In the Bible and in legend, Nimrod (Hebrew: נִמְרוֹד, Standard Nimrod Tiberian נִמְרֹד ; Nimrōḏ), son of Cush, grandson of Ham, great-grandson of Noah, was a Mesopotamian monarch and "a mighty hunter before the LORD". The first written account of Nimrod in the Bible is attributed to the Jahwist according to the "documentary hypothesis".[1] He is mentioned in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10), where he is said to have founded many cities. He also appears in the First Book of Chronicles and in the Book of Micah. In the Hebrew Bible he is an obscure figure. In later interpretations, as recorded by Josephus and the rabbis who compiled the midrash, he is the subject of innumerable legends. Tradition makes him out to be an impious tyrant who built the Tower of Babel.

Alexander Hislop, in his tract The Two Babylons (Chapter 2, Section II, Sub-Section I) decided that Nimrod was to be identified with Ninus, who according to Greek legend was a Mesopotamian king and husband of Semiramis (see below); with a whole host of deities throughout the Mediterranean world, and with the Persian Zoroaster. For the latter, he may have followed the identification of Nebrod (the Septuagint's transliteration of Nimrod) found in the Clementine homilies (Homily IX).

David Rohl, like Hislop, identified Nimrod with a complex of Mediterranean deities; among those he picked were Asar, Baal, Dumuzi, and Osiris. In Rohl's theory, Enmerkar the founder of Uruk was the original inspiration for Nimrod, because the story of Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta (see: [5]) bears a few similarities to the legend of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel, and because the -KAR in Enmerkar means "hunter". Additionally, Enmerkar is said to have had ziggurats built in both Uruk and Eridu, which Rohl postulates was the site of the original Babel.

Because another of the cities said to have been built by Nimrod was Accad, an older theory connects him with Sargon the Great since, according to the Sumerian king list, that king first built Agade (Akkad). The assertion of the king list that it was Sargon who built Akkad has been called into question, however, with the discovery of inscriptions mentioning the place in the reigns of some of Sargon's predecessors, such as kings Enshakushanna and Lugal-Zage-Si of Uruk.

The Church of the Great God has also asserted that Nimrod is to be identified with the Egyptian god Osiris, and was posthumously father of Gilgamesh[6].

Nimrod figures in some very early versions of the history of Freemasonry, where he was said to have been one of the fraternity's founders. According to the Encyclopedia of Freemasonry: The legend of the Craft in the Old Constitutions refers to Nimrod as one of the founders of Masonry. Thus in the York MS., No. 1, we read: "At ye making of ye toure of Babell there was a Masonrie first much esteemed of, and the King of Babilon yt called Nimrod was a Mason himself and loved well Masons." However, he does not figure in the current rituals.