by Brian Godawa
Other books by the Author
Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films with Wisdom
and Discernment (InterVarsity Press)
Word Pictures: Knowing God Through Story and Imagination (InterVarsity Press)
Chronicles of the Nephilim
Noah Primeval
Enoch Primordial
Gilgamesh Immortal
Abraham Allegiant
Joshua Valiant
Caleb Vigilant
Movies written by the Author
To End All Wars
The Visitation
Alleged
Change Your Life
For more information and products by the author,
see the back pages of this book or go to:
www.ChroniclesOfTheNephilim.com
www.godawa.com
Abraham Allegiant
Chronicles of the Nephilim
Book Four
By Brian Godawa
Copyright ©2013 Brian Godawa
All rights reserved.
2nd Edition
Embedded Pictures Publishing
Los Angeles, California
310.948.0224
www.embeddedpictures.com
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001.
Dedicated to
the fans of Chronicles of the Nephilim.
You helped me name most of the books,
including this one,
and you inspired me to work diligently
to satisfy your story hunger.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to the wife of my youth, Kimberly, and if you are a fan of the series, you should thank her too because without her there would be no Chronicles of the Nephilim. Thank you also to Amber Lary for her editing services on this novel, and Blake Samuels for his helpful content feedback in all things Mesopotamian.
All gratitude to El Shaddai, God Almighty, who is El Elyon, God Most High.
Note to the Reader:
The saga Chronicles of the Nephilim employs an ancient technique of changing names of both people and places from novel to novel and sometimes within the same novel. This peculiar technique was universally engaged in by all ancient Near Eastern writing including the Bible because in that world, names were not merely arbitrary sign references. Names reflected the essential purpose, meaning, or achievement of people or places. Thus, when people experienced significant changes in their lives, they might also change their name or the name of a location where it occurred. Or when one nation adopted another nation’s deity, it would give it their own name. Even the God of the Bible uses different names for himself in different instances to communicate his different attributes. While this is not familiar to modern readers and can cause difficulty in keeping all the names and identities straight, I have chosen to employ that peculiar technique as a way of incarnating the ancient worldview and mindset. So reader be warned to watch names carefully and expect them to be changing on you even when you are not looking.
In the interest of aiding the reader in managing the name changes in the series up to this point, and including Abraham Allegiant, I have included the following charts that illustrate some of the more significant name changes.
Creator
Semjaza
Azazel
Gadreel
Gilgamesh
Enoch Primordial
(Sumer)
Elohim
Anu
Inanna
__
__
Noah Primeval
(Sumer)
Elohim,
Yahweh
__
Inanna
__
__
Gilgamesh Immortal
(Sumer)
Elohim
__
Ishtar
Ninurta
Gilgamesh
Abraham Allegiant
(Babylon)
El Shaddai
__
Ishtar
Marduk
Nimrod
Abraham Allegiant
(Canaan)
El Elyon
__
Ashtart
Ba’al
Amraphel
Divine attribute
Creator
Almighty
Most High
High God of pantheon
Goddess of sex & war
God of
vegetation & storm
A Nephilim
Creator God
Nachash
Giants
Sons of God
Noah
Other Names
Yahweh Elohim
The Serpent
Nephilim
Bene ha Elohim
Utnaphishtim
Yahweh
The satan
Rephaim
Watchers
Ziusudra
Elohim
Mastema
Emim
gods
Chosen One
El Shaddai
A Seraphim
Caphtorim
Heavenly Host
Angel of Yahweh
Shining One
Zamzummim
Divine Council
Son of Man
Adversary
Anakim
Shining Ones
El Elyon
Avvim
Holy Ones
Horim
Anunnaki
True Heaven
Sumerian Pantheon
Seven Gods Who Decree the Fates
Sumerian Pantheon
Four High Gods
Mesopotamian
Heavens and Earth
Hierarchy
Yahweh Elohim
Anu
Anu
Yahweh Elohim’s throne
Angel of Yahweh
Enlil
Enlil
The waters above the heavens
Seraphim
Enki
Enki
The firmament
Cherubim
Ninhursag
Ninhursag
The heavens
Sons of God
Inanna
__
Earth
M’alak (angels)
Utu
__
The Abyss
Nana
__
Pillars of the earth
Sheol
Chapter 1
The mighty hunter, Nimrod, stepped off his four-wheeled chariot and looked into the thicket of reeds that was before him. He was the giant king of Sumer and Akkad, the land of Mesopotamia. At nine feet tall, with a closely cropped beard, piercing eyes, and hunter’s armor, he was terrifying. He was a Naphil, one of the Nephilim, demigods born of the sexual union of god and human, which explained his towering height and massive strength.
He was supported by a contingent of forty other huntsmen and trappers on their chariots equipped with nets, throwing sticks, clubs, and bolas. They did not carry their bows, swords, and javelins because they were not hunting to kill, but to trap. And they carried neck and hand bindings rather than cages because they were not hunting animals; they were hunting humans.
“We spread out from here on foot,” said Nimrod to his two captains. “Rendezvous at the target point at nightfall.”
The captains nodded and took their squads of six men each into the thick forest of reeds before them.
The chariots were useless in the marshy wetlands. They were in the southernmost part of Mesopotamia, the marshes and waterways outside the huge city-state of Ur on the coast of the Southern Sea. This was the tail end of the great Tigris and Euphrates rivers that traversed the vast alluvi
al plains of Akkad and Sumer where they emptied into the Gulf.
This delta area was quite different from the rest of Mesopotamia. Because of its southernmost location near the sea, it contained a myriad of shallow lakes and narrow waterways winding through dense thickets of reeds that often grew taller than men, creating a natural maze of protection for the rustic inhabitants that lived in its midst. They were pastoralists who avoided urban life and sought independence, living off the land.
And that is why Nimrod wanted them as slaves.
He had left Uruk and moved to the central area of Mesopotamia to establish a new kingdom. But he had to build a city to match his ambition. Such a massive undertaking required manpower, more than he had at the time. So he was building a slave force by subjugating outlying rural tribes and transporting them upriver to his home base, now called Babylon.
In just a short time, he had secured Mesopotamia by starting the communities of Akkad and Babylon. His mighty army consisted of hundreds of his own giant progeny and became quickly feared and respected in the region. These were the giant offspring he had produced when he was king of Uruk and had established jus prima noctis, the divine right of the lord to first conjugal rights with all brides of the city. He ultimately abandoned the practice because of the consequences of a populace that resented their king. But not before he had sired hundreds of giant sons and daughters that he had taken with him to build his future.
Nimrod established a beneficent vassal kingdom through a treaty coalition with the tribes of the sons of Noah. Sippar, Nippur, and Kish were all allowed their own local rule without hostility under the condition of tribute and military support to Nimrod, who also started his northern expansion into the Syrian foothills of the Zagros with his newly established cities of Nineveh, Asshur, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen.
Down in southern Sumeria, Nimrod’s son Ur-Nungal ruled Uruk and helped him to consolidate his power over Eridu, Larsa, Lagash, and Ur. Ur was overtaking Uruk as the largest cosmopolitan metropolis in Mesopotamia with its trading location on the Gulf and its surrounding vast agricultural regions of rich soil. Ur was circumvented by hundreds of acres of villages, hamlets, farming land, and irrigation canals controlled by the government for the good of the people. At least, that is what they said to maintain the illusion of civilian participation in the collective. Beyond the city-state boundaries were the marshlands where Nimrod now quietly stalked his human prey.
It was near dark and the villagers of the marshland were settling down for their community meal by the fires that consisted of cooked boar and water buffalo, along with vegetables and some grains. They were a peaceful people who preferred to be left alone to care for themselves. They did some trading with the urban dwellers of Ur, but usually did so under the table to avoid the oppressive taxes of the city. Their village was located along a channel deep in the marshland. Their economy was built on the staple product of the perennial reeds all around them. They would cut the strong flexible stalks down with sickles and use them for just about everything, including fodder for livestock feeding and fuel for cooking. They even built their homes and boats out of reeds, covered with a layer of pitch for waterproofing.
It was that pitch covering the reed houses that went up in flames all around the village, set alight by Nimrod’s hidden trappers, now surrounding the village in the reeds.
Some women screamed. But it was too late to save the homes. They were burning to the ground.
Nimrod’s men burst out of the shallows, throwing nets over whole families of villagers, pummeling the fighters, and chasing down stragglers. Their favorite tools for capture were the bola and the throwing stick. The bola was a rope with a weighted iron ball on each end that was thrown at its victim. It would wrap itself around the prey’s legs or torso, bringing them to the ground, or knocking them out. The throwing stick was a flat curved piece of hardened gopher wood that was shaped like a crescent moon. One threw the stick to incapacitate victims at a distance.
Bolas and throwing sticks flew through the smoky chaos that enveloped the village. Others were clubbed into submission. Women were dragged by their hair and chained up for transportation. The attractive ones were often raped first before shackling them, and then chosen for further satisfaction of lusts along their journey northward. The men who fought back with weapons were usually killed if they could not be disarmed.
It took a mere fifteen minutes or so before the entire village was captured, wrangled, and bound for transport. Nimrod strode along the line of about seventy-five captive men, women and children as he announced their destiny.
“People of the marshland, you are now slaves of my kingdom. I am the mighty Nimrod of Babylon. You will be brought to my region up north to help build my city and temple for my name and glory. If you submit and obey, you will be treated fairly. If you do not, you will suffer and die. I will not tolerate insubordination.”
At that moment, one of Nimrod’s warriors brought the chieftain of the village to him, bound, gagged, and struggling defiantly.
Without pause, Nimrod withdrew his sword and cut off the head of the chieftain. The corpse fell to the ground spurting blood from its arteries. Its head rolled near the throng of captives, and they knew without further argument that their future would not be a hopeful one.
Nimrod said with deadpan frankness, “I am now your king. I am your god.”
Chapter 2
Ur was a port city on the gulf of the Southern Sea. Because of its prime location, it became rich in transport taxes. All trade shipped in from abroad went through its harbor on the Euphrates to the other cities upriver. It would later be known as “Ur of the Chaldees” because of the growing influx of Chaldean people in the region.
Ur was already getting a reputation for its elaborate funerals and royal tombs of the deceased. The king, Urnanna, was obsessed with bureaucracy and administration and had constructed a most voluminous library of laws and decrees in his perpetual quest for godlike control of the province. The urban landscape within its walls could only be described as cramped and suffocating for its city dwellers. Homes were small and tightly packed by design of the city planners in order to maximize a dependent citizenry and minimize freedom of movement.
Nimrod rode his chariot at the head of the processional of newly captured slaves through the main street up to the temple district that was at the height and heart of the city. Urnanna was Nimrod’s vassal king; Ur, a tributary of his rule. He always performed triumphal entries with her usual fanfare and grandiosity in order to impress his subjects and reinforce his godlike authority. It helped that he was nine feet tall, a Naphil, born of Watcher god and human mother. He had discovered that the more theatrical and godlike his rhetoric and display, the more fear he garnered. His ultimate goal was deification.
The real deity rode beside Nimrod in his chariot as his personal bodyguard and emissary from the pantheon of gods. This was Marduk, a huge eight-foot muscle-bound hulk, who wore a hooded cloak and stood quietly in the shadow of Nimrod so as not to draw attention to himself. In fact, he was a fierce warrior of many weapons and was only waiting for his moment to step out of the shadows and execute his own secret plan, a plan of which even the assembly of gods was unaware.
But his time had not yet come.
They ended their parade at the foot of the Great Ziggurat of Ur, a brick temple tower so large, it could be seen miles away above the plains. Its name was Etemennigur, which meant, “House whose foundation creates terror.” It was about two hundred feet square and about one hundred feet high and was made of mud bricks that created a solid structure, the top of which was a shrine to the moon god Nanna, the patron deity of the city.
Ziggurats were step pyramids that were accessed by stairways extending up to the shrine on long ramps. They were man-made holy mountains that functioned as ceremonial stairways of descent from heaven to earth for the gods. They were considered to be the very cosmic connection of heaven and earth, with its foundation being in Sheol and its top reaching
to the heavens of the gods. The ziggurat at Larsa was called Eduranki, which meant, “Temple that links heaven and earth”; at Sippar, Ekunankuga, “Temple of the stairway to pure heaven.”
But that was not all. The temple was also a likeness on earth of the temple that was in heaven. It was a representation that was spiritually linked to its heavenly reality, thus inspiring the liturgical formula, “as in heaven, so on earth.” Sacred space was enmeshed with sacred performance as a tangible nexus between these two realms.
The priests’ and priestesses’ housing as well as the king’s palace were built in close proximity to the Great Ziggurat to ensure a religious and political focal point for the city. Royalty and religion were closely linked.
Nimrod gazed upon the edifice with awe. He thought to himself, The temple I build will dwarf this pile of bricks as a mountain dwarfs an anthill.
He had been planning his temple structure for some time along with the city he was building to house it in grandeur: Babylon. But this was to be more than the most glorious and mightiest temple. It had been commissioned by the assembly of gods to be a cosmic mountain to take the place of their current residence far in the west at Mount Hermon. The goal was for Nimrod to become the first world potentate residing in Babylon and for the gods to consolidate their heavenly power with his earthly rule for an ultimate unity between heaven and earth. The Babylonian temple would be dedicated in an occultic ceremony of sorcery that would establish it as the new cosmic mountain of the gods. A portal would open to the heavens that would allow easy access for the gods to this, “land between the rivers,” the origins of civilization after the flood.
