Genesis 10 - Noah’s Family Tree - Uruk
Noah > Ham > Cush > Nimrod >> Uruk
Uruk is not a person, but a city that scripture says was ruled by Nimrod. The thing that surprises me about Uruk is that its history goes back to before the flood. The rest of the cities I have traced back either start right after my date for the flood (2807 BC), or any sign of civilization before the flood is simple, and evidence after it shows sudden growth and advancement. Uruk is a little different.
Uruk is in southern Iraq, around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and contains history going back to even before Adam’s birth. But, here’s the thing. There is a distinct break in Uruk’s history, around the 29th century BC. Some place the break closer to 2900 BC than to 2800 BC, but that’s still pretty close to my dating of The Flood if you ask me.
Here are some Wikipedia links to Uruk’s history leading up to the flood…
- Ubaid Period (6500-3800 BC)
- Ubaid 1 (5300-4700 BC) - pioneered the growing of grains in the extreme conditions of aridity
- Ubaid 2 (4800-4500 BC) - Irrigation agriculture began around 4700-4600BC
- Ubaid 3 (4500-4000 BC) -Â A period of intense and rapid urbanisation
- Uruk Period (4000-3200 BC) (not to be confused with the beginning of the Uruk Dynasty after 2900 BC)
- Emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia
- Corresponds to the early Bronze Age
- Strong signs of government organization
- Jemdet Nasr period (3200–2900 BC)
- Early Bronze Age culture
- Numerous small Mesopotamian settlements developed into major cities
For a frame of reference related to Adam’s descendants during this time, please note the following. (It should be noted that many of the archaeological dates above differ between sources by 100 years or so, so getting within 100 years of projected dates appears to be doing pretty good.)
- 4463 BC - Re-Birth of Adam in Christ (True age unknown)
- 4333 BC - Birth of Seth
- 4228 BC - Birth of Enosh (People began to call on the name of the LORD)
- 4138 BC - Birth of Kenan
- 4068 BC - Birth of Mahalalel
- 4003 BC - Birth of Jared
- 3841 BC - Birth of Enoch
- 3776 BC - Birth of Methuselah
- 3763 BC - Beginning of the Jewish Calendar (adjusted)
- (37?? BC - Death of Cain?)
- 3589 BC - Birth of Lamech
- (3533 BC - Death of Adam)
- (3476 BC - Enoch was taken away)
- (3421 BC - Death of Seth)
- 3407 BC - Birth of Noah
- (3323 BC - Death of Enosh)
- (3228 BC - Death of Kenan)
- (3173 BC - Death of Mahalalel)
- (3041 BC - Death of Jared)
- 2927 BC - God sees mankind is evil; says they will have another 120 years
- (2807 BC - Death of Methuselah - Before The Flood)
- 2807 BC - The Flood
I would also like to note Cain’s lineage…
- 4463 BC - Re-Birth of Adam in Christ
- Birth of Cain
- Birth of Enoch
- Birth of Irad
- Birth of Mehujael
- Birth of Methushael
- Birth of Lamech
- Birth of Jabal to Lamech (tents and livestock)
- Birth of Jubal to Lamech (stringed instruments and pipes)
- Birth of Tubal-Cain to Lamech (bronze and iron tools)
If the generational separation is at all similar to Seth’s descendants, then Tubal-Cain may have been born around Methuselah’s birth. By then, based on Lamech’s boast and the obvious allusion to Cain in Tubal-Cain’s name in Genesis 4, I am guessing Cain was most likely recently dead. This places the duration of Cain’s life, during which he made and ruled cities, within the Ubaid and Uruk periods, when advances in tools and city building are evident in the archaeological history.
Then came The Flood in 2807 BC, and that’s when everything in Uruk changed.
Soon after The Flood was the Tower of Babel, and the confusion of languages, which caused a lot of dispersion within the land. It is within that time period that the First Dynasty of Uruk began, between 2600-2700BC according to Wikipedia. In fact, note the following…
As in the rest of Sumer power moved progressively from the temple to the palace. Rulers from the Early Dynastic period exercised control over Uruk and at times over all Sumer. In myth kingship was lowered from heaven to Eridu then passed successively through five cites until the deluge which ended the Uruk period. Afterwards, kingship passed to Kish at the beginning of the Early Dynastic period, which corresponds to the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in Sumer. In the Early Dynastic I period (2900–2800 BC) Uruk was in theory under the control of Kish. This period is sometimes called the Golden Age. During the Early Dynastic II period (2800–2600 BC) Uruk was again the dominant city exercising control of Sumer.
Notice how this was written. I am presuming that the maintainer of this page had no idea that someone would come along with a preconceived notion that Noah’s Flood was in 2807 BC, and the Tower of Babel was shortly after that. But regardless, look at the sequence of events contained within the quoted paragraph above:
- The history of Uruk seems constant seems continuous until 2900BC (as we saw further up)
- The deluge (i.e., the Great Flood of Sumerian mythology) ended the Uruk period, which in this context includes the Jemdet Nasr period
- Archaeologists are not too sure of what happened between 2900 and 2800 BC — could that because the mythical deluge was real, and was followed up by the Tower of Babel?
- A golden age around the time of the dispersion, around the time when bilingualism became widespread in Akkad – could this be a result of what happens when many people are weakened, and a few good leaders step up to organize them all?
Now obviously, Nimrod is not recorded by history as Uruk’s founder or king. However, the approximate time at which he might have had Uruk as ‘center of his kingdom’ would have been about 4 generations after the flood. If we hypothesize his move to Assyria to be after the Tower of Babel, then this might place his him at Uruk around 2700BC, and history does have Uruk being “once again the dominant city exercising control of Sumer.” But then, doesn’t history have a ruler for Uruk at this time? Well, kind of.
As I said above, Uruk had a golden age from 2800-2600BC, and this is after Kish stopped ruling Uruk. Supposedly following, the first ruler after Kish was Mesh-ki-ang-gasher. But here’s the thing… history is not sure if he was real, because he is recorded to have been king for 324 years. This creates a degree of uncertainty as to who the actual ruler was during that time. It means that Nimrod could well have been the ruler of Uruk, and Mesh-ki-ang-gasher got the credit.
February 20th, 2011 at 9:55 am
To clarify, I am proposing that there were several rulers/kings during Mesh-ki-ang-gasher’s 324-year period, and that the time of Nimrod’s life would allow for him to have been one of them. Ditto for Akkad.
February 20th, 2011 at 7:13 pm
Looking more closely at the Sumerian King List (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_King_List), I see now that there are thousands of years of kingships compressed into the period of 2900BC to 2600BC. Clearly, these are not real years. Maybe the kings of the time (to whatever degrees these kings existed) exaggerated their rulership in order to add to their power and mystique. Who knows? My main point however remains unchanged however… there’s too much mystery and uncertainty to rule out a Nimrod rulership.
March 11th, 2011 at 8:01 am
After writing about artificial years and the King’s Calendar recently, perhaps a I should revisit the 1656 years from Adam to Noah. Assuming those are actually artificial years, I can divide 1656 by 1.083 to get real years, which comes out to 1529. Added to 2807 BC, that means Adam is dated to 4336 BC, 127 years more recent. This places the number of years since Adam at 6,346 years ago, versus 6473. I like that because, I had wanted that time to be under 6,400 years. Interestingly, the Jewish Year 6400 years after Adam will be 2064, and it will be 600 years before we reach exactly 7,000.