"The
Talmud indicates he was one of the four richest men in Jerusalem. He was a Pharisee and a ruler--a member of the Sanhedrin. He was a member of the aristocratic family that had furnished the Hasmonean King Aristobulus II with his ambassador to Pompey in 63 B.C. His son apparently was the man who negotiated the terms of surrender to the Roman garrison in Jerusalem prior to the final destruction of that city in A.D. 70. [There are Talmudic links to Nicodemus ben Gorion, brother to the historian Josephus, a very wealthy member of the Sanhedrin in the 1st century.]"
Ref-0016, January 1997.
"We will rebel." "the Jerusalem Targum. . . speaks of Nimrod's wickedness. . . Josephus wrote, 'it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. . . He [was also a tyrant] seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God' (1,4,2). Philo, an Alexandrian Jew in the first century after Christ, said, 'Nimrod. . . having a nature truly dissolute, does not at all keep fast the spiritual bond of the soul, nor of nature, nor of consistency of manners, but rather like a giant born of the earth, prefers earthly to heavenly things. . . On which account there is much propriety in the expression, he was a giant against God, which thus declares the opposition of such beings to the deity; for a wicked man is nothing else than an enemy, contending against God: on which account it has become a proverb that every one who sins greatly ought to be referred to him as the original and chief of sinners, being spoken of as a second Nimrod. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis, II, 81)."
Ref-0156, Vol. 38 No. 4, March 2002, p. 216.
". . .ancient accounts indicate that the wife of Nimrod, who founded the city of Babylon, became the head of the so-called Babylonian mysteries which consisted of secret religious rites which were developed as a part of the worship of idols of Babylon. She was known by the name of Semiramis and was a high priestess of the idol worship. According to extrabiblical records which have been preserved, Semiramis gave birth to a son who she claimed was conceived miraculously. This son, given the name of Tammuz, was considered a savior of his people and was, in effect, a false messiah, purported to be the fulfillment of the promise given to Eve. . . Idols picturing the mother as the queen of heaven and the babe in her arms are found throughout the ancient world. . . Tammuz, the son, was said to have been killed by a wild beast and afterward brought back to life, obviously a satanic anticipation of the resurrection of Christ."
Ref-0032, p. 247.
Excavations at the ruins of Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh by Sir Henry Layard in the 1850's confirmed that everything at the site was either burned, looted, or destroyed. Prophecies of destruction were given in 663 BC at apex of Assyrian empire and Assyria vanished into oblivion in 612 BC.
Ref-0025, p. 253. "The annals of Nabopolassar give the date of the fall of Nineveh as the year 612 B.C." Gordon Franz, "Nahum, Nineveh and Those Nasty Assyrians",
Ref-0066, 16.4 (2004), p. 109.