Mystery Babylon, Catholicism and Nimrod the Black Man

I've been pondering the possibility of Obama as Antichrist. At first thought, despite his ability to attract a worshipful following, and Oprah Winfrey's shockingly adulatory endorsement of him as "the One," and his great talent for lying through his teeth, it doesn't seem likely -- there don't seem to be any obvious connections to the usual expectations about the Antichrist. But the thought keeps growing on me.

Then it started dawning on me that the fact that he is black has interesting implications, although I don't know how to put it all together yet.

When I started studying up on the Antichrist last year because I had this sense of it all being so close, I reread a book written in the 19th century called The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop, which is a revelation of the Catholic Church's legacy from ancient heathen religions. Hislop traces them all back to a religion that made a god of Nimrod, "the mighty hunter before the Lord" of Genesis 10. His study covers many cultures and religions and is quite a work of synthesis. Of course he's dismissed by scholars and especially Catholics, but that's only to be expected.

There are many different strands of connection here and how to reconcile them all isn't obvious at first, to say the least. It took me a while to accept the connection with Nimrod at all.

One connection that's obvious, though, is that the mitre worn by the Pope looks like a fishhead -- right? (A frontal view of it adorns the top of Pope Benedict XVI's coat of arms in the illustration above).

It has an obvious fishhead shape from the front and an open-mouthed fishhead shape seen from the side. Hislop says that goes back to an ancient religion about a fish-god (Babylonian god Oannes, but also see Dagon), and he shows sketches of the priests of that fish-god wearing fish costumes with that exact same fish-head headdress.* So this is one aspect of the connection between the Catholic Church and the ancient mystery religions.

Then he traces the religion of Nimrod through many religions of different cultures with different gods and a variety of different symbols, that he claims are really about this one original god under different names, ALL of them Nimrod according to him, the "mighty hunter before the Lord" and THE BUILDER OF BABEL.

(The "Virgin Mary" and the Mother and Child images so familiar in Catholic lore are also to be found in other religions, which I hadn't known at all: Hinduism, Japanese religion, Egyptian and others, and Hislop traces them all back to the religion of Nimrod too. It's fascinating.)

But the point of connection with Obama that's been going through my head the last couple of days is that Nimrod was a black man.

Mystery, Babylon the Great is the name of the Antichrist religion according to the Book of Revelation. This is interpreted by many to be the Catholic Church (which I discuss here), as the heir of the old mystery religion, which Hislop says is all about Nimrod, the first deified man, the "god" of all the heathen religions. Again, a black man.

Now note this, something I found out in my researches last year: On this current Pope's coat of arms shown at the top of this post (apparently each Pope designs or chooses the elements of his own coat of arms) there is an image that is not very often used, something called the "Moor's head" which is the head of a black man, also called Caput Aethiopum (the Ethiopian's head). It's also pertinent that the Moors are usually Muslims. In fact it's a term I've associated mostly with Spain when it was under the control of Islam, so the image of a black man on the coat of arms came as a surprise to me.

Of course there is no lack of other ways of understanding the symbolism of the Moor's head and other images on the Pope's coat of arms but after reading Hislop Nimrod just naturally comes to mind. One of the interpretations of the Moor's head given by this Wikipedia article, here called the Moor of Freising, refers to Ethiopia, so, again, it's possible an investigation into the origins of the Freising image would take us back to Nimrod through his father Cush, also known as the founder of Ethiopia.

How does all this tie together? At this point there is nothing obvious to link Obama with the Catholic Church. But here's a thought: I guess if he's the Antichrist the Last Pope could be the Prophet of the Antichrist. Or maybe it's not about Obama and there is yet to be a black Pope?

Some references:
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Genesis 10:8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. 10:9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. 10:10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel,
and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

1 Chronicles 1:10 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be mighty upon the earth.

Micah 5:6 And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.

Nimrod is the son of Cush. Cush is considered the father of the Ethiopians, a black-skinned people.

Here's what a Bible dictionary says about Cush:

1. Eldest son of Ham and grandson of Noah. Ge 10:6-8; 1Ch 1:8-10. His descendants are called in the A.V. Ethiopians, though the Hebrew is the same: Cush . The district also occupied by the above people, Isa 11:11, is mostly called in A.V. Ethiopia, q.v. It will be seen by the genealogy that the descendants of Cush were numerous:-

And about Nimrod:

Nim'rod
Son or descendant of Cush, the son of Ham. He was 'mighty upon the earth,' and 'a mighty hunter,' using force and craft to bring man as well as beasts under his sway. The words 'before the Lord' probably signify imperial energy and usurped authority in independence of Jehovah. "The beginning of his kingdom was Babel " with other towns in the land of Shinar . And "out of that land went forth Asshur," or 'he went out to Assyria ,' and built Nineveh and other cities. So that Nimrod and his descendants were those who founded both Babylon and Nineveh . Babylonia was also called the land of Nimrod , which shows that the descendants of Ham settled in the East as well as in Egypt in the South. Those in the East afterwards gave place in a great measure to the descendants of Shem. Ge 10:8-11; 1Ch 1:10; Mic 5:6.

And of course, "Mystery Babylon the Great" -- Revelation 17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. This "mother of harlots" is considered by many to be the Catholic Church, the inheritor of the Babylonian mystery religions.

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Did you know that the Hindu god Krishna was black? Hislop of course says Krishna is one of the many versions of the original god based on Nimrod. According to the Wikipedia article on Krishna,

'The Sanskrit word kṛṣṇa has the literal meaning of "black", "dark" or "dark-blue",[5] and is used as a name to describe someone with dark skin. Krishna is often depicted in murtis (images) as black, and is generally shown in paintings with blue skin.' **

I always wondered why Krishna has blue skin in the usual depictions. So now I know: it's a way of indicating that his skin was very dark.

A couple of images of the black Krishna and a couple of the blue-skinned version:









Then notice the head-dress in the image to the left. Krishna is shown with many different kinds of head gear, but this one is reminiscent of the Pope's miter. The first black Krishna above has a head dress a bit more reminiscient of the Pope's tiara -- the shape is clearer on the tiny figure at the feet of the taller Krishna -- zoom in for a close-up.

Why would the Pope's head-dress be so similar to those of the old heathen gods?



















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* Later it occurred to me the shape is more reminiscent of a snake's head than a fish head because it narrows at the neck, and snakes are very common elements of heathen religions. But Hislop made his case for the fish-head meaning very well so I'll just put this notion on the back burner for now. Symbolism sometimes has multiple references anyway.

** A little language lesson: Krishna + Murti would apparently mean Image of Krishna? There was a famous teacher of an earlier generation known as Krishnamurti, still big in the 60s and 70s though by then only one of a dizzying array of Hindu gurus who had descended on America. So I guess the name designates him one of the god Krishna's avatars or incarnations. As I recall, Krishnamurti never seemed quite happy with his anointing by the Theosophists for the job of World Teacher (Antichrist to a Christian of course) they had in mind for him, although he did do quite a bit of spiritual teaching.