Fig.1b. Chart of the first Sumerian god-kings.

The "fact" behind at least two of the kings is the Biblical king of Uruk, Nimrod, whose person so closely fits the character of both Gilgamesh and Dumuzi, both very famous hero-kings of Mesopotamia and both being sons of Lugalbanda. This would mean that Lugalbanda corresponds with Nimrod’s father Cush. The Sumerian word "lugal" simply means king, and he may not have actually ruled at Uruk. We have no information about his rulership in the Sumerian texts, only that he was listed as the father of Dumuzi and Gilgamesh and associated with the god, Enlil (Lord of the air). He was quite likely given this imaginary kingship and deified position later, surrounded by lore, because he had been the father of Nimrod the great. This method of deifying human ancestors in order to trace a line of kings back into the realm of the gods and their heavens is found at the root of most pagan empires. But the Sumerians did it first. The Egyptians, as we shall see, were quick to copy the Sumerians in almost every detail in this model of divine kingship, tracing their pontiffs all the way back through the first five deified pharaohs.

This is the origin and foundation stone of a cultural and religious element which was to be copied again and again as it spread to the whole world, the concept of the primal "holy family," and it started with the lineage of Nimrod. I state this very confidently, reader. You may not have read this elsewhere or seen the chart of these god-kings cross-matched as a family tree quite this simply. Neither had I, but I put it together because it is the key that fits; not perfectly, but the door certainly opens. The lock may be very worn and loose from use by several keys that are not identical but very alike (similar persons in various identities) but this you will soon recognize to be the master key. The original clues begin as very few in number and the picture murky, but then a vast and global array of pieces in the puzzle fall perfectly into place if we assume this premise to be correct. If Lugalbanda is based on Cush, then Enmekar is based on Ham, and Meskiaggaseir on Noah. The Bible tells us that "the sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth…these three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was (re)populated…Noah lived after the flood 350 years, so all the days of Noah were 950 years; and he died." (Genesis 8: 18,19,28,29)

There is one Sumerian king list from Uruk which predates the kings we are considering, before the 5 beginning with Meskiaggaseir, but this has been regarded as entirely the stuff of myth because the lives of these 8 rulers averages 30,000 years apiece, something which the Sumerians supposedly invented regarding the "gods" of another realm from whom their real kings were descended. In Scripture we are also given a genealogy from the Fall to the Flood in which the average life span of 8 men (the line is actually 9 but Enoch was "taken" early by God) was 900 years, from Adam (930) through to Noah (950). (Genesis 5) It seems very likely that the Uruk list of 8 was based on the real pre-Flood persons but greatly exaggerated in time. All they would have known about life in the previous world and about the number of Noah’s forefathers would have been told them by Noah himself and his family. In post-Flood years, in their eyes, the first man of the (re)population was Noah, who lived 350 years.

In Mesopotamian accounts (however they measured years, for not all calendars were the same) the legendary king Meskiaggaseir lived 325 years and Enmekar 420 years, but Gilgamesh and Dumuzi have a much shorter life for that time, around 100 years each (an important clue to be explained later). We know from many Biblical genealogies that the life span of a man dropped dramatically in a few generations after the Flood. But these first survivors certainly lived long enough to father a great deal of offspring. Some important family clans are named in the first shortened genealogy in Genesis 10, including Ham (Hamite) and his sons Cush (Ethiopia), Canaan, Egypt and Phut (the original name for Libya). Shem (Semite) had sons such as Asshur (Assyria) and Elam (Elamite) and an important grandson Eber (Hebrew). "These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations, in their nations, and from these the nations were divided on the earth after the flood." (Genesis 10:32)

Now look again at the Mesopotamian versions, Enmekar (Ham) and his father Meskiaggaseir (Noah). We know very little of them in their Sumerian identities except by their deified associations. Enmekar was paired with the god of wisdom and water god, Enki (Lord of the Earth, Lord of this World) and Meskiaggaseir corresponds to Anu, the prototype sky god and father of Enki. Meskiaggaseir’s attributes would certainly fit Noah, the one who had lived through the storm when the "windows of heaven" collapsed. Here then, if we follow this simple logic and model, we will find the base pattern for the first religion after the Flood, the deification of men by men, and so soon after the Lord had destroyed men for such corruption! And if you are an alert reader, you may have already realized that the meanings of the names given to Enki and Enlil are the terms used in Scripture to describe the very father of lies and religion, Satan himself. Religion is not a Scriptural word, and this is no wonder. It means "strict adherence" to something, but as we shall see, it is a substitute for faith, and the "something" to which the religious soul adheres is very toxic.

The cities of Nimrod are the most important places on earth regarding the origin of the world’s religions, especially the cities of Uruk and Babel where the very first temples to the gods were erected. At Uruk, known as "the sacred place of the Lady of Heaven," archaeologists discovered "the crumbled ruins of the oldest large cult buildings of mankind, the first evidence of a truly monumental architecture." (The Art of Ancient Mesopotamia, Moortgat, Phaidon, 1969, p.1)

According to Mesopotamian literature Gilgamesh (read Nimrod) was "the builder of Uruk." (Ancient Mesopotamia, Oppenheim, University of Chicago Press, 1964, p.260) "In Uruk he built walls, a great rampart, and the temple of the blessed Eanna (heaven) for the god of the firmament Anu, and for Ishtar, goddess of love." (The Epic of Gilgamesh, Sandars, Penguin, 1972, p.61) Anu (based on Nimrod’s great grandfather, Noah), portrayed as the father of the gods and the original sky god, later lost his supremacy to his grandson, the Lord of the Air, the fierce storm god Enlil (based on Nimrod’s father Cush), but Anu was the first to have a grand temple built in his reverence. The high temple of Anu became the world’s first stepped pyramid, built around 3,200 BC, "the first known ziggurat." (The Art of the Ancient World, Ashmole & Frankfort, Prentice Hall Abrams, 1972, p.71)

That is exactly what the first ziggurats were: places and houses of the gods, made by men’s hands, sacred mountains with steps like ladders to the divine zones, stairways to heaven. The Mesopotamian archaeologist Henri Frankfort of the Oriental Institute of Chicago noted that "the ziggurat of Enlil was, for instance, called House of the Mountain, Mountain of the Storm, Bond between Heaven and Earth," and he concluded that the Sumerians had built these structures "with an immense common effort" to facilitate "communication with the divine." (The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, Frankfort, Pelican Books, Penguin, 1955, p.6)

The most famous ziggurat of all was of course built at the original city of Babylon and called the Tower of Babel. According to the Bible the people who built it lived in some fear of being "dispersed across the face of the earth." To form a cohesive and distinct community with "a name for ourselves" they announced that they would "build us a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens." To achieve this they used "brick for stone and bitumen for mortar." (Genesis 11:1-4) Perhaps the great library at Alexandria in Egypt might have shed more detail on this event, revealed what other historians may have passed down, but that was destroyed by Rome. However, the meticulous Jewish historian Josephus, who had access to many ancient documents, recorded in his own works that "it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand." In order to persuade the multitude to build the Tower, Nimrod "changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God to bring them into a constant dependence on his power." Nimrod also claimed that in case God tried to "drown the world again" he would make the tower "too high for the waters to reach," using "burnt brick, cemented with mortar made of bitumen, so that it might not let the water in." (Antiquities, Josephus, Book 1, Chapter 4)

"The Sumerians were the first to invent and develop a usable and effective system of writing." (History Begins at Sumer, Kramer, Introduction) Sumerian texts date from 3,100 BC, Egyptian texts date slightly later, around 3,000 BC, followed long afterward by texts from the Indus valley, around 2,200 BC and China, around 1,300 BC. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropedia, Writing) "Mesopotamian literature originated with the Sumerians…it constitutes the oldest known literature in the world." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropedia, Mesopotamian Religious Literature)

The reason the Sumerians had the first writing is of course because they spoke the first language. According to the Sumerians themselves, theirs was the only language in the world at the time. "The whole universe, the people in unison, gave praise to Enlil in one tongue," wrote one Sumerian scribe; words which "would indicate that the Sumerians, like the Hebrews of later times, believed in the existence of a universal speech prior to the confusion of languages." (History Begins at Sumer, Kramer, Introduction) According to the Bible, at the time of the first Tower of Babel "the whole world had one tongue and few words." (Genesis 11:1) What we now know from archaeology is that the one original language was being used to praise Cush, the father of Nimrod, in his deified form as Enlil, the Lord of the Air. Is it any wonder that God brought judgment and confusion upon these people? "And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language…Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the earth, and they left off the building of the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth…" (Genesis 11:5-9)

Josephus also mentions an ancient Greek source who wrote: "When all men were of one language, some of them built a high tower, as if they could thereby ascend to heaven, but the gods sent storms of wind and overthrew the tower, and gave everyone his peculiar language, and for this reason the city was called Babylon." (Antiquities, Josephus, Book 1, Chapter 4) Indeed, ever since this event a person who speaks in an unknown or unintelligible tongue is said to be babbling (babel-ing). It does not necessarily take much of a change to render a language incoherent. Like a radio frequency that is just slightly out of kilter it may mean that words like "one, two, three" become "ek, dui, teen" (Bengali), with enough difference for people to no longer understand each other’s vocabulary, especially when the grammatical order, tempo, emphasis and dialect are also changed, just faintly in some cases. Any serious study of linguistics will reveal just how many researchers have proposed the possibility of an original parent language, even if they give no credit to Babel. But the source is Babel. Of course, after this great dividing event, each language would become subject to further change. No original language has survived unaltered, although it is important to note that the two most stable and least distorted in history are the ones in which the Scriptures were written, Hebrew and Greek, to the extent that some linguists have referred to them as miraculously preserved languages.

The initial confusion of language is critical in understanding the development of world religion. When the original was split into many languages so too were the names of the original Sumerian gods and goddesses. They were the very same deities with their names literally "con-fused," and when the divided peoples migrated outward from the plain of Shinar they took these names with them, plus all the traits, rites and sacred things associated with those deities. The gods of southern Mesopotamia were quickly introduced to neighbouring lands, and eventually spread to the whole globe. This is one of the most amazing aspects of the story of mankind and it is referred to in the Old and New Testament prophetic scriptures many times. "Babylon was a golden cup in the LORD’s hand, that made all the earth drunk. The nations drank of her wine; therefore the nations are deranged." (Jeremiah 51:7, NKJ version) Even today, billions are revering these gods, practicing their rituals and faithfully keeping their festivals. Read on, reader. The odds are extremely high that you are doing this yourself, very devoutly, even though you may claim to not be a religious person.

Nimrod was the son of Cush, in ancient times spelled Chus (and pronounced with an aspirate "h") or Kush, the son of Ham, the son of Noah. The Greeks later called him Chaos, the father of the gods. Josephus recorded that the descendants of Cush migrated westward from Mesopotamia to North Africa. "Of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Chus; for the Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and all men of Asia, called Chusites." (Antiquities, Josephus, Book 1, Chapter 6) Chaos, darkness and confusion are the hallmarks of this family line and this attribute is irreversibly stamped into them and their religion. "Can the Cushite change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you may also do good who are accustomed to evil." (Jeremiah 13:23. Note: your Bible probably translates Cushite as Ethiopian, but the original word is by no means out of date or use. The word Kwashi or Quashie is still used in the West Indies to describe a person of Ethiopian descent.)

Several North African languages are still called Hamitic or Cushitic, and the name of Cush appears on many archaic and modern maps. The ancient kingdom of Kush, located along a great curve of the river Nile in Sudan, south of Egypt, left behind numerous ziggurats and pyramids as evidence of its former greatness. This is also part of the lands bounding the original Garden of Eden. We do not know the exact spot of the Garden course, especially since the great Flood split and formed continents, separating Europe from Africa with the Mediterranean sea and dividing Africa from Asia with a tear in the earth from the Dead Sea all the way down through the Great African Rift Valley. But we do know the Garden was somewhere in the center, in what we now call the Middle East, and associated with four rivers flowing from it. The first was the Pishon, quite likely the river Jordan that now runs into a landlocked dead end in the great rift, but before the Flood may have flowed as a greater waterway, through the land of Havilah. We know the land of the river Pishon, Havilah, was located between Egypt and Assyria. We know the land of the river Pishon, Havilah, was located between Egypt and Assyria. (Genesis 2:11,12; 25:18) That places it somewhere between Canaan and the golden kingdom of Sheba in the southern Gulf of Arabia, all part of the same rift valley that perhaps previously contained a larger river Jordan. The Tigris (Hiddekel), Euphrates and the Nile (Gihon) are the other three rivers that flowed from Eden. Moses, writing long after the Flood, specifically identified the Tigris as the river flowing "east of Asshur" (Assyria) and the Nile as "the one that goes around the whole land of Cush." (Genesis 2:13,14)

However, there was one very notable descendant of Cush who did not migrate to the Nile area of North Africa. He remained in Babel while others dispersed in every direction, spreading both his fame and infamy. The Rebel continued to deify his forefathers in his cities from Sumeria to Assyria, and he greatly exalted himself. "But Nimrod, the son of Chus, stayed and tyrannized Babylon, as we have already informed you." (Antiquities, Josephus, Book 1, Chapter 6)

As the first ruler of a kingdom on earth, the first to organize men to build monumental ziggurats and cities, Nimrod would most certainly have been revered by the Mesopotamians. The Egyptian architect Imhotep, for instance, was made into a god by the Egyptians after constructing the first large stepped pyramid that did not collapse because of his engineering ingenuity (where others had failed he tilted the block courses inwards in a shallow dish shape toward the center). The fame of Nimrod was much greater than that of Imhotep, and his name was hundreds of years older. And he too was transformed in the eyes of the people into a god.

The way in which a person was changed from mortal to deity by the Mesopotamians was a two-stage procedure. First he became a national hero. A hero was regarded as a sort of superman, performing incredible feats, part man and part impossible (the stuff of comic books and movies to this day, an adulation that in some people becomes an addiction). The next step was to raise him to a fully-fledged god, either before or after his death (like the Church inventing its saints posthumously). The great hero, superman, and then god-man of the Mesopotamians was their first great king, the mighty hunter Nimrod.

The earliest representations of this hero in Sumer are of a normal but extremely powerful man who kills bulls and lions with his bare hands, and who thereafter absorbs their powers into his own body so that his feet become hooves, his head has horns and his body flourishes a tail. Sound familiar? Many clay tablets and cylinder seals of this famous bull-man have been found by archaeologists who appeared to be baffled by his identity. "The bull-legged man (of Mesopotamia) may well head a long line of mysterious progeny…he has not lost his appeal to this day…On cylinder seals the hero and bull-man appear together…a motif that is repeated in endless variations but for which there is no explanation to be found in myth or lore." (The Art of the Ancient World, Ashmole & Frankfort, p.100) There is a very simple explanation; the bull-man is Nimrod. His family is the line of progeny; his person is the fact around which the myth and lore were spun.

The historian Josephus twice referred to Nimrod as one who ruled by "tyranny." This is more apt than perhaps Josephus realized, although it is likely he chose the term by design, writing as he did in Latin. The English words "tyranny" and "tyrant" (despot, oppressor, dictator, autocrat) derive from the Latin "taurus" (bull) which in turn comes from the ancient Sumerian word "tur" (bull). The Hebrew word used in Genesis to describe Nimrod as a "mighty man" also means "tyrant." (Genesis 10:8-10; 1 Chronicles 1:8-10) The Sumerians, as we have seen, also knew him as Gilgamesh, the great hero and "half-mortal king of Uruk (Biblical Erech)." (The Cradle of Civilization, Kramer, Time Life, 1967, p.109) In the Sumerian legend, built around Nimrod, Gilgamesh was a renowned tyrant-king, "terrifying like a great wild bull, " "two-thirds god and one-third man," "strong like a savage bull, none can withstand his arms," "like a wild bull he lords it over men." (The Epic of Gilgamesh, Sandars, Penguin, pp.61-65) He was sometimes hated for his tyranny but also revered as the superman who had defeated the legendary Bull of Heaven and taken away its horns. (Encyclopedia of Mythology, Larousse, 1959, p.66) Gilgamesh was the son of the "Divine Lugulbanda" (Cush) and "Mother Ninsun." (The Epic of Gilgamesh, Sandars, Penguin, p.80) Gilgamesh "became a god after his death." (The Cradle of Civilization, Kramer, p.105) In his other but similar Sumerian guise he was called Dumuzi, the "Wild Bull," king of Uruk, son of Lugalbanda and Ninsun the cow-goddess. This identity will be examined in detail later, but here we have the pattern of man-to-god that was to be copied over and over again.

Consider for instance how he was worshipped in nearby Ur, the ancient city of the Chaldeans in southern Mesopotamia. This is the city from which God would call Abraham and his father Terah (descendants of Noah’s son Shem through Eber, the Hebrew: Genesis 11:10,16,17,31) to escape this idolatrous culture and go to a new and promised land. In Ur, Nimrod was revered as a moon god and called "Nanna, the strong bull of heaven." (Excavations at Ur, Sir Leonard Wooley, Benn, 1954, p.127) The people "appointed the moon god Nanna as the King of Ur." (History Begins at Sumer, Kramer, p.53) He was also sometimes called "Sin" and clearly identified as the son of the great storm God Enlil (Cush deified). The crescent moon on Nanna’s head was "sometimes seen as the horned crown of divinity, but most characteristically it was seen through the herdsman’s eye as the horns of a great bull leading the herd of stars. In human form he became a cowherd leading his herd over the sky." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Nanna) This progression is found everywhere in Mesopotamia:

A host of other forms followed, which would seem confusing unless we grasp the simple code that deciphers it all, that they are all based on this prototype and model, the founder of Babel and his deified family.

In the city of Uruk, Cush was deified as Enlil, storm god and Lord of the Air, and Nimrod became Nanna. But in the city of Babel, Cush was deified as Bel, the Babylonian exact copy of the Sumerian storm god. His son, Nimrod, was called Ba-Bel (quite literally, Son of Bel, just as Simon-Bar-Jonah means Simon son of Jonah) and the city was plainly identified with its deified founder. Babel is both the name of the city and a title of Nimrod, the son of Cush, who first built it, and this is the root meaning of the city’s original name. He was the builder of its first tower and the cause of the original disorder after which the term "babel" gained the added meaning of confusion. The tower was rebuilt several times, by Babylonians and Assyrians, because they recognized the power of this imagery, to rule where Nimrod once did. Thousands of years later Nebuchadnezzar II (the Great) would decree that its height should reach 300 feet, "to raise the top of the Tower that it might rival heaven." (The Cradle of Civilization, Kramer, p.154) But that was yet to come. In Babel, Nimrod was worshipped under the name of Nabu (Nebo in the Bible). Regarded as popular as Bel himself, he was "the patron of the art of writing" and his symbols were the clay tablet and the stylus." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Nabu) Writing had become a sacred thing, all the more so since the division of languages. Scribes who could read and write were regarded as almost priestly persons, recorders of the past, senders of messages, and keepers of great truths. Here again we have Nimrod revising history, portraying himself as the god-man of such communication, rather than the offender who caused its confusion in the first place.

In his northern kingdom, Nimrod was known as Ninus (The Son). The name of the city of Nineveh, founded by Nimrod (Genesis 10:11), means "Dwelling of Ninus" or "House of the Son." Ninus was worshipped throughout the north as the first great king of Asshur (Assyria) and as the son of Belos. The name Belos is simply one more version of the epithets for Nimrod’s father, Cush. The name Bel was later used by many Mesopotamian kings as part of their own names (e.g. Belshazzar, "Bel protect the king"). Another name under which Nimrod was widely worshipped was Ninurta, the son of Bel (Enlil) and mother goddess Belit (Ninlil). The pattern remains - same persons, different names. Ninurta was a "hunter and warrior" portrayed with a club in his hand. (Encyclopedia of Mythology, Larousse, 1959, p.60) Sometimes the club was replaced by thunderbolts when he was depicted as the storm god, like his father. Sometimes he was called "Rain Cloud" and this guise his "earliest form was that of the thundercloud envisaged as an enormous black cloud." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Ninurta)

Scripture confirms that those caught in the darkness of this fallen world, tainted with the deadly flaw of Adam’s original disobedience, cannot possibly change their own nature by their own will, any more than a "Cushite can change his skin" or a "leopard can change his spotted coat." (Jeremiah 13:23) This truth applies equally to white skin. No man can change his inherited nature (a fact that "evangelists" ignore every time they open their mouths with their freewill gospels). Jesus said such a change is impossible unless God interferes and intervenes, a fact repeated many times in the Word of God. (Matthew 19:26; John 1:12, 3:6-8, 5:21; 6:63, 8:34-36, 15:16, 17:1-3; Romans 6:17, 8:8; 9:15,16) That applies to all men, rich, poor, ruler, servant, black or white. Black does not mean evil. The origin of this superstitious and religious concept with all its imagery rests in a myth. It is true that the myth is based on a real man who had black skin and whose effect on the world has been incredible. But it is false to think that because of this phenomenon coloured people can be tarred with the same brush. Again, I say beware, for it is almost certain that Simon of Cyrene (the most ancient Greek city in Libya, North Africa), the man who had the privilege of carrying the real Son of God’s crucifixion timber part of the way to Golgotha, was black.

The name Enlil is a compound word meaning "Lord Air." (The Cradle of Civilization, Kramer, p.109) "By far the most important deity was the air-god Enlil. The events leading up to his general acceptance in the Sumerian pantheon are unknown, but from the earliest intelligible records Enlil is known as 'the father of the gods,' 'the king of heaven and earth,' 'the king of all the lands'…and rulers boasted that it was Enlil who gave them the kingship of the land." (History Begins at Sumer, Kramer, p.90) And now we know the events which led to his acceptance as a god: that Enlil was the deified version of Cush, the father of Nimrod, and Nimrod  used this ancestry to assert a divine kingship and lord himself over his subjects. It was notably in Uruk  (Erech ), Babel  and Nineveh that Enlil was worshipped , all cities that Scripture records as being founded by Nimrod.

In Babel he was called Bel ("Lord") or given the fuller title "Lord of the Air." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Bel) In both Nineveh and Babylon he was called Belos or Bel-Marduk, also identified in Scripture as Bel or Merodach. (Jeremiah 50:1,2) In fact Bel was known as the god of 50 names, each name describing one or other of his attributes, but this potential for confusion is cleared away if one simply remembers it is same person with a different name or attribute. His star, for instance, remained the same, always Jupiter. Other identifying symbols varied. As Bel-Marduk his sacred animal was the serpent-dragon that decorated the walls of Babylon. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Marduk)

But Bel was to expand into much more than a national god of Mesopotamia revered in the guise of a mere 50 personalities. He became one of the most influential gods of the entire world. In Canaan he would appear as Baal. It was against the 450 Israelite prophets of Baal (literally, "prophets of the Lord") that Elijah (whose name is a combination of Elohim and Yahweh and literally means, "God is the LORD") staged the duel that would reveal whose Lord was the fake one, before having all the false prophets put to death. (1 Kings 18:20-40) This same Lord of the Air, whose symbols included rain-storms, thunder-clouds, lightning, clubs and hammers, was eventually to be worshipped as the king and/or father of the gods in Egypt (Shu, Geb), Greece (Chaos, Cronus, Belos, Zeus), Rome (Saturn, Jupiter), Scandinavia (Thor), England (Belenus), Indra (India) and West Africa (Shango) to name but a few. In an even subtler blend and substitution, not unlike what happened with the counterfeit Israelites in Elijah’s time, the Christians of Rome and Europe (not to be confused with the elect disciples of the Lord) would later worship a god called Jehovah, a name combining Jupiter or Jove with Yahweh. Jehovah is an "artificial name," (Encyclopedia Britannica, Dictionary) "of late medieval origin…the word Jehovah does not represent any form of the name used in Hebrew." (Preface, Revised Standard Bible, explaining the purging of this "entirely inappropriate" name from its translation)

Who would have thought that Chus would first become the god-king Lugalbanda and then the deified Bel, Lord of the Air? Or that he would eventually figure so prominently in the Church? His son is even more important to Christianity, in its theology, priesthood, rites and festivals. It will soon be made very evident that in this same development Nimrod became even more popular than his father in the ancient world, first as the god-king Gilgamesh/Dumuzi, then as a god like Nanna or Nebo, and ultimately under a host of names to be examined shortly. In Greece for instance, he was called Bacchus (Ba-Chus, Son of Cush), Hermes (the interpreter, the Greek version of Nebo), Mars (hunter-warrior) and Adonis (the Greek version of Dumuzi).

In Hebrew, the name Satan means "Enemy" or "Adversary." In the Bible he is named as the Lord of the Air, Father of Lies, Deceiver of the World, Beelzebul or Beelzebub (Lord of the Flies), Belial (Lawless One) and the Great Dragon or Serpent. Powerful, and by far the most subtle and cunning spiritual creature (Genesis 3:1), he is described as having fallen from his previously high position due to evil pride, taking with him that portion of the fallen angels that he had led in rebellion against God. On earth he became the temporary landlord of a realm consigned to death and decay, as the Lord of this World and Lord of this Age whose objective is to confuse and blind, to prevent men from seeing the truth or light, and to obstruct their finding the one true God. (Matthew 10:25; 12:24-27; John 8:42-47; 12:31; 14:30; 2 Corinthians 4:4; 6:15; Ephesians 2:2; 1 Timothy 3:6;)

"And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to earth, and his angels were thrown down with him." (Revelation 12:9)

In the ancient Book of Job we discover these telling facts, in the literal translation, about this fallen being on earth: "And the LORD said to the Adversary, ‘From where do you come?’ So Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, from walking back and forth on it.’" (Job 1:7) Prowling up and down for what reason? To snare the hearts and minds of men, to bring them down like prey. In this particular case the man he was after was Job, but he tracks down all men with this same game plan. "Be watchful," says the apostle Peter, "because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." (1 Peter 5:8)

If Satan’s downfall from heaven and subsequent activity in this world sound remarkably like Nimrod the Rebel on earth it is no accident. The term describing Nimrod the mighty hunter in Hebrew does not merely mean huntsman of lions and bulls; it has a much more ominous inference as a stalker of men. It is precisely because of this concurrence in destiny that names such as Belial, Beelzebul and Beelzebub are given to Satan in Scripture. Jesus himself used the term (Matthew 12:24-27) and he also stated, "I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning." (Luke 10:18) The real Son of God, who said of himself, "before Abraham was I am," (John 8:58) and who saw the descent of Satan in the eternal realm would certainly have witnessed the son of Chus in trying to "ascend to heaven" on earth and in time. Jesus "came forth from the Father" (John 16:28), leaving eternity and entering time precisely to undo the schemes of the Devil. Knowing that he was the one destined to succeed in overcoming death and decay, Jesus could rightfully declare, just before his crucifixion, "Now is the ruler of this world cast down." (John 12:31)

If Satan had lured the first human beings into a world of death and decay by tempting them to "be like god" (Genesis 3:5) then you can be sure he would have attempted it again straight away with the sons of Noah who came out of the Ark. He found his target in the family of Ham, specifically in the line of Cush and his son Nimrod. The Bible directly associates the king of Babylon with Satan. Consider this scripture from the prophet Isaiah, predicting the imminent downfall of a later king of Babylon, Belshazzar the Great. The words compare Lucifer (literally DayStar) with Belshazzar but could just as easily apply to the very first king of Babylon, Nimrod.

It has already been explained how Nimrod, the original tyrant-king of Mesopotamia, was transformed via the hero Gilgamesh (who took the horns from the bull) to the god Nanna-Sin (who wore the horns while leading his herd). The god Bel (Cush deified) was likewise identified in this manner. In Assyria, for instance, Bel was also called Kronos, "The Horned One." (Chronicle, Eusebius, Part 1, History of the Chaldeans and Assyrians)

The words "corona" (disk) and "crown" are both derived from the name of Kronos. The horns represent ruling power and kingship. This symbol spread south into Africa, as far north as Scandinavia (the Vikings) and eventually across the globe to native shamans in the Americas. The horns were later modified into a corona or circular disk of points that became the crown. Mark this well, this symbol of the crown, of men lording over other men, is both Babylonian and satanic in origin.

In ancient Greece Kronos (Bel, Cush deified) became the father-god Cronus, also associated with Saturn (Satan). His son Nimrod became Ba-Chus, also called Bromios (Thunderer) and Taurokeros (Bull-Horned). (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Bacchus) In Greek art Bacchus was represented as the leader of numerous lesser satyrs (little satans), half-human creatures with horns, hooves and tails. And that is exactly how Satan came to be portrayed as a man with horns, hooves and a tail. As a spirit Lucifer is invisible. We do not know what he looks like. But his person and record is so closely identified with the son of Cush that he became pictured as the bull-man of Mesopotamia, and so were the rest of the demons that followed him. This image has spread to the whole world. Nimrod the hero became a virtual incarnation of Satan, the Devil in the flesh, and not just in appearance. The game plan of both was intertwined: confusion, the creation and offer of any number of Lords to substitute for the LORD.

In England the ancient Celts and Anglo-Saxons worshipped Cush in many recognizable forms: as Belenus (Bel), Cernunnos (Kronos), Lugus (Lugalbanda) and Taranis (Thunderer). (Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropedia, Celtic Religion) Nimrod was called Taruos (Bull) and Zernebogus (literally, "Nebo, seed of Chus"), both horned deities. In Babylon the word "zero" meant "seed" or "seed of," in the same way that "ba" or "bar" meant "son" or "son of." The perfect circle of the zero (zzar) was a sacred symbol of the earliest Mesopotamians. It meant both "seed" or "son" as well as "king" and would be included in many titles (e.g. Nebuchadnezzar, "Nebo protect the seed, or stone" and on one Assyrian inscription, "Nebo’s favourite.") It is the origin of the words "csar" (Russia) and "caesar" (Rome). It would also become the basis for holding the thumb and finger in a circle to indicate that everything was perfect, and in religious meditation. Ancient Buddhists in India held their hands this way as they sat beneath the eight-fold wheel, a disk derived from the eight-pointed sun of the Mesopotamian sungod Shamash (possibly a deified form of Shem, Noah's oldest son).

Discovered in countless religious artifacts from Nimrod’s cities, especially as a power symbol in the king’s hand, the zero later came to be modified to the two forms used today as the genetic signs for male and female; but in the beginning it signified a male, the Son. And as far away as England the Celts knew him as Zernebogus, a man portrayed with jet-black skin, horns, hooves and a tail. This is the origin of the words "bogus" (fake, false) and "bogey-man" (demon, devil). Some encyclopedias and dictionaries will tell you that the source of these words is uncertain or unknown, lost in myth, but in fact the source is real, historical and clearly identifiable.

The Horned One is indeed a counterfeit or false Lord. This we know from Scripture, that he constantly seeks to substitute himself for the truth. He will appear as a super-hero like Nanna (Sin) to those who would follow him in that guise. He will appear in any form he can if it leads men away from the truth. In fact it can now be stated quite categorically that Nimrod was the prototype of the Antichrist to come, a name which literally means Substitute-christ; not "against" but rather "instead" or "in place" of the real Son and Lord. According to the Bible the power behind the Antichrist, also known as the "man of sin" and "lawless one who exalts himself above God" is "the working of Satan with all power, signs and lying wonders." It is Satan empowering a man of flesh that brings forth the "deception amongst those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth" and upon whom "God sends strong delusion, that they should believe the lie." (2 Thessalonians 2:3,9,10,11)

There have been many antichrists in Scripture, all of whom enable us to recognize the last and final type in this line, but Nimrod was the first. Do you think that this is ancient history, reader, because relatively few people still worship a man with horns or parade behind serpents and dragons? Wrong. The modern world is no more enlightened than the culture of ancient Sumeria. Today Satan still empowers men in a myriad disguises, even dressed up like Mesopotamians and Egyptians but appearing in the name of the real Lord, calling themselves apostles, duping countless millions who are all to willing to believe the lie they have been destined to swallow. "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder. For Satan disguises himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose fate will be according to their works." (2 Corinthians 11:13-15) These apostles do appear to offer a beacon, a form of guidance, as did Nimrod to the people around him, but the light at the end of this tunnel is a furnace.

The Sumerians and Akkadians used their ziggurats and temple-mountains as fixed observatories of the heavens, into which they gazed and even attempted to reach. From these permanent and elevated monuments in the flat plain of Shinar  they were able to track the movements of the stars. “No one can deny that the Babylonians were the fathers of astronomy.” (They Wrote on Clay, Chiera, University of Chicago Press, 1938, p.157) But as they began to transform mortal men into gods, and identify them with particular planets, the Mesopotamians also created the occult religion of astrology - the belief that the stars influenced the affairs and the fates of men and women. The Greeks and Persians later copied and refined this religion. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropedia, Astrology)

The most popular god-stars were of course the sun (Shamash, also Anu as both sun and sky), the moon (Nanna, Sin), Jupiter (Bel, Belos), Saturn (Kronos) and Venus (Ishtar). The Mesopotamians were also the first to divide the night sky into the twelve segments that are today known as the Zodiac. "It was Mesopotamia that invented the zodiacal names – the Bull, the Twins, the Lion, the Scorpion, and many others." (The Cradle of Civilization, Kramer, p.159) It is obvious where Nimrod the hunter and bull-man fits into the description of many of these signs or constellations (groups of stars), such as Sagittarius and Taurus. Under the name of Ninurta the hunter-warrior was "of much the same character and has been identified with the constellation Orion." (Encyclopedia of Mythology, Larousse, 1959, p.66) Ninurta is still worshipped today by Buddhists in Tibet, Mongolia and Japan, under the name of Mahakala, which means "Great Black One." Mahakala is closely associated with the Hindu god Siva, portrayed as a black man riding a huge black bird (the black-winged thundercloud of Ninurta) and holding in his hands a club and serpent (symbols of Ninurta and Bel). (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Mahakala)

The cult of the Zodiac was one of the most popular elements of Babylonian religion that spread across the entire globe from Europe to China and eventually across the oceans to the Americas. It is an integral part of most Oriental religions, and faith in the Zodiac is found in every country of the world where people now read their horoscope (from the Greek horo-skopus, "time-look") to try to find out what the stars hold in store for them. Horror-scope would be a more appropriate description of this practice, since we know the end result of such reliance and hope. In one of the oldest scripts of the Bible, the Book of Job, God himself confronts Job with man’s staggering ignorance and feeble impotence, his utter inability to “bind the cluster of Pleiades” or “bring forth the seasons of the Mazzaroth” (Mazalot - Constellations of the Zodiac) as the LORD did when creating them and their gravitational fields. Man cannot possibly “loosen the belt of Orion” or “guide the Great Bear” as God has done from the very beginning in putting and keeping the swirling universe in motion. (Job 38:31-33)

There is nothing demonic or evil about the stars or planets that God created; the sin comes into play when the Deceiver entices people to believe in them, when men turn to any of the things that are made rather than to the Maker. Job was certainly no spiritual slouch. In his long debate with his three faithful friends he declared how much "destruction from God is a terror to me" and warned that a man should never put his trust in created things, not in earthly wealth below or in the stars above. "If I have made gold my hope…If I have looked at the sun when it shone or the moon moving in splendor, and my heart has been secretly enticed, and my mouth has kissed my hand; this also would be an iniquity (abomination) deserving of judgment, for I should have been false to God above." (Job 31:23-28)

Because he lived at a very early time (around 2000 BC, when Abraham was leaving the Sumerian city of Ur) while the original Babylonian religion was still in full swing, Job would certainly have known all about Nimrod and the Zodiac cult with its magnetic pull on men’s souls. Job’s name means “Persecuted One” and his story is one of devastation and loss, relentless temptation by Satan to destroy his faith in the LORD. He might easily have thought of giving up on God, turning to the constellations in his extreme distress. But he resisted, knowing the penalty for this sin. He knew all about the Pit and Sheol (Hell), which his book mentions many times. He knew of the futility of looking into the "firmament" of outer space for help, and of the coming judgment ordained for those who put their faith in either planets, father sky, mother earth or any other part of creation rather than fearing the LORD. The stellar bodies are not put there to cause a man to believe in them but in the God who made them.

This stargazing culture was to clash many times with the Lord's prophets (800-500 BC) who predicted that there would be an end to the ancient empire of Babylon (The Babel of Mesopotamia, not the worldwide Babylon still with us) as it fell first to Medes and Persians and then to Alexander of Greece. "Babylon, the glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of Chaldean pride will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited (again)…Sit in silence and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans. For you shall no longer be called Lady of the Kingdoms…Stand now with your enchantments and the multitude of your sorceries in which you have laboured from your youth…Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly forecasters stand up and save you from what shall come upon you." (Isaiah 13:19; 47: 5,12,13) "A sword is against the Chaldeans…against the inhabitants of Babylon…and her princes and wise men and soothsayers…it shall be inhabited no more…as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbours." (Jeremiah 50:35-40)

This same sentiment of doom is echoed many times by the apostles of Christ as they applied it to any form of idolatrous inclination toward created things, whether of the sky above, earthly treasure, immoral sex, reverence of another man or woman, stone idol or wooden totem, animal or bird. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth…for since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and deity, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like perishable man, and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things…who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and revered and served the creature rather than the Creator." (Romans 1:18-25)

We know, through his Sumerian identities, that Nimrod died an untimely death, while still a young man, and that the death of this hero was greeted with mass lamentation. The great shepherd-king, the superhuman bull-man who had gathered the people and directed them like a flock with a purpose, was gone. He was mourned and worshipped under the names of both Dumuzi the Wild Bull and Tammuz the Shepherd, "ravished by death in the fullness of youth." (Encyclopedia of Mythology, Larousse, p.61) We can be sure of this because we know that Dumuzi was the son of Lugalbanda (Cush, thereafter deified as Enlil, Bel) and Ninsun (the mother goddess Ninlil, Belit). (Toward the Image of Tammuz, Jakobsen, Harvard University Press, 1970, p.27) And, like Gilgamesh, Dumuzi was also the half-factual king of Uruk. Dumuzi married Innin, just as Tammuz married Ishtar: they are simply two sides of the same coin. Here is Dumuzi as pictured on a very elaborate alabaster jar from Uruk. "No one now queries the real meaning of this composite scene. The goddess Innin…is receiving her bridegroom on New Year’s Day to celebrate the Sacred Marriage. This bridegroom…is the half-mythical King of Uruk, Dumuzi, or, as he is called by the Semites, Tammuz, and simultaneously he is a shepherd. In this figure we are dealing with one of the essential and fundamental elements of Sumerian culture, which began in Uruk." (The Art of Ancient Mesopotamia, Moortgat, Phaidon, p.12)

Nimrod was the fact behind these mythical rulers, the real king of Uruk. Whether he was worshipped as the Bridegroom or the Wild Bull who was slain or the Shepherd who died too soon, "the cult of Dumuzi centered around two occurrences, the marriage of the god to Ishtar and the lamenting of his early death." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Dumuzi) He was sometimes called Tammuz of the Grain, an important fertility god, "embodying the powers of new life in the spring." He was believed to be the "power in the grain," dying when it was ground into flour for bread, and "the celebration in March-April that marked the death of the god also seemed to have been dramatically performed. Many of the laments for the occasion have as a setting a procession." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Tammuz) Tammuz is also the name of the fourth month of the Jewish year.

In fact archaeological evidence indicates that the anniversary of the early death of Tammuz was probably the most important event in all Mesopotamian religion. The festival took place at a time named after Dumuzi’s consort Ishtar (Easter) in late March and early April. Does this sound like the "holy week" of Christianity, a festival never celebrated by Christ’s disciples but instead founded by early Christians mixing paganism with Scripture? It is exactly that. The Bible mentions that this great wailing and weeping for Tammuz was even being practiced by Jews in Jerusalem, one of the "abominations" along with sun worship, right outside Solomon’s temple, and this thousands of years after Nimrod had died. "So he brought me to the door of the north gate of the house of the LORD; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz." (Ezekiel 8:14) This brought forth the death penalty from the LORD, upon all except those who were distressed by this idolatry. (Ezekiel 8:12 - 9:11) This festival was still being held in Jerusalem by errant Jews at the very same time that Jesus was crucified, and it is quite likely that the two events were confused, not everyone in the procession actually mourning for Christ but being caught up in an age old ritual of lamentation. This sheds some extra light on Jesus’ words to the "crowd of people who followed him, and women who mourned and lamented him," saying "weep not for me but for yourselves and for your children" because of the terrible judgment that was ordained for them. (Luke 23:27,28)

It certainly gives us great insight into these tremendous words from Christ, first to the faithful: "I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them…I am the good shepherd." And then, "to the Jews surrounding him," the fakes, the goats: "You do not believe, because you are not of my sheep." (John 10:7,8,11,24,25) Tammuz the Shepherd was one of the counterfeits that came before Jesus, put forth by Satan in his subtle and cunning scheme to capture men’s hearts and minds. But Tammuz was only one substitute for the real thing. Many more variations would be copied again and again in the religions of the ancient world. Many others would be substituted for the Lord after Jesus was gone. The Jews around Christ thought they served the real Lord at the time, but Jesus told them plainly that they did not belong to his flock. This same principle, as we will discover in all its appalling magnitude, can be applied to practically every single cult and sect that names a Lord called Jesus, but who is in fact nothing like the Christ of Scripture.

The public rites in honour of Dumuzi are indeed alive and flourishing to this very day. The Christians of France celebrate him under the name of Boeuf Gras (Fattened Bull) and central to their early religious processions was the custom of parading him as a fat ox through the streets on Shrove Tuesday in February. In England Tammuz of the Grain is likewise celebrated with pancakes on this same Tuesday in the Church calendar. The French took this festival to the southern United States as early as 1699, and by the mid 1800’s the Cowbellion Society of Mobile and New Orleans had mixed this primarily Christian tradition with African religion to form the best known of the New World processions, Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), which is now a week long episode. But this event is not initially French in foundation. It is Babylonian to the roots, passed on to the West through various channels, particularly the ancient Roman version of this festival in February, the Lupercalia. In the Lupercalia revellers paraded through the streets and threw flowers, grain and coins as they appeared in masks (masqueraded) and dressed provocatively or in trans-gendered costumes to promote sexual permissiveness. In Christianity this particular Tuesday occurs on the eve of Ash Wednesday, the 40^th day before the Sunday following the first full moon of spring, Easter Sunday. It is the last day of open wantonness and overindulgence, after which the time of Lent (fasting and abstinence) begins with Ash Wednesday and leads up to the great festival lamenting the death of Dumuzi or Tammuz during the time of the fertility goddess Ishtar (Eostre, Easter). (Encyclopedia Britannica, Lupercalia, Mardi Gras)

This same festival is observed all over South America, the most famous being the Rio de Janeiro Carnival in Brazil, held in the week preceding Ash Wednesday. The word "carnival" comes from the Latin "carnis vale" (literally, "farewell to meat"), indicating the day before the time of fasting or abstinence. The repetitive and trance-like music that accompanies this Carnival was originally called Mesemba (from which the more suave samba is derived), a mixture of the persistent rhythms used by various African tribes. The dance is designed to involve the body in sexual simulations, evocative of the fertility season, the awakening of the agricultural spring. In Rio the carnival is particularly associated with lewdness and prostitution, a feature touted in many travel advertisements. Similar processions in honour of cows and bulls, counterfeit kings and queens, and a multitude of deities are of course held worldwide. Hindus in India parade in exactly the same manner once performed by ancient Egyptians, carrying aloft their heroes and gods for the crowds to venerate. Roman Catholics are often found in these Indian parades with idols and images of their own deities, versions of Jesus and Mary that are far from Scriptural but who perfectly fit the Babylonian prototypes. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Carnival, Rio de Janeiro)

There is no end to the impostors who come either after or before the real Son of God. Here are just a few of those who came before. In Egypt Tammuz became Osiris, the god who died and was lamented by Isis. In Greece he was known as Adonis (wept for by Aphrodite) and also Bacchus, who died an early death. In Rome he became Mars, mourned by Bellona ("Lamenter of Bel"). In Persian religion and astrology he became Orion (the hunter derived from Ninurta, the black bird-cloud) who likewise died an early and untimely death. In India he became the cowherd god Krishna (literally "Black One" or "Black Cloud") who died young, shot like his ancient Greek equivalent, Achilles, in his vulnerable heel and mourned by his mother Devaki. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Adonis, Bacchus, Krishna, Osiris)

So far we have seen how Cush and Nimrod were deified under many names, but the female deity associated with both of them also appears in multiple guises. Sometimes she is a mother figure, sometimes a wife, even a wife marrying her own son, and sometimes a sister or daughter. The sister-brother relationship is not surprising since it was necessary for the children of the first families to intermarry, both after the Creation and The Flood. This was not considered unseemly at that time. As the generations multiplied this was no longer required although it became a hallmark of “royal” families to intermarry, keeping their supposedly “divine” seed to themselves. Mother-son or father-daughter marriage, however, was not considered natural in the ancient world. This we know from both Scripture and the oldest Greek legends copied from Mesopotamia. But no matter whether the female deity is a mother, wife or sister she is in essence the same person in this source religion, deified under particular elements of her character, such as motherhood or womanhood. Sometimes she is a chaste virgin and at other times a vulgar prostitute or fertility idol. She might even appear at the same time as a goddess of war and a goddess of love.

"Ishtar (Akkadian), Sumerian Inanna, in Mesopotamian religion, goddess of war and sexual love. Inanna, an important goddess in the Sumerian pantheon, came to be identified with Ishtar…she is sometimes the daughter of the sky god An, sometimes his wife; in other myths she is the daughter of Nanna, god of the moon, or of the wind, Enlil…She was also the goddess of rain and thunderstorms - and was often pictured with the lion, whose roar resembled thunder. Inanna was also a fertility figure, and, as goddess of the storehouse and the bride of the god Dumuzi." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Ishtar, Std.Ver.1999) Inanna is merely another form of Ishtar ("The Woman") and words like amah, nanna and nanny are derived form her motherly aspect.

It was as Ishtar that she was most popularly revered amongst the Mesopotamians. The plural of her name, "ishtariti," means goddesses, and the word, "ashta," means "woman." She is in fact the prototype on the female side, the model woman and mother goddess. Words such as "Eostre" (early form of the great Celtic goddess Easter) and "star" (in Persian the word is "sitarah") are derived from her name. Her planet is Venus, also called the Morning or Evening Star, the third brightest light in the night sky. In Canaan (Palestine) and Syria she became the fertility goddess Astarte or Anath (the wife of Baal), named in the Bible both as Asherah and Ashtoreth. (Judges 2:13; 1 Samuel 7:3,4) In Egypt she appeared as Isis and Hathor, and in the Graeco-Roman world she became Aphrodite-Venus (love) and Artemis-Diana (huntress). (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Astarte, Asherah)

As the "Lady of Battles" (goddess of war) Ishtar was portrayed in Mesopotamia as seated or standing on a lion with a bow and arrow in her hands. Her main cult centers were in Uruk, Babylon and Nineveh, all cities founded by Nimrod the mighty man and hunter. A huge gate was dedicated to her in the city wall of Babylon, its brick walls covered with reliefs of lions, bulls and serpents. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Ishtar Gate)

In Nimrod’s great northern city of Nineveh, Ishtar was identified with the Sumerian goddess Ninlil (Belit), the wife of Enlil (Bel). She was called "Lady of Heaven and Earth" and "Mother of the Gods." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Belit) As a mother goddess she was also known as Ninsun (the cow-goddess who lamented for her son Dumuzi the bull), Ninhursag (Great Mother), Ninmakh (Mother of all children) and Nintur (Mother of childbirth). (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Ninsun, Ninhursag) As the mother, wife or sister of Tammuz, Ishtar was also revered for her saving and resurrecting power. She not only "burst into lamentation over her dead lover" but also "rescued him from the underworld." (Encyclopedia of Mythology, Larousse, pp.58,61)

Exactly how Ishtar brought Dumuzi back from the dead is unclear in the legends, but it appears that she brought him back as an infant. Dumuzi not only means bull but also "Quickener of the Child," and in his slain form he is called Damu, "The Child." "The attitude of the mother and sister as they search for the dead god (in the underworld) is one of pure maternal instinct, as if they were searching for a small child who had become lost." (Toward the Image of Tammuz, Jakobsen, pp.24,73,89,96)

In other words, if we match up the names, we have the suggestion here not only that Nimrod married his mother, Ninhursag (Ninlil, Belit) the wife of Cush (Enlil, Bel), and renamed her Ishtar, but that she may also have been his older sister. On top of that it appears that when he died as a young man his wife sought earnestly to revive him and keep the myth alive. Quite likely she bore him a real son after his demise and claimed it was Nimrod miraculously reborn. Whatever happened in reality, behind the scenes in Sumer, this event created the most important religious development the world has ever seen or ever will behold, the cult of the Mother and Child. As Ninsun and Tammuz they were considered to be the perfect mother and son. Ninsun was called the "Flawless Cow" and her son, Damuzid, the "Flawless Young." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Ninsun, Tammuz)

In the religion of Cush’s brother Egypt it would be Isis who rescued Osiris from the underworld to be reborn as the son, Horus. The cult of Isis and her suckling child later became one of the most widespread and popular cults of Greece and Rome, especially at the time of Christ and during the first few centuries AD, and would later be completely absorbed into the Christian Church. Does this sound incredible, reader? The Vatican is built over the temple of Isis in Rome. Almost every Christian church from the Mediterranean to England was to be built, not on the Rock of Scripture, but upon a pagan foundation, along with all its theology and imagery. "The Christian representations of the Madonna and Child are clearly the continuation of the representations of Isis and her son suckling her breast." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropedia, Mystery Religions)

In India Ishtar became the goddess Indrani, seated on a lion with her son on her lap, and also the goddess Devaki with her black infant, Krishna. In Buddhism she became Hariti, the great mother with her miracle child Buddha sitting on her knee, a Buddha that would often be portrayed as black, in many stone and metal idols having the flatter nose and classic peppercorn hair of that race. Figurines of this same mother and child have been found in West Africa and they were worshipped by the Olmecs in Mexico and Incas of Peru a thousand years before the Spanish arrived with their supposedly "new" religion. In the Far East, Ishtar would become Shing-Moo or Kuan-Yin holding her sacred child. Consequently, when Roman Catholics later reached the Orient, "the Mother and Child brought to China at this time by early missionaries were no surprise to the Chinese." (Chinese and Japanese Art, Buhot, p.162)

Ishtar "the Woman" did not, of course, have to be portrayed with her child in order to receive adoration. She was a goddess in her own right. Under the name of Ninlil or Belit she was the supreme female deity. It was by drinking her milk that Mesopotamian kings could become gods. (Encyclopedia of Mythology, Larousse, p.56) As the wife of the "Lord" Bel her name Belit meant "Lady." She was indeed the "first lady" of the Babylonians in particular and of the entire land of Nimrod (Nebo) in general. The title "Lady" is attached to nearly every one of her names under which she was worshipped. Ninmakh, for instance, was "Exalted Lady," and Nintur was "Lady Birth Giver." Ninlil was called "Lady of Heaven and Earth" and "Lady of the Lands." Ninsun, the mother of Tammuz, was "Flawless Lady" and Nana, the wife of Nebo, was called "Lady of Hearing and Favour." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Belit, Ninmakh, Ninlil, Ninsun, Nebo)

Practically every one of these names would later be given to the Madonna of the early Christians and the Mary of the entire Church that they created. The very word Madonna means "My Lady" and her titles have been transferred to her, via the Greek and Roman religion, from the original Babylonian prototype. The claim by the mega-cults called "orthodox" (correct) and "catholic" (all-embracing) that the Madonna is an intercessor who will hear worshippers’ petitions and convey them to her son cannot be found anywhere in the Scriptures written by the early disciples of Christ. The concept belonged to the parallel sect of church-planters called Christians, and it came all the way from Mesopotamia where goddesses such as Nana (Lady of Hearing and Favour) were approached to gain the attention of the god Nebo.

Not only did the Lady of Mesopotamia appear as a mother, and even as a harlot, but also a sacred virgin, and she was still worshipped as a virgin even after she had given birth to her flawless son. In this version of the mother of Tammuz, the Flawless Lady Ninsun was regarded as a model of perfection, unblemished. She was deified in the Babylonian Zodiac under the sign Virgo. In Egypt she would become Isis who miraculously conceived her son Horus after the death of Osiris (Tammuz). In Greek religion she would become the chaste huntress Artemis. In Rome she would appear as Diana, Juno (Saviouress) and Vesta, the goddess whose vestal virgins (nuns) perpetually served at her temple.

In the myths of India, Mother Devaki would miraculously conceive from heaven and bear Krishna. Hariti, the mother of Buddha, would also be called "Virgin-Mother" associated with Kuan-Yin of China and Tara (Saviouress) of Indonesia. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Buddhist Mythology) In Mexico the primary virgin goddess would be called Tonantzin (a name that may well be a combination of the original child-mother, Tammuz-Ninsun). The Roman Church would later change her name to blend her identity with their Madonna. She is now "equated with the Virgin of Guadalupe" and considered more powerful than God, the most venerated goddess in Mexico today. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Tonantzin)

The virgin mother of Scripture is of course Mary, the mother of the man, Jesus of Nazareth. And in Scripture the promise of redemption is given right at the beginning, after the Fall but pre-Flood, in the coming of a woman’s seed whose heel would be bruised by the Serpent but who in turn would crush the seeds of Satan underfoot. (Genesis 2:14,15) The Lord of the Air knew all about the Coming Redeemer in this curse which God placed upon him and his seed, upon all the "sons" he would put forward, all the deceptive substitutes for the true Son and Lord. But this never deters him from concocting all these fakes, because even the conniving Lord of the Air cannot escape his appointed destiny. This enrages him to be sure, as he prowls the earth, constantly leading astray with this repetitive game plan, even as his rulership runs out. "Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has but a short time." (Revelation 12:12)

Now let us examine more closely the identity of the promised Seed of Scripture. Seven hundred years before Mary lived, the prophet Isaiah announced that "a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and his name will be Emmanuel (literally, God with us)." (Isaiah 7:14) But first, said the prophet, the Assyrians would be sent to punish and devastate Israel and Judah for their playing the harlot, mixing the law and the testimony (Word of God) with Babylonian religion. The Israelites would be taken into captivity and their treasured idols with them. "Bel bows down, Nebo stoops; their idols were on the beasts and on the cattle. Your carriages were heavily loaded, a burden to the weary beast." (Isaiah 46:1) Not until long after this predicted exile would the promised Seed appear, not merely in the name of the LORD but himself named as the Most High. "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 8:6)

This is a statement which stuns the imagination, but it is hammered out countless times in Scripture, both before and after his advent, in prophecies such as this one, given 500 years beforehand and pinpointing his birthplace. "But you, O Bethlehem…out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting." (Micah 5:2, the literal translation reads “from days of eternity) "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word," says an apostle and close eyewitness. (John 1:1, literal translation) "He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." (John 1:2,14)

In the flesh he would become the "first born of creation," actually taking part in his own handiwork and thereafter not discarding but returning to his throne with that same body yet renewed and imperishable. Incarnate he would be "the image of the invisible God," as best we might understand and "see" the Father with our own eyes. "He who has seen me has seen the Father." (Colossians 1:15, John 14:9) This Seed would manifest a dual nature, calling himself both the Son of Man (because he had taken on flesh, abdicated the throne and descended to become temporarily subservient) and the Son of God (because he was exactly that, pre-existent, begotten in the ever present now of eternity). This is quite the opposite of the self-seeking and self-promoting seeds of Satan. The Seed did not consider himself "robbed of being God’s equal" while completing his mission "in the appearance of a man." (Philippians 2:5-11)

But despite this reserve and discretion he did not always cloak his identity, especially when pressed. He would openly declare of himself that, "before Abraham was, I AM" and "I and the Father are one," both death penalty offences in the presence of those who heard him and knew exactly what he was saying. (John 8:56-59; 10:24-33) In Scripture, the often repeated confession and acknowledgment of the true God is "Hear O Israel (people of God) the LORD is one," and Jesus claimed this oneness on several occasions. (John 10:38, 14:10,11) He exhibited all the nature of a real man while also claiming territory belonging only to God, including the joint power to raise others (and himself) from death, and the joint authority to absolve sins. (Mark 2:5-12; John 2:19-21; 6:39,40) He would also be the sole divine messenger in the New Testament who accepted worship without rebuking the worshipper or telling him that he was mistaken. (John 20:28,29, Matthew 28:17) In the Old Testament Abraham had bowed down to three visitors and Ezekiel had literally hit the dirt face first when realizing that it was the LORD Himself. (Genesis 18:1,2; Ezekiel 1:28) But if the heralds were simply messengers, being creatures like their hearers, they were always quick to insist that they were not to be worshipped. Jesus accepted worship. To do that meant he was either yet another hoax (a gigantic imposter, the best seed ever invented by Lucifer) or that he really possessed not merely divinity (being from God and of God) but everlasting deity.

Only God is immortal, having no beginning or end. (1 Timothy 6:15,16) All creatures have a beginning, but this Seed did not begin at Bethlehem, only the body of flesh which he deigned to put on and subsequently took back with him to the glory he had with the Father in eternity. (John 16:28; 17:5) Mere men can die and cease to exist forever if God so wills (which he does not) but Christ is "incorruptible," not just morally perfect but incapable of such decay or erasure. Mortal "death could not possibly hold him," not just because he lived a life free of sin on earth but because he holds the power of "an indestructible life." (Acts 2:24,27,31 Hebrews 7:16) Such a life force is not possessed by a creature, only by the Creator and LORD; and as such he will indeed be worshipped forever by every creature in heaven or on earth. (Daniel 7:13,14, Revelation 5:8-14) Those who do not worship him now will certainly be forced to bow the knee when he appears again, but not to their benefit. (Philippians 2:9-11; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-12) This Seed is as different from the seeds of the Serpent as anyone could possibly be. They are declared to be gods and are not. He deferred to his Father in modesty and humility while being himself the fullness of true deity.

Turn again now to the virgin who carried him in the womb and appreciate that she was indeed blessed above any other woman that has lived. But that is as far as it goes. She was not the mother of God because there is no such thing as the mother of God. She was not pre-existent, only a handmaiden blessed beyond comparison in an event never to be repeated in the history of the world, a non-sexual conception and birth. Indeed, there was considerable upset over this because when Mary was found to be pregnant she was not even married. Her husband-to-be, Joseph, offered to break off the engagement discreetly to hide the shame of the supposed fornication (sex outside of marriage). But when he was convinced that she had not been unfaithful and was truly a surrogate carrier of a child induced by divine decree, he accepted it as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. And so Jesus, the Son of God and Son of the Most High was born. (Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-35)

The real mother of the real Seed and Son is nothing like the Babylonian virgin, but in the Christian Church she is very much "con-fused" and blended with her to this day under the name of Mary. Satan will copy the names and put forward another Lord, another Father, another Son, another Jesus, another Mary and another virgin mother to anyone he can deceive. He is that subtle and cunning, and he is relentless in this repetitive plan of substitution. The real Mary of Scripture was not flawless, declaring the LORD to be "my saviour." (Luke 1:47) She was never revered by the disciples of Christ, nor ever viewed by them as a mediator, and she certainly did not remain a virgin after the birth of Jesus. The apostle Matthew specifically tells us that Joseph "took his wife (Mary) and did not know her (the literal translation is ‘kept her a virgin’) until she had brought forth her firstborn son, and called his name Jesus." (Matthew 1:24-25) After this she bore several other children to Joseph by natural sexual relations. (Matthew 13:55,56; Luke 1:47, 11:27,28; 1 Timothy 2:5)

It is the Babylonian Virgin who is portrayed as sinless, a saviouress to be adored, a mediator and a perpetual virgin. In this appearance she is found throughout world, under countless names in the ancient religions, and most popularly under the name of Mary in the modern cults. Jesus gave no such importance to the real Mary, declaring plainly in front of her and the other children she had borne to Joseph that, "whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and my sister and mother." (Matthew 12:46-50) And Christ tersely corrected those who talked of breast and milk fetishes or mother-reverence. (Luke 11:27,28) Such perverse idolatry belongs entirely to the "lady madonnas" of the "dark lords" in the powers that bind.

So next, we shall turn the page to Egypt (son of Ham and brother of Cush) and see how his descendants embraced this Mesopotamian myth in its entirety. As to be expected there will be differences between the cradle of religion and the playpens in which it subsequently developed, but the similarities will prove the child, teen and man to be the same as the baby, as sure as any fingerprint or DNA test. Many historians have noted that the Egyptians were not at all original in their thinking; they were simply the first of the great copycats. The ancient Greeks also imitated Mesopotamia but were much more inventive, like their Babylonian archetypes, in everything from their religion to astronomy and mathematics. Rome would then slavishly imitate Greece, although to a grander extent, just as Egypt emulated Babylon but on a more impressive scale. For this reason there is a marked resemblance between the Mesopotamians and Greeks, and a similarity of the copiers, the Egyptians and Romans. And of course there is a cross-mix of all four. Beyond these Mediterranean cribs of religion we shall follow the story across the entire world, a tale that would seem all too fantastic if it were not provable with an overabundance of facts.