Adventtikirkon syntyhistoria

Ulkopuolinen voi tarkastella asioita objektiivisesti. Siksi luotan enemmän "Saarnavaariin".

The evil Nimrod vs. the righteous Abraham

The Bible does not mention any meeting between Nimrod and Abraham. In fact, there is a gap of seven generations between them, Nimrod being Noah's great grandson while Abraham was ten generations removed from Noah (Genesis 10,11). Nevertheless, later Jewish tradition brings the two of them together in a cataclysmic collision, a potent symbol of the cosmic confrontation between Good and Evil and specifically of Monotheism against Paganism and Idolatry.

This tradition is first attested in the writings of Pseudo-Philo (van der Toorn and van der Horst 1990, p. 19), continues in the Talmud, goes through later rabbinical writings in the Middle Ages (see [1] and is still being added to by contemporary rabbis. Searching through the Hebrew version of Google for "Nimrod" "Abraham" (Hebrew: נמרוד אברהם אבינו) would reveal dozens of religious treatises and tracts by Israeli rabbis, elaborating on the Abraham- Nimrod confrontation and citing it in numerous contexts.

The same confrontation is also found extensively in the Islamic tradition, portraying the confrontation between Nimrod, the arch-rebel against Allah's authority, and the Prophet Ibrahim (Arabic version of "Abraham"), honoured in Islam as "God's Friend". If anything, the Islamic tradition takes an even dimmer view of Nimrod than the Jewish one. While some Jewish sources have him repenting in the end of the tale, the Muslim ones usually depict him as obdurate to the bitter end, however many times his plots were defeated.

In some versions - as in Josephus - Nimrod is a man who sets his will against that of God. In others, he proclaims himself a god and is worshipped as such by his subjects, sometimes with his consort Semiramis worshipped as a goddess at his side. (see also Ninus)

A portent in the stars tells Nimrod and his astrologers of the impending birth of Abraham, who would put an end to idolatry. Nimrod therefore orders the killing of all newborn babies. However, Abraham's mother escapes into the fields and gives birth secretly (in some accounts, the baby Abraham is placed in a manger).

Abraham grows up and already at a young age he recognizes God and starts worshipping Him. He confronts Nimrod and tells him to his face to cease his idolatry, whereupon Nimrod orders him burned at the stake. In some versions, Nimrod has his subjects gather wood for four whole years, so as to burn Abraham in the biggest bonfire the world had seen (a story possibly inspired or confused with Nimrod's building of the Tower). Yet when the fire is lighted, Abraham walks out unscathed.

In some versions, Nimrod then challenges Abraham to battle. When Nimrod appears at the head of enormous armies, Abraham produces an army of gnats which destroys Nimrod's army. Some accounts have a gnat or mosquito enter Nimrod's brain and drive him out of his mind (a divine retribution which Jewish tradition also assigned to the Roman Emperor Titus, destroyer of the Temple in Jerusalem).

In some versions, Nimrod repents and accepts God, offering numerous sacrifices that God rejects (as with Cain). Other versions have Nimrod give to Abraham, as a reconciliatory gift, the slave Eliezer, whom some accounts describe as Nimrod's own son. (The Bible tells a lot about Eliezer, though not making any connection between him and Nimrod. He was Abraham's majordomo, entrusted with the most sensitive missions such as fetching a bride for Abraham's son, and entered Jewish tradition as the archetype of a loyal servant.)

Still, other versions have Nimrod persisting in his rebellion against God, or resuming it. Indeed, Abraham's crucial act of leaving Mesopotamia and settling in Canaan, which effectively sets the stage for the rest of the Bible, is sometimes interpreted as an escape from Nimrod's revenge. Some accounts place the building of the Tower many generations before Abraham's birth (as in the Bible, also Jubilees). In others, it is a later rebellion after Nimrod failed in his confrontation with Abraham, and in still other versions, Nimrod does not give up after the Tower fails, but goes on to try storming Heaven in person, in a chariot driven by birds.

The story attributes to Abraham elements from the story of Moses's birth (the cruel king killing innocent babies, with the midwives ordered to kill them) and from the careers of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who emerged unscathed from the fire. Nimrod is thus made to conflate the role and attributes of two archetypal cruel and persecuting kings - Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh. Some Jewish traditions also identified him with Cyrus whose birth according to Herodotus was accompanied by portents which made his grandfather try to kill him.

Whether or not conceived as having ultimately repented, Nimrod remained in Jewish and Islamic tradition an emblematic evil person, an archetype of an idolater and a tyrannical king. In rabbinical writings up to the present, he is almost invariably referred to as "Nimrod the Evil"(Hebrew: נמרוד הרשע), and to Muslims he is "Nimrod al-Jabbar" (The Tyrant or Thug).

The story of Abraham's confrontation with Nimrod did not remain within the confines of learned writings and religious treatises, but also conspicuously influenced popular culture. A notable example is "Quando el Rey Nimrod" ("When King Nimrod"), one of the most well-known of the folksongs in Ladino, (Judeo-Spanish), apparently written during the reign of King Alfonso X of Castile.

Beginning with the words: "When King Nimrod went out to the fields/ Looked at the heavens and at the stars/He saw a holy light in the Jewish quarter/A sign that Abraham, our father, was about to be born", the song gives a poetical account of the persecutions perpetrated by the cruel Nimrod and the miraculous birth and deeds of the saviour Abraham. (Full original text and an English translation appear in the Ladino page; see