It was quite a good study at our group and I read
Hey Stilla, I wish I was in your book study group Now I feel like going back....
Book Study Wk 11-9/5: pg 76-81 INTO THE FIERY FURNACE!
by ithinkisee 21 Replies latest watchtower bible
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JH
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Leolaia
Some believe that Marduk, who was regarded as founder of the Babylonian Empire, represents the deified Nimrod. However, this cannot be stated with certainty.
This claim however was stated with certainty in earlier publications:
*** w64 6/1 p. 346 Strongholds of False Religion Established Worldwide from Babylon ***
Having refused to recognize Jehovah as the true God, the Babylonians would be inclined to worship Nimrod. When he died, they would deify him, making him a god, the guardian god of the city of Babylon.—Gen. 10:9.
More than 1500 years later, when Babylon reached its greatest glory in the days of King Nebuchadnezzar II, who is mentioned in the Holy Bible, the chief god of the imperial city was Marduk....
Alexander Hislop, author of The Two Babylons, although deriving the name Nimrod from Nimr, a "leopard," and rada or rad, "to subdue," does identify Nimrod as the god Merodach. "There is no doubt," says he, "that Nimrod was a rebel, and that his rebellion was celebrated in ancient myths; but his name in that character was not Nimrod, but Merodach, or, as among the Romans, Mars, ‘the rebel;’ or among the Oscans of Italy, Mamers . . . , ‘The causer of rebellion.’"—Page 44, footnote, of The Two Babylons.
*** w64 6/15 p. 373 Babylon Lays Religious Foundations for World Deception ***
Nimrod had the spirit of that great first rebel against Jehovah God, the spirit of the Devil. He was in reality a worshiper and imitator of the Devil, who started rebellion in heaven and then spread rebellion in the earth, even in the garden of Eden. That is why the Babylonians used the name Merodach (Marduk), meaning "rebel," rather than Nimrod as the founder of their city. Nimrod can thus be identified as one of the seed of the Devil that God spoke of at Genesis 3:15. He was a false seed, a false Messiah. After Nimrod’s death he was deified by the Babylonians.
*** w65 6/15 p. 376 God’s Symbolic Woman Wins Her Legal Case ***
[T]he strongest count against her was that she gave credit for her victory to the false god Marduk, a no-god, a mere idol representing her original founder or father Nimrod, who was a servant of the Devil as god.
*** w66 9/1 p. 531 Jesus, the "Object of Hostility," Upholds Jehovah’s Godship ***
Marduk’s ancient background stems back to Nimrod. "Nimrod . . . the most admissible correspondence is with Marduk, chief god of Babylon, probably its historic founder, just as Asshur, the god of Assyria, appears . . . as the founder of the Assyr[ian] empire."
While the name "Nimrod" is uncertain and could represent a distortion of Marduk or derivation from Hebrew mrd "rebel", the name "Marduk" is clearly not a distortion of the name "Nimrod" which is unknown as a name of a king anywhere in Sumer-Akkad (tho Tukulti-Ninurta of Assyria has been suggested, tho clearly not the same name). The name derives from the Sumerian d AMAR.UTUG "bull-calf of Utu (the sun god)" and refers to a heavenly god that unlike such gods as Dumuzi was not believed to have been a "king", and who was associated with the city of Babylon rather late in the god's cultic history. No scholars today would contend that "Marduk" is a deification of the biblical Nimrod.
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carla
Is it my imagination or when a wt says something to the effect of 'some have said, or some have believed' , one can usually assume that the 'some' was actually the wt at some point in history? carla
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peacefulpete
Leolaia what do you make of the suggestion that 2 King 19:37 (and Is.37:38) reveals a connection between Nimrod and Ninurta? There the text has Nebby worshipping a god 'Nisroch' which is likely a simple graphical corruption of Nimrod which seems to have been a Hebrew form of Ninurta. (unattested but speculated intermediates nwrt>nmrt>nmrd).
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Leolaia
PP....I think "Nisroch" as a scribal corruption of "Nimrod" is quite plausible. In the MT, they both have the same vowel pointings tho the LXX has quite different vocalizations (Nasarakh vs. Nebród). The consonantal form of the two names is quite similar considering the affinity at least in the Aramaic letters between the shape of the samekh and the mem, and especially between the daleth and the final kaph: 1QIs, so if there was a corruption it would have to have been early (e.g. not during the post-Qumran and pre-Masoretic period). The final kaph however is also reminiscent of resh-daleth similarity would support this too, yet this suggestion is complicated by the initial nun and the location of the samekh (if this is supposed to correspond to the initial mem of "Marduk"). In Paleo-Hebrew, however, mem and nun were somewhat similar (e.g.
vs.), as were daleth and resh ( vs.), but the origin of the samekh would be unaccounted for. On the other hand, there may be a connection between Nisroch and Nisr, the mountain where Utnapishtim's ark rested in the Assyrian Gilgamesh tale (cf. "Ararat" in Isaiah 37:38, where the sons fled to after murdering their father in the Nisroch temple). There is also the (remote) possibility of derivation from nsr "eagle" to denote some otherwise unknown aquiline deity. One problem with the Nimrod explanation would be why the name is so corrupted in this text and not elsewhere in the OT. One final speculation would be based on the fact that Nisroch is named as Sennacherib's patron deity. In Sennacherib's own inscriptions (such as the hexagonal prism), he credits Assur for his kingship and power and repeatedly refers to as "my lord". "Assur" in Hebrew is waw and resh and the resh and the kaph, but the initial aleph would not be easily explained nor the samekh in Nisroch when a shin would be expected with "Assur". So perhaps on balance the "Nimrod" explanation would be least difficult. As for considering "Nimrod" as a corruption of "Ninurta", I'm not clear whether you mean these changes are phonological or orthographic (w < m would not be totally implausible for a phonological change, but the "w" would be a mater lectionis and I doubt these vowels would give rise to bilabial consonants). Assuming you mean an orthographic corruption, the similarity between mem and waw is closer in Paleo-Hebrew than in Aramaic characters, but it is not particularly close (mem and kaph are closer). Are there philological analyses that have been published along these lines? -
DocBob
Years ago I was visiting a neighboring congregation when the WT study was about Shadrach, Meschak and Abednego. A friend of mine (who is quite a character) made the comment that even though the three Hebrews had been badly treated by Nebuchadnezzar, they still showed proper respect to him as king. He said we know that because when Nebuchadnezzar told them to come out of the furnace, they did not reply - "Why don't you come in and get us."
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peacefulpete
A suggestion in Dof D&D (as I read it) is that Nimrod is phonologically cognate to Ninurta, hence the appearance of the name in the OT. However the 2 Kings 'Nisroch' is explained as a very early orthographic corruption. When 'Nimrod' (divine hunter in favour with the chief god) was recast negatively by post exilic scribes (after Deuteronomist revisioning) and melded with some unidentified human king, the 2 Kings pasage was left unaltered because the name corruption had already occurred.
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hamsterbait
Nebuchadnezzar must have been in an asbestos suit. It says he looked into the furnace, yet he wasn't burned like the men who threw the three in.
I remember James Joyce "Ulysses":
'Nebuchadnezzar the King of the Jews
Wiped his **** on the daily news."
HB (of the "this sounds like a bit of a chestnut to me" class)
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Leolaia
Did the DDD however posit the derivation of "Nimrod" as nwrt < nmrt/d? My problem is the apparent mater lectionis in the former and the consonantal /m/ in the latter. It would seem that a far better approach would be to derive nnrt < nmrd, as a sort of dissimilation between nasal consonants. I have also seen claims online that NIM.URTA was a "dialectal" or variant form of the Sumerian name, but I have seen no reputable evidence of this.
I still believe that the Nimrod figure in the fragment in Genesis 11 (obviously a portion of a much larger cycle of legends) represents a conflation of several historical and mythological figures, most especially Sargon of Agade who best fits the career described in the passage (see the recent paper by Yigal Levin in VT, 2002, tho I have been of this opinion for over twenty years). Levin also gives an interesting account of how the mysterious rsn "Resin" (and the LXX form Dase) in Genesis 11 is derived from dr-srgn "Dur-Sharrukin", through an intermediate form d/r-sn (in which the initial "d" and "r" and the final "g" and "n" were assimilated to each other through haplography), tho this might be a stretch.
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zagor
Yeah, I always wondered what happended to Daniel. If EVERYBODY had to be there where was he?
vs.
), as were daleth and resh (
vs.
), but the origin of the samekh would be unaccounted for. On the other hand, there may be a connection between Nisroch and Nisr, the mountain where Utnapishtim's ark rested in the Assyrian Gilgamesh tale (cf. "Ararat" in Isaiah 37:38, where the sons fled to after murdering their father in the Nisroch temple). There is also the (remote) possibility of derivation from nsr "eagle" to denote some otherwise unknown aquiline deity. One problem with the Nimrod explanation would be why the name is so corrupted in this text and not elsewhere in the OT. One final speculation would be based on the fact that Nisroch is named as Sennacherib's patron deity. In Sennacherib's own inscriptions (such as the hexagonal prism), he credits Assur for his kingship and power and repeatedly refers to as "my lord". "Assur" in Hebrew is waw and resh and the resh and the kaph, but the initial aleph would not be easily explained nor the samekh in Nisroch when a shin would be expected with "Assur". So perhaps on balance the "Nimrod" explanation would be least difficult. As for considering "Nimrod" as a corruption of "Ninurta", I'm not clear whether you mean these changes are phonological or orthographic (w < m would not be totally implausible for a phonological change, but the "w" would be a mater lectionis and I doubt these vowels would give rise to bilabial consonants). Assuming you mean an orthographic corruption, the similarity between mem and waw is closer in Paleo-Hebrew than in Aramaic characters, but it is not particularly close (mem and kaph are closer). Are there philological analyses that have been published along these lines?