The diagram shows another example of the cousin bride's naming prerogative, a distinctive feature of the early Hebrew marriage and ascendancy pattern. Nimrod's Mesopotamian wife was a cousin and a princess. She named their firstborn son Asshur after her father.
Dr. Alice C. Linsley
The so-called “begats” are king lists that predate the Sumerian King Lists by at least 1500 years. To gain a clearer understanding of the influence and authority of these early Hebrew rulers we must consider Genesis chapter 10. Here we are told that Nimrod was a son of Kush, a Hebrew ruler in the Nile region. That is where the oldest known site of Hebrew worship was located at Nekhen.
Nimrod became a high-ranking Hebrew official in Sumer and later in Mesopotamia. He is known for his expansive building projects in Shinar, a region of independent city-states as early as 4100 B.C. Eridu (Eredo) was the earliest known city in Sumeria. The Sumerian King Lists describes Eridu as the “city of the first kings”, stating, “After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridu”.
Later Nimrod began building projects in Northern Mesopotamia which is referred to as “Assyria”. Genesis 10:11 states that Nimrod went into the territory of Asshur or Assyria. The words Asshur and Assyria are the same in Hebrew. Asshur the Younger had a brother named Arpachshad. Among Arpachshad’s descendants are Eber, Peleg, Joktan, Nahor, Terah, and Abraham (Gen. 11:10-33).
Later Nimrod began building projects in Northern Mesopotamia which is referred to as “Assyria”. Genesis 10:11 states that Nimrod went into the territory of Asshur or Assyria. The words Asshur and Assyria are the same in Hebrew. Asshur the Younger had a brother named Arpachshad. Among Arpachshad’s descendants are Eber, Peleg, Joktan, Nahor, Terah, and Abraham (Gen. 11:10-33).
This diagram shows another example of the cousin bride's naming prerogative. Lamech the Elder's daughter Naamah named her firstborn son Lamech after her father. She married her patrilineal cousin Methuselah.
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2 comments:
Would you like to weigh in on the question about how to interpret Genesis 10:11, where it describes the founders of certain cities in Paddan-Aram, Assyria? It might be Nimrod ... Then again, it might be Asshur. There seems to an ambiguity in the Hebrew text of Genesis 10:11, where two different translations can be found. One translation (KJV, NLT footnotes, some older commentaries) interprets Asshur as a person, not a place: Asshur (a son of Shem, the person) left the land of Shinar (Babylonia) and built the Assyrian cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen. (This view accords with a certain tradition that Nimrod was some kind of interloper (a "mighty hunter", right?) in Shinar, who, once he got there, was intent on displacing Shemites who had earlier settled down there, and Asshur sought refuge and distanced himself and his clan from there.)
The other interpretation (reflected in the majority of modern English translations, as well as Septuagint, Targums, Vulgate) leans into saying the word Asshur in Genesis 10:11 designates a place, and that Nimrod (a son of Cush) went forth from his original kingdom in Shinar into the land of Asshur (Assyria, the region) and built these cities as an expansion of his empire. There is a contention out there that the Dead Sea Scrolls and archaeology might help settle the ambiguity, but from what I can tell there has not been any definitive finding. An AI search revealed to me that supposedly, from this one source, fragments of Genesis were found among the scrolls (like 4QGen-1) which are "largely consistent with" the standard Masoretic text, which lends itself to either translation. Archaeological evidence, specifically cuneiform inscriptions, indicates that the southern part of Mesopotamia (Shinar) was the primary center for the Accadians (often associated with the Nimrod narrative). The ruins of some of the cities mentioned (Calah/("Nimrud" (?), Nineveh) show a very ancient origin and connection to both regions, fitting the interpretation that Nimrod's influence expanded northward into Assyria, a Shemitic territory.
An excellent question! The biblical text indicates that Nimrod was first in Shinar (Southern Mesopotamia) and then in Northern Mesopotamia under the rule of his father-in-law Asshur. See this:
https://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2023/12/nimrods-sumerian-wife.html
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