Myth #46:

Nimrod conquered Babylon.

The Myth: And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. (Gen. 10:8–10)

The Reality: This story preserves an ancient legend about Pharaoh Sesostris, who ruled during Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty.

This brief story about Nimrod is puzzling because it presents a completely distorted history of the Near East in the second millennium B.C. (see the discussion in Myth #45 about the Table of Nations). As set forth, it says that Nimrod was a son of Cush and that he began an empire in the cities of Babylon. Cush represents the nation of Ethiopia, Egypt’s southern neighbor and the Bible makes him a son of Ham, who represents Egypt in the Table of Nations. The implication of the story, then, is that a descendant of Egypt, associated with Ethiopia, conquered the cities of Babylon in the second millennium B.C. Historical evidence completely discredits this claim.

A better explanation recognizes that the Table of Nations derives from a variety of legends about national origins. In fact, the Greek historian Herodotus, often called the “Father of History,” records a particular legend about an Egyptian pharaoh named Sesostris, who came to the throne about 1897 B.C. during Egypt’s twelfth dynasty. His account seems to be based on the same legend that inspired the Nimrod story. An identification of Nimrod with Sesostris also is chronologically consistent with the Table of Nations, which places Nimrod in about the same time frame as Egypt’s twelfth dynasty. According to Herodotus, Sesostris was the only Egyptian king to conquer Ethiopia. He subsequently launched a military campaign into Mesopotamia and across Asia, conquering every nation in his path until he reached Europe.

Herodotus says he learned of Sesostris from discussions with Egyptian scholars, and it is evident that legends of this king were part of Egyptian folklore. The story clearly identifies an Egyptian king, coming from Ethiopia, marching through and conquering Mesopotamia, moving first through the Babylonian region and then turning towards Assyria, finally stopping somewhere in Europe. We also should add that during the twelfth dynasty, Ethiopia came under Egyptian rule.

The elements of the Sesostris legend correspond precisely with the Nimrod story. In both accounts, a son of Egypt who controlled Ethiopia marched into Mesopotamia and conquered Babylon and Assyria.

The only significant difference between the two stories is the name of the hero. Herodotus and others identify him as Sesostris whereas the Bible calls him Nimrod. However, Sesostris was not the pharaoh’s true name. It was a Greek corruption of the name Senusret or Senwosret.The name Nimrod appears to be phonetically similar to the last part of Senusret’s name, and the Hebrew rendition may be a slight corruption of the Egyptian, much as Sesostris was a Greek corruption.