Very well done! I enjoyed it.

The past is like smoke slowly dissipating, knowing only that something was on fire.

6:07 Also, the Antediluvian Dynasty of Eridu does not appear in the earliest copy of the SKL dating to King Shulgi of Ur Dynasty III. In that version, Kish dominated the Early Dynastic Period of Sumer as one long dynasty followed by three smaller ones. Eridu appears and Kish is split into four dynasties among several others in the more familiar edition produced during the succeeding Amorite Dynasty of Isin owing to the "cyclical" conception of kingship which replaced the dominant "linear" ideology after the fall of Ur III. It also erased a Dynasty of Adab with had four kings after the Gutian rule and reclassified its last king, Tirigan, as belonging to the latter. Piotr Steinkeller described the Ur III manuscript in a 2003 article, really fascinating stuff.

Hey Inquisitive, I just started binge watching your older material, can't wait to get into more of your work, thanks for educating!

I am getting ready to watch a hour long video on Nimrod. I figured I would look at this one first.

great visuals!

Thanks for the video. VERY INFORMATIVE.

Inquisitive Bible, I have subscribed to this nice channel and thank you.

Amazing work 👏🏻👏🏻 thank you so much 👍🏻

Soooo gooooood

Another nice video! Will there be a follow-up to why Nimrod would later be seen as a villain? Does he have a potential connection to Gilgamesh, since both were city-founding hunter-hero-king?

Thank you.

Nimrod ,son of Cush,son of Ham became the first selfmAde king. He grabbed power over Babylonians and Assyrians who was ruthless to his subjects.

Genesis 10 claims that Nimrod founded Nineveh "after" he was king of Babylon, Uruk, and Akkad. Still, it is hard to place Nimrod as the founder of these civilizations since their origins significantly differ not only in time but also regarding to culture, politics and sometimes in religion.
-Uruk was already a large city (25,000–50,000 people) by c. 4000 BC.
-Nineveh was already a large city c. 2900 BC. Its origins can be traced to c. 6000 BC, in the Late Neolithic period.  Nineveh is also claimed to have been built by Asshur.
-The Akkadian Empire started c. 2334 BC with Sargon of Akkad.
-Babylon turned into a major city with Hammurabi c. 1780 BC. It was a small village since c. XIX century BC.

Nimrod was from the line of Cush/Kush.  Flavius Josephus mentions that Cush/Kush descendants were in Asia.

Great vid!

Ive heard of a motif in the city of Nimrud that shows Nimrod versus Sargon pitted against each other and dissing each other as contemporary warlords

error at (06:20).  According to me and GPT : The Sumerian King List provides a clear sequence of cities that held kingship after it "descended from heaven." According to the most widely accepted versions of the list, Eridu was the first city to receive kingship, marking it as the oldest of the Sumerian cities where kingship first began. This is noted in several sources, including the oldest copies of the Sumerian King List, where Eridu is consistently mentioned as the initial seat of kingship.

However, after Eridu, the kingship was said to have moved to Kish following the deluge (the great flood).

Critique of Anachronisms Introduced in the Qur’anic Tafsirs via the Isrā’īliyyāt (Exogenous Sources)

1. The Impact of the Isrā’īliyyāt and the Anachronism of Nimrod
Several historical traditions reported in hadiths and Islamic exegeses (Tafsīr) are thematically inspired by the Isrā’īliyyāt (narratives of Jewish or Judeo-Christian origin), such as the curse of Canaan. These borrowings led to the integration of anachronistic figures and events, including the encounter between Nimrod and Abram. The association of Nimrod (purported founder of primitive cities such as Uruk, Akkad, Chalmeh, Nineveh…) and Abram (traditionally dated to the Ur III period or immediately after by his Babylonian successors) is a construction of midrashic origin.

From a historical perspective, these two figures are separated by centuries. The character of Nimrod, briefly mentioned in the Torah (Genesis 10:8–12) and never depicted as divine, does not experience the dramatic fate attributed to him in exegetical traditions. His role as Abram’s opponent and as an adversary of his God is largely attributable to a distortion of the root of his name, Ni-mrod, initiated by the Nun (representing his Nubian origin). The Hebrew verb mārad (מרד), without this Nun, degenerates into “we will rebel.” Biblically, the existence and death of Nimrod are absent; yet some interpretations (Talmud, Tafsīr) maintain him alive until Abraham’s death and describe his end in a ludicrous manner, including a story of a fly entering his brain through his nose.

This style of punishment through the nose of a Negroid-type tyrant may stem from a desire for commemorative damnation similar to that observed in ancient Kemite statues. In the Tafsirs concerning Nimrod, it reflects a precise midrashic motif. Folklorically, it is attributed to the Roman general Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus (Titus), who was punished similarly for desecrating and destroying Herod’s Temple in 70 CE. This narrative superposition suggests that the humiliating death and rebellious reputation attributed to Nimrod are late Tafsir constructions, intended to create an archetype of the impious opponent from minimal scriptural sources and thematic motifs borrowed from later historical events.

A linguistic question also arises. If Hebrew Abram lived during the time of Ki-en-gi (civilizer) sag-gig-ga (“black-headed”), called Nimrod, their conversation would have required an interpreter, as was the case between Pharaoh, Joseph, and Jacob, implying that the Pharaoh of Joseph’s time was not fluent in the foreign Hyk (Martu/Amorite) language. Primitive Hebrew did not yet exist; the probable languages of Abram’s era in the Ur region were Akkadian (diplomatic and administrative language), Sumerian (a declining liturgical language), or Amorite (Amurru), the Western Semitic idiom of nomadic tribes (Semitic and Canaanite). The Qur’an (2:258) refers to a dialogue between Ibrahim and an unnamed figure (not relevant), whom Allah made king in his time, without an apparent third-party interpreter.

2. Denunciation of Genealogical Falsifications
An erroneous interpretation from some Tafsīrs presents Nimrod as the son of Cush, the black, and the grandson of Canaan, the cursed. This reading is fallacious because it directly contradicts the Torah’s genealogy (Genesis): Nimrod is the son of Cush, grandson of Ham, while Canaan is Cush’s brother, both sons of Ham. This confusion is tendentious, conflating the curse of Canaan (servitude) with an alleged curse on Ham/Cush (skin color). Historically, this conflation was exploited to morally justify slavery based on pigmentation (the “curse of Ham” theory), which is neither historically nor textually grounded.

The Amorite Usurpation and Royal Divinization
What do we know of Ur III, the Amorites (Martu), and their tendency toward self-deification? Nimrod (Genesis 10:8–12) would have lived before the Ur III dynasty, the imperial dynasty linked to Ur-Nammu (founder) and his son Shulgi. These rulers, often associated with Amorite (Martu) populations, were among the first Sumerian-Akkadian kings to claim divine status during their lifetimes—a major religious innovation in Mesopotamia. This context appears to be reflected in the Qur’an regarding the people of Ibrahim and in Joseph’s contemporaries: a people who denied the afterlife, while Greek sources of the late period testify that the Kem invested more in their tombs than in their houses. On this point, the testimony is correct, but the Greek interpretation of Kemite religious beliefs is disputable.

Who is the True Antagonist?
The association of Nimrod with the archetype of the impious sovereign opposed to Abram is therefore a chronological displacement. The historical antagonist, who deified himself and whose reign prompted Abram to leave Ur, could correspond more plausibly to the actual rulers of the Ur III period and their immediate successors. The Qur’an and biblical prophets do not support a temporal superposition of Nimrod and Abram.

3. The Promise and Territorial Legitimation
According to this analysis, the establishment of Abram’s descendants in Canaan can be understood as retribution against the aggression and usurpation of the Amorites/Canaanites (classified as Western Semitic groups). These groups, after conquering the territory of the Sumerians, lost their claim to their original homeland, Canaan, in favor of Abram’s descendants. This context of justified dispossession is essential to understanding the promise made to Abraham.

4. From the Nile to the Deified Pharaoh: The Hyksos Thread (Aamu)
The Amorites, called Martu in Mesopotamia, are closely related to the Hyksos (Heqa Khasut), called Aamu by the Egyptians. They reproduced the usurpation pattern in Egypt, appropriating the identity and territory of the Two Lands and promoting the worship of a Levantine idol called Ba‘al (בעל / “Owner”).

The only sovereign claiming divinity in the Qur’an is the Pharaoh of Moses’ time (28:38: “I know no deity for you but me”), coming from a lineage of self-proclaimed owners of the Two Lands. The analogy is strong; like the Ur III kings, the Pharaoh of the Exodus embodies the impious usurper who claims divinity and territorial ownership, fearing expulsion. It is plausible that this tyrant descended from lineages heavily influenced or related to these Levantine/Amorite populations (Martu/Aamu), in a context of struggle for political and religious legitimacy. The curse on Canaan (servitude/dispossession) thus manifests in the execution of the Amorites’ transgression, exemplifying the archetype of the usurping political and cultural power. Why does this cursed Pharaoh demand Moses to bless him, while Noah cursed Canaan and God and Jacob designated the Amorites as obstacles? It implicitly acknowledges the usurpation of political and cultural identity, which both biblical and Qur’anic readers often fail to contextualize within the tensions of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.

Conclusion: Sources and Historical Clarity
As long as understanding of the past depends on these exegetical constructions inherited from the Isrā’īliyyāt and later Talmudic and patristic developments, it remains historically obscured. The study of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in Alexandria) is crucial, as it is often cited as a vector that may have introduced or amplified linguistic and historical distortions of the original meaning of ancient texts.

In ancient Egypt, Astarte was primarily worshiped by foreign communities and traders from the Levant, particularly the Canaanites and Phoenicians who settled in or traded with Egypt. She was associated with war, fertility, and sexuality, and her cult became especially influential during periods of strong Levantine presence in Egypt, such as the Second Intermediate Period with the Hyksos (Aamu) rulers.

Some Egyptians also adopted aspects of her worship, particularly in regions with intense cultural exchange, like the eastern Delta and major trading centers, but she was not originally an indigenous Egyptian deity. عَبْدًۭا مِّنْ عِبَادِنَآ ءَاتَيْنَـٰهُ رَحْمَةًۭ مِّنْ عِندِنَا وَعَلَّمْنَـٰهُ مِن لَّدُنَّا عِلْمًۭا : This servant of Allah is a devotee of Amun (also called Amin, Amon, or Amen).

Pertaining to biblical parallels and Sharukin Sargon of Akkàd.
There is an interesting tale of Sargon of Akkàd as a baby being found floating on a river in a reed basket 🧺 just like Moses. You might want to look it up. I read it in an Oxford University archeology book centered around ancient mesopotamia