Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/206

 Nimrod with the Alorus of Berosus, the first king of Babylonia before the Flood.

One of the most curious theories about Nimrod, suggested in modern times, was grounded on the "Book of Nabatean Agriculture." This work is a comparatively modern forgery, pretending to be a literary production of the early Chaldean period. What grounds there may be for any of its statements I do not know; but it is possible that some of the book may be compiled from traditions now lost. In this work, Nimrod heads a list of Babylonian kings called Canaanite, and a writer, whose name is unknown to me, argued with considerable. force in favour of these Canaanites being the Arabs of Berosus, who reigned about B.C. 1550 to 1300. Part of Arabia was certainly Cushite, and, as Nimrod is called a Cushite in Genesis, there was a great temptation to identify him with the leader of the Arab dynasty. This idea, however, gained little favour, and has not, I think, been held by any section of inquirers as fixing the position of Nimrod. The discovery of the cuneiform inscriptions threw a new light on the subject of Babylonian history, and soon after the decipherment of the inscriptions attention was directed to the question of the identity and age of Nimrod. Sir Henry Rawlinson, the father of Assyrian discovery, first seriously attempted to fix the name of Nimrod in the cuneiform inscriptions, and he endeavoured to find the name in that of the second god of the great Chaldean triad. (See