Nimrod

Nimrod is a biblical figure mentioned in the Book of Genesis and the Books of Chronicles. The son of Cush and therefore the great-grandson of Noah, Nimrod was described as a king in the land of Shinar (Lower Mesopotamia). The Bible states that he was "a mighty hunter before the Lord [and] ... began to be mighty in the earth". Biblical and non-biblical traditions identify Nimrod as the ruler who had commissioned the construction of the Tower of Babel, and that identification led to his reputation as a king who had been rebellious against God.

There is no direct evidence that Nimrod was an actual historical person in any of the non-biblical historic records, registers, or king lists (including any of the Mesopotamian ones, which are considered older than the biblical record). Historians have failed to match Nimrod with any real historically attested figure, or to find any historical, linguistic or genetic link between the Sumerian and Semitic Mesopotamians and the distant and later emerging kingdom of Cush in modern Sudan. In 2002 one scholar suggested that the biblical Nimrod was inspired by one of the exclusively Mesopotamian historical figures, Naram-Sin of Akkad, grandson of Sargon, and attempts have been made by other scholars to attribute the inspiration behind Nimrod to one or more Assyrian, Akkadian or Babylonian kings, or the Assyro-Babylonian god Ninurta.

In more recent times (during the Islamic era), several sites of ruins in the Middle East have been named after Nimrod.