Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Religious Music & Entertainment
X-Men: Apocalypse and the legend of Nimrod’s arrows

X-Men: Apocalypse and the legend of Nimrod’s arrows

Last updated on: May 27, 2016 at 1:37 pm by Peter T. Chattaway

X-Men: Apocalypse and the legend of Nimrod’s arrows 2016-05-27T13:37:11-07:00 Peter T. Chattaway

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Warning: There are some mild spoilers for X-Men: Apocalypse here.

X-Men: Apocalypse is full of religious themes, but one scene in particular jumped out at me, because of how it uses an old legend about Nimrod and the Tower of Babel.

In the scene in question, Apocalypse — a god-like mutant who wakes up in 1983 after being in a coma for over five thousand years — telepathically connects to missile controllers all over the world and has them launch their nuclear missiles into space.

As he does this, Apocalypse declares portentously:

Always the same, and now all this. No more stones. No more spears. No more slings. No more swords. No more weapons! No more systems! No more superpowers. . . . You can fire your arrows from the Tower of Babel, but you can never strike God!

Setting aside for now the fact that arrows are not firearms and are therefore “loosed”, not “fired” (a mistake made by The Lord of the Rings and many other films), this is an obvious and intriguing — and subversive — reference to the Nimrod story.

The Bible doesn’t say much about Nimrod, but Genesis 10 does say that he was Noah’s great-grandson — born just two generations after the Flood — and that he ruled or founded the capital cities of the Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian empires.

Because of the role Nimrod played in the founding of Babylon, it is often assumed that he had something to do with the Tower of Babel (described in Genesis 11).

The traditions about Nimrod have sometimes said that either he or his underlings shot arrows at the sky from the tower — and that God sent the arrows back bloodied, to trick the people into thinking that they had succeeded in defeating him.

A Jewish midrash called the Sepir Ha Yasher, or Book of Jasher, states (in chapter 9):

25 And the building of the tower was unto them a transgression and a sin, and they began to build it, and whilst they were building against the Lord God of heaven, they imagined in their hearts to war against him and to ascend into heaven.

26 And all these people and all the families divided themselves in three parts; the first said We will ascend into heaven and fight against him; the second said, We will ascend to heaven and place our own gods there and serve them; and the third part said, We will ascend to heaven and smite him with bows and spears; and God knew all their works and all their evil thoughts, and he saw the city and the tower which they were building. . . .

29 And the Lord knew their thoughts, and it came to pass when they were building they cast the arrows toward the heavens, and all the arrows fell upon them filled with blood, and when they saw them they said to each other, Surely we have slain all those that are in heaven.

30 For this was from the Lord in order to cause them to err, and in order; to destroy them from off the face of the ground.

The Jewish Encyclopedia notes that these legends about Nimrod, the tower and the arrows passed into the Muslim tradition as well, with some modifications:

After many years had been spent in the construction of the tower, Nimrod ascended to its top, but he was greatly surprised to find that the heavens were still as remote from him as when he was on the ground. . . . Undaunted by this failure, Nimrod planned another way to reach the heavens. He had a large chest made with an opening in the top and another in the bottom. At the four corners of the chest stakes were fixed, with a piece of flesh on each point. Then four large vultures, or, according to another source, four eagles, previously fed upon flesh, were attached to the stakes below the meat. Accompanied by one of his most faithful viziers, Nimrod entered the chest, and the four great birds soared up in the air carrying the chest with them (comp. Alexander’s ascent into the air; Yer. ‘Ab. Zarah iii. 42c; Num. R. xiii. 13). The vizier opened alternately the upper and lower doors of the chest in order that by looking in both directions he might know whether or not he was approaching heaven. When they were so high up that they could see nothing in either direction Nimrod took his bow and shot arrows into the sky. Gabriel thereupon sent the arrows back stained with blood, so that Nimrod was convinced that he had avenged himself upon Abraham’s God.

Not surprisingly, these legends have been depicted or alluded to in a few films.1

First, there is John Huston’s The Bible: In the Beginning… (1966), in which Nimrod is played by Stephen Boyd (who previously played Messala in Ben-Hur):

Nimrod shoots his arrow into the sky, and at that point we hear God say that he will go down there and confuse the languages of the people. A wind rises up and knocks the people down as well as some of the scaffolding around the Tower, and when the wind dies down, Nimrod finds that he cannot understand what anyone is saying.

Then there is the Iranian film Abraham, the Friend of God (2008):

Here, an advisor tells Nimrod, “You are the lord of the earth. Go and fight the lord of the sky!” So Nimrod climbs to the top of his tower and shoots an arrow into the sky “to kill Abraham’s god.” But as soon as Nimrod shoots his arrow, an insect flies up his nose and begins to drive him insane. And so the mighty Nimrod is brought low.

The Nimrod story also provides some subtext for Darren Aronofsky’s Noah (2014):

Tubal-Cain, the villain of Aronofsky’s film, is basically a Nimrod-figure, for a whole host of reasons — and one of those reasons is that he fires a tzohar cannon into the sky just before he rallies his troops with a speech inspired by the Babel story.

The striking thing about the reference to the Tower of Babel in X-Men: Apocalypse is how it plays over images of nuclear missiles being shot into space — and how these images, combined with Apocalypse’s words, twist the familiar legend.

For one thing, those nuclear missiles were never meant to be shot at God, but at other nations. It is Apocalypse, not we, who aimed them at space (or the heavens).

But Apocalypse claims to be God himself, so when he aims the missiles at space, he is aiming them away from God, as it were, from his point of view, and not at God.

And yet, as the film makes clear on multiple occasions, Apocalypse is himself a “false god” and not the real God — so perhaps, by shooting all those missiles into space to prove his power, he has more in common with Nimrod than he might think.

And yet, in comparing our own mastery of the world through technology to the hubris of those who built the Tower of Babel, Apocalypse does kind of have a point.

There are a few things I don’t like about the nuclear-missile sequence in this film — such as its distracting use of a Stan Lee cameo at an otherwise serious moment — but I do like the way it plays with the Nimrod story and points it in multiple directions.

–

1. A search for Nimrod (or “Nemrod”, as his name is spelled in French) in Hervé Dumont’s massive index L’Antiquité au cinéma turns up just six films, including the two I mention here. The others are: the Turkish films Hazreti Ibrahim (1964) and Nemrud (1979), the Iranian stop-motion puppet film Ebrahim dar Golestan (1983), and the American film The Eternal Jew (1933), filmed entirely in Yiddish. I have not seen those films and have no idea if they depict Nimrod or anyone else shooting arrows at the sky.

Bible Movies

Blog

abraham the friend of god

babel

bible in the beginning

Previous Post

May 26, 2016

Prophet Joseph -- episodes eleven and twelve

Next Post

May 27, 2016 Review: Alice through the Looking Glass (dir. James Bobin, 2016)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Anglican Planet Articles BC Christian News BC Report Bible Movies Bible Review Blog Books & Culture Campus Times CBC Radio Christianity Today ChristianWeek Essays Faith Today Festival Cinemas Guide Film Journals Georgia Straight Interviews MB Herald National Catholic Register Salvationist Today's Christian Two Chairs Ubyssey Uncategorized Vancouver Courier Vancouver Sun

Select a Month August 2025 April 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 May 2024 February 2024 December 2023 May 2023 March 2023 November 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 September 2019 July 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 April 2012 January 2012 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 November 2003 October 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 March 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 April 2001 March 2001 February 2001 December 2000 November 2000 October 2000 September 2000 August 2000 July 2000 June 2000 May 2000 April 2000 March 2000 January 2000 October 1999 August 1999 May 1999 April 1999 February 1999 January 1999 December 1998 November 1998 October 1998 August 1998 July 1998 June 1998 April 1998 March 1998 January 1998 November 1997 September 1997 July 1997 June 1997 April 1997 March 1997 February 1997 January 1997 December 1996 October 1996 September 1996 June 1996 March 1996 February 1996 January 1996 April 1995 November 1994 September 1994 September 1991

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who doubted Jesus' resurrection until he saw His wounds?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Thomas Peter Philip James