Abstract
The biblical account of Nimrod (Gen. 10:8–12) describes him as a post-Deluge, pre-Israelite hero who gained prominence as “a mighty hunter before the Lord” (Gen. 10:9; NIV) and also as the first to establish kingdoms in Bablylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh in Shinar (Gen. 10:10). This biblical narrative further Notes that it was Nimrod who went into Assyria and built the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, and Resen (Gen. 11–12). The eighth-century prophet Micah further supports this account (Micah 5:5–6). According to the biblical chronology, Nimrod was the great-grandson of Noah, the grandson of Ham, and the sixth son of Cush. Identified as a Cushite Black, Nimrod destroys the historical myth that attempted “to explain the origin and natural subordination of black cultures and peoples and the negativity of blackness.”1
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Notes
Robert E. Hood, Begrimed and Black: Christian Traditions on Blacks and Blackness (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994), 155.
Walter Earl Fluker uses the phrase, “the failure of ethical leadership,” to describe “the failure of public leaders to resolve America’s long history of shame and to address what constitutes the human need for love, hope, and a sense of community.” Walter Earl Fluker, “The Failure of Ethical Leadership and the Challenge of Hope,” in The Stones That the Builders Rejected: The Development of Ethical Leadership from the Black Church Tradition, ed. Walter Earl Fluker (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998), 1.
Bruce C. Birch, Let Justice Roll Down: The Old Testament, Ethics, and Christian Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991), 37.
Claus Westermann, Genesis I–II: A Commentary, trans. John J. Scullion (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1984), 516.
Henry Halley, Halley’s Bible Handbook (Grand Rapids, MI: Zonderman Publishing House, 1965), 82.
Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992), 67, 77.
Rev. Walter Arthur McGray, The Black Presence in the Bible and the Table of Nations (Genesis 10:1–32), Vol. 2 (Chicago: Black Light Fellowship, 1990), 88.
St. Augustine, City of God, trans. Gerald G. Walsh, Demetrius B. Zema, Grace Monahan, and Daniel J. Honan (New York: Doubleday, 1958), 370.
Donald E. Gowan, From Eden to Babel: A Commentary on the Book of Genesis 1–11 (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988), 117–118.
See Dudley F. Cates, The Rise and Fall of King Nimrod (Raleigh, NC: Pentland Press Inc., 1998), 55. Also, Lambert Dolphin, “The Tower of Babel and the Confusion of Languages,” April 16, 2000; available from http://www.Idolphin.org/babel.html; accessed May 13, 2004. In addition, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 4, ed. David Noel (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1117, and
Walter Brueggemann, Genesis: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta, GA: Westminster John Knox Press, 1982), 92.
Ted Peters, Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), 92–93.
Abraham J. Heschel, Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism (New York: Free Press, 1959), 84.
Claus Westermann, Handbook to the Old Testament, trans. Robert H. Boyd (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1967), 28.
Walter Brueggemann, Genesis: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1982), 99.
Douglas Bax, “The Bible and Apartheid 2,” in Apartheid Is a Heresy, ed. John W. DeGruchy and Charles Villa-Vicencio (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983), 121.
Howard Thurman, “Judgment and Hope in the Christian Message,” in The Christian Way in Race Relations, ed. William Stuart Nelson (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1948), 234.
Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man: Volume 1, Human Nature (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964), 188.
Manning Marable, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society, updated edition. South End Press Classics Series, Vol. 4 (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000), 7.
Robert T. Handy, A History of the Churches in the United States and Canada (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 19.
John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans, 3rd edition (New York: Vintage Books, 1969), 102.
Robert Davidson, Genesis 1–11 (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 107.
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© 2008 Anthony B. Pinn and Allen Dwight Callahan
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Kirby, J. (2008). Nimrod: Paradigm of Future Oppressive Systems. In: Pinn, A.B., Callahan, A.D. (eds) African American Religious Life and the Story of Nimrod. Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230610507_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230610507_13
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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