Adelung:—“ Ich habe keme Lieblings-
meinung, keine Hypothese zum Grunde zu legen. Ich leite nicht alle Sprachen von
Einer her. Noah’s Arche ist mir eine verschlossene Burg, und Babylon’s Schutt bleibt
vor mir vollig in seiner Buhe.” ■
Through the common Oriental mutation of B for M, the word NMRD, of the Hebrew
Text,becomes in the LXX, and NefaiiStis in Josephus. Is it a modern or a primeval
name ? Cuneiform researches, so far as we yet know, have thrown no monumental
•light on the subject: but hieroglyphical do. Two Pharaonic princes of the XXIId
dynasty — between B .C . 936 and 860 — bore this appellative: one, son of Osorkon
II., spells his name NIMBOT; the other, son of Ta eblo th II., NMURT: and, Mr.
Birch observes: — “ As the Egyptians had no D, but employed the same homophone
of the T to express this sound in foreign names, this name is unequivocally the Assyrian
Nimroud, TTO1, the NifipMivs of the Septuagint, a word now known to signify Lord
in the Assyrian, and unlikely to have been introduced into an Egyptian dynasty, except
through intermarriage with an Assyrian house.” Subsequent researches have not
merely corroborated Mr. Birch’s views on the intimate alliances between Egypt and
Assyria, during the XXIId dynasty, but Bawlinson and Layard have established that
cuneatic writings, and many other arts of Nineveh and Babylon, are long posterior to
Egyptian hieroglyphics, and were the natural sequences of Egyptian tuition.
Monumental evidence, then, coetaneous in registration with the events recorded,
carries the name NMBD, at a single bound, from its currency in parlance among the
present natives of Assyria (as applied to places, , such as Nimroud, Mrs Nimroud,
Nimroud-dagh, &c. &c.), back to the tenth century b . c . , in hieroglyphics:— an age
anterior, probably, to that of the Hebrew compiler, or translator, of Xth Genesis; but,
while this fact corroborates his accuracy, it serves to sweep away sundry rabbinical
and other cobwebs that hang between our generation and the primeval origin of the
word itself. -
What did NMBD, originally, mean ? No reply can be accepted that does not, in a
question involving such vast ramifications, first classify its components adverbially,
under distinct heads: —
1st. PMlologieaUy fe4-We know not why the translation “ Lord” results from arrow-
headed investigations, and therefore relinquish discussion, on that ground, to such
cuneatic philologues as Rawlinson, Hincks, De Saulcy, and others of the new school.
It may at -once be acknowledged that Oriental traditions, of which the Thalmudic