the unsatisfactory theories which have been propounded to account for it, serve to show the difficulties which surround his identification.
The supposition that Nimrod was an ethnic or geographical name, which was slightly favoured by Sir Henry Rawlinson, and has since been urged by Professor Oppert, is quite untenable, for it would be impossible on this theory to account for the traditions which spread abroad with regard to Nimrod.
The idea that Nimrod was Bel, or Elu, the second god in the great Babylonian triad, was equally impossible for the same reason, and because the worship of Bel was, as I have already stated, much more ancient, he being considered one of the creators of the universe and the father of the gods. Bel was the deification of the powers of nature on earth, just as Anu was a deification of the powers of nature in heaven. Similar objections apply to the supposition that Nimrod was Merodach, the god of Babylon, and to his identification with Nergal, who was the man-headed lion. Of course Nimrod was deified like several other celebrated kings, but in no case was a deified king invested as one of the supreme gods and represented as a creator; such a process could only come if a nation entirely forgot its history, and lost its original mythology.
My own opinion that he was the hero I have hitherto called Izdubar was first founded on the discovery that he formed the centre of the national historical poetry, and was the hero of Babylonian
