Nimrod was not merely a tyrant. He was the seed of the world's first false religion. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by undefined Gaster in 1899, the compiler Jerahmeel drew on the ancient geographer Strabo of Caphtor to record an alternative tradition: Nimrod was actually a son of Shem, not Ham. He began his reign in Babylon and fathered Bel.
Before seizing power, Nimrod traveled to Jonithes, a son of Noah who possessed the spirit of the Lord. Jonithes foresaw through astrology that Nimrod would come seeking counsel on how to obtain sovereignty. He revealed to Nimrod the vision of four kingdoms that Daniel would later see—and told him that the descendants of Ashur, the children of Shem, would rule first.
After Nimrod died, his son Bel succeeded him in Babylon. After Bel came Ninus, who conquered Assyria and built the great city of Nineveh, which stretched thirty days' walking distance. Ninus defeated Zoroaster the Wise, who had inscribed seven sciences on fourteen pillars of brass and brick to protect them against flood and fire. Ninus burned those books of wisdom.
When Bel died, Ninus was so grief-stricken that he made an image in his father's likeness and called it "Bel." Anyone whom Ninus hated could be pardoned by approaching the image of Bel and supplicating it. Soon the whole world worshipped the god Bel, and variations appeared everywhere—Ba'al Pe'or, Ba'al Zebub. This, the chronicle claims, is how idol worship spread across the earth. In the forty-third year of Ninus's reign, Abraham was born, and on that very same day, the first Pharaoh began to rule in Egypt.