Thanks to the Book of Daniel, King Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’ can be identified with Nabonidus
by
Damien F. Mackey
The historicity of the prophet Daniel and of
the book that bears his name has become hopelessly clouded by factors such as the
(i) inaccurate view of neo-Babylonian succession; (ii) a late authorship (C2nd
BC) attribution; and the (iii) over-emphasis upon Aramaïc.
Attempted interpretations of the Bible
can suffer badly from erroneous extra-biblical factors, such as an
over-inflated historico-archaeological model.
The biblical narrative is thus forced
to squeeze fit, in Procrustean fashion, within a matrix that has no proper
basis in reality, meaning that we end up with, not so much the prophet
Jeremiah’s “Terror on every side” (e.g., 20:10), but with “Error on every
side”. In Part One of this series (https://www.academia.edu/23886406/_Nebuchednezzar_of_the_Book_of_Daniel), however, and
elsewhere, I have argued for a radical shortening of the conventional
neo-Babylonian succession, with Nebuchednezzar II ‘the Great’, for instance,
now to be identified with the King Nabonidus who so notably resembles “Nebuchednezzar”
of the Book of Daniel.
The reason being, that Nabonidus was that Nebuchednezzar.
But historians and biblical
commentators almost universally adopt an approach quite different from mine.
Blindly trusting in their conventional apparatus, they, upon realisation that
the biblical data cannot comfortably be aligned with it, must emasculate the
biblical account in, as I said, a Procrustean fashion. One example that stands
out in my mind is that of the fallen walls of Early Bronze III Jericho, which adequately
fits the account of it given in the Book of Joshua, but archaeologically does
not correlate with the estimated time of Joshua, but, rather, with a much
earlier era. Conclusion: The Joshuan account must have borrowed from some real
historical situation that had occurred many centuries before.
But, how about this approach instead?
The Joshuan account adequately fits a real historico-archaeological situation
that is thought to have occurred much earlier than Joshua.
Let us re-examine the conventional
apparatus to see if it has all been put together properly.
Now, in the case of the Book of
Daniel, what has been so colourfully narrated about its king, “Nebuchednezzar”,
seems to have been borrowed from a king named Nabonidus. So - and this has been
my approach - could Nebuchednezzar and Nabonidus be just the one king, meaning
that the conventional neo-Babylonian succession has been wrongly constructed,
with kings being multiplied.
That is not the usual approach, though,
as we shall read next.
Book of Daniel and historical evidences
“The Babylonian
king Belshazzar in Daniel 5 reflects the historical Bēl-šar-us-ur, eldest son
of Nabonidus and regent of the kingdom during his father’s ten-year absence in
Arabia. The Daniel tradition erroneously makes him the actual king and portrays
him as the son of Nebuchadnezzar”.
Paul-Alain Beaulieu
The methodology that I wrote that I favoured
in Part Two (i) is by no means the
usual approach, however, which latter is typically the one employed by Paul-Alain
Beaulieu, in his nonetheless interesting article, “The Babylonian
Background of the Motif of the Fiery Furnace in Daniel 3” (Journal of Biblical Literature, 128 (2009) 289-306), also available
at:
Beaulieu, who has accepted the
standard view of long oral traditions leading to a late authorship of the Book
of Daniel, will nonetheless find that “the story of Daniel and
his three companions being taken to the court of Babylon, given rations from the
king’s table, and educated in the lore and manners of the Chaldeans, fits
remarkably well with the evidence available from contemporary documents”:
…. The
royal order to worship the golden image, the refusal of the three Jewish youths
to comply with Nebuchadnezzar’s demands, their ordeal in the fiery furnace and
miraculous salvation, followed by their reinstatement in royal favor, all
raise fascinating literary and theological questions. The themes and motifs
that make up this narrative underwent a long process of oral and written
transmission that is extremely difficult to reconstruct.
Indeed,
any proposal in that direction is bound to remain speculative. Changes
inevitably occurred in the tale during the long process of its
elaboration, a time span covering more than three centuries. This means that
the original historical background remains partly concealed behind the final
redaction. How much does Daniel 3 reflect the situation of Jewish exiles at the
Babylonian court in the sixth century, and the political and theological
debates which took place at that time?
I
propose in the next few pages to address one aspect of this question, the motif
of the punishment in the fiery furnace.
I.
The Account in Daniel 3
The
episode related in Daniel 3 allegedly took place at the court of
Nebuchadnezzar, the conqueror of Jerusalem who reigned from 605 to 562 …. Following
the deportations he ordered, Jewish exiles settled in Babylonia in substantial numbers
in the early decades of the sixth century.
The
fate of some exiles is now documented by a group of cuneiform contract tablets
stemming mainly from two localities in the region of Nippur, one of them called
“city of Judah/of the Judeans” (Al Yahudu/Yahudayu), the Babylonian name of
Jerusalem.
As
the majority of the people appearing in the documents bear West Semitic and
Judean names, it seems certain that this new Jerusalem in Babylonia had been
founded by recent exiles. Those Judeans integrated to various degrees into the
life of their new home. Some even gravitated around the royal court. Indeed,
such a group of Judeans appearing in cuneiform tablets has been known since
1939, when Ernst Weidner published administrative documents discovered in
Babylon at the beginning of the twentieth century in the storeroom area of the
royal palace and datable to the thirteenth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.
A
few tablets record deliveries of rations to groups of foreigners, some of them
obviously state prisoners. Among the recipients one finds Jehoiachin, the king
of Judah exiled in 597, and a number of unnamed Judean men and princes who
presumably belonged to Jehoiachin’s retinue. 2 Kings25:27–30 tells us that in
the twenty-seventh year of the exile, the Babylonian king Evil-Merodach (=
Amēl-Marduk, son of Nebuchadnezzar II, reigned 562–560 … released him from
prison, provided him with a regular allowance and received him every day at his
table.
Mackey’s comment: I have
identified this king Jehoiachin (Coniah) with the conspiratorial Haman of the
Book of Esther:
Is the Book of Esther a Real History?
Beaulieu continues:
Therefore
the story of Daniel and his three companions being taken to the court of
Babylon, given rations from the king’s table, and educated in the lore and
manners of the Chaldeans, fits remarkably well with the evidence available from
contemporary documents.
While
the general historical context of Daniel 3 seems relatively easy to assess, some
aspects of its setting remain foggy. It has long been accepted that behind the Danielic
Nebuchadnezzar lurks a memory of the historical Nabonidus, the last king of
Babylon, who reigned from 556 to 539 ….
Mackey’s comment: But, according
to my reconstructions, Nabonidus was not “the last king of Babylon”, but he was
Nebuchednezzar himself, hence the Book of Daniel’s lurking “memory of the
historical Nabonidus”.
Beaulieu will now, again missing the point,
go on to write that Nabonidus’s son Belshazzar is a reflection of the “Babylonian
king Belshazzar in Daniel 5”. The truth of the matter is that this is just the
one Belshazzar. Thus we read:
The
figure of Nabonidus emerges most clearly in Daniel 4 and 5. It is now generally
accepted that the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness and his expulsion among
beasts originates in a recollection of Nabonidus’s eccentric behavior,
especially regarding religious issues, and of his withdrawal to the north
Arabian oasis of Teima. The Babylonian king Belshazzar in Daniel 5 reflects the
historical Bēl-šar-us-ur, eldest son of Nabonidus and regent of the kingdom
during his father’s ten-year absence in Arabia. The Daniel tradition erroneously
[sic] makes him the actual king and portrays him as the son of Nebuchadnezzar.
This latter interpolation constitutes the strongest argument for tracing the Danielic
narratives about Nebuchadnezzar to a cluster of historical memories
of Nabonidus. This has led some scholars to seek in cuneiform sources
relating to Nabonidus historical data that might provide a background to the
story of the worship of the golden statue in Daniel 3. Such data came to light
with the publication of the Verse Account of Nabonidus in 1924.
This
polemical account, probably written at the behest of the Persian
conquerors of Babylon, largely focuses on Nabonidus’s promotion of the cult of
the moon-god Sîn at the expense of Marduk, the city-god of Babylon. It claims
that Nabonidus made a horrifying new cult image of the god Sîn. The Verse
Account probably refers in this case to the statue of Sîn that the king claims
to have returned to the temple Ehulhul in Harran. Sidney Smith, the
original editor of the text, did not fail to see the relation that this episode
bears
to the tale of the fashioning and compulsory worship of the gold statue in Daniel
3.
The
suggestion was later taken up by Wolfram von Soden and several other scholars
since.
…. The
statue might also be the image of a king, perhaps Nebuchadnezzar himself, or a
symbol of his regal power. In ch. 2 of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar receives a dream
vision of such a statue. Some ancient exegetes clearly saw a connection between
chs. 2 and 3. In the second century, Hippolytus of Rome already interpreted the
statue fashioned by Nebuchadnezzar as a reminiscence of his dream: For as
the blessed Daniel, in interpreting the vision, had answered the king, saying,
“Thou art this head of gold in the image,” the king, being puffed up with this address,
and elated in his heart, made a copy of this image, in order that it might be
worshiped by all as God.
….
Originally, the tale focused on the memory of Nabonidus’s crafting of a new
image of the moon-god Sîn for the temple of Harran and his effort to impose it
as state cult in the Babylonian empire of the sixth century. The tradition
eventually substituted Nebuchadnezzar for Nabonidus [sic] and transformed the episode
into an edifying theological tale of the arrogant attempt of a pagan king to
impose the worship of a statue of his own design, a statue embodying imperial
hubris. The Danielic tradition transmuted this memory of Nabonidus’s failed
attempt at religious reform into a timeless critique of idolatry. Forced
worship of the statue, however, merely sets the background for the other
elements in the drama to unfold. As in most court tales, peer envy ushers the heroes
into royal disgrace. Refusing to bow down to the statue, the three Jewish youths
are denounced for impiety and are sentenced to the punishment prescribed by the
king for defying his order: to be thrown alive into a furnace of blazing fire
…. Burning as a death sentence occurs occasionally in the biblical and Near
Eastern worlds. ….
II.
Punishment by Fire
Punishment
by Fire in the Bible
The
Bible contains few allusions to execution by burning. In spite of their small
number, they indicate that punishment by being burned alive was part of the legal
system of ancient Israel. For example, this punishment is prescribed for
prostitution or fornication in the episode of Judah and Tamar (Gen 38:24) and,
more specifically, for prostitution by the daughter of a priest in the laws of
Leviticus (Lev 21:9). Leviticus also prescribes that punishment for the
particular form of incest committed by a man who weds both mother and daughter
(Lev 20:14). The same end befalls the thief of sacred paraphernalia and his
family according to the episode of the sin of Achan (Josh 7:13–19), although
Achan himself is stoned to death before being burned.
…. In
the prophetic and apocalyptic literature of the postexilic period, burning is sometimes
mentioned as a form of eschatological punishment, notably in Daniel7:11, where
the beast of the fourth kingdom is killed and given over to be burned with
fire. For the interpretation of Daniel 3, the most interesting mention of death
by burning in the Bible is the execution of the false Jewish prophets
mentioned in the letter sent by Jeremiah to the first wave of exiles in Babylon
(Jer 29:1–23).
The time
frame of the letter should be 594–593 … between the two captures
of Jerusalem, when many in Judah still entertained hopes of casting off
the Babylonian yoke. Yet Jeremiah encourages the exiles to settle in their new
country and patiently await the term of seventy years prescribed for their
return; he warns them against false prophets who predict Judah’s impending
liberation (Jer 29:21–23NRSV):
Thus
says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab son of Kolaiah and
Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying a lie to you in my name: I am
going to deliver them into the hand of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, and he
shall kill them before your eyes. And on account of them this curse shall be used
by all the exiles from Judah in Babylon: “The Lord make you like Zedekiah and
Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,” because they have
perpetrated outrage in Israel and have committed adultery with their neighbor’s
wives, and have spoken in my name lying words that I did not command them; I am
the one who knows and bear witness, says the Lord.
Ahab,
son of Kolaiah, and Zedekiah, son of Maasiah, both occur in a list of false prophets
from Qumran (4Q339).
They
proclaimed the end of Babylonian hegemony over Judah. Therefore, fear of their
spreading a spirit of rebellion appears to be Nebuchadnezzar’s most likely
motive for ordering their execution. Consonant with Jeremiah’s interpretation
of history, Nebuchadnezzar acts here as a mere instrument of God’s plan.
However, it is interesting that Jeremiah further indicts the two prophets for fornication,
a crime that in some circumstances entailed death by burning in Israel and
is listed here as the primary reason for their execution. Jeremiah provides a
biblical rationale for their condemnation, a rationale that conceals the
political motives of the Babylonians in carrying out that sentence. As I will
dis-cuss below, death by burning occurs a number of times in Babylonian sources
from the eighth to the third centuries … in some cases as a sentence imposed by
the king. The punishment mentioned in Jeremiah 29 involved roasting in fire,
but it does not say explicitly how, and therefore burning in a furnace cannot
be excluded, even if death at the stake seems more likely. Be that as it may,
Jeremiah 29 provides a crucial parallel to Daniel 3 and may yield some clues as
to how the tale originated and expanded. Both narratives portray Nebuchadnezzar
imposing capital punishment on rebellious Jewish exiles, and the punishment
involves death by burning in the two cases.
Punishment
by Fire in Ancient Egypt
Burning
as a form of capital punishment is attested a few times in texts from the
pharaonic and Hellenistic periods in Egypt.
Anthony
Leahy has reviewed the various allusions to such punishment in Egyptian
sources.
Burning
is attested for adultery, murder, conspiracy to murder, sacrilege, and
rebellion. It is uncertain whether legal codes prescribed it, but in some cases
it could be ordered by royal decree. Execution by burning usually involved
placing the condemned on the (“brazier, open furnace”). The Instructions of
Ankhsheshonqy, a Demotic text from the first century … describe how the
king ordered a group of conspirators to be burned in this manner; however,
there is no agreement on whether the text refers to an open fire or an enclosed
furnace.
Leahy
points out two possible examples of large furnaces that could accommodate
several individuals.
At
Edfu a relief shows the king condemning four prisoners to be tied together
in a type of box that is depicted also in Papyrus Salt 825, where it is
identified as a “furnace” … with two men tied back to back inside it. He also
gives examples of punishment by burning in the metaphysical realm; for
instance, the Book of Gates depicts some large furnaces …. In Demotic the word
… means both a censer or brazier and a large furnace.
….
Punishment
by Fire in Ancient Mesopotamia
Execution
by burning occurs in Mesopotamia both as a provision of the legal system for
certain crimes and as a punishment imposed by the king.
It
is attested already in the Old Babylonian period.
….
… the
Babylonian king Nabû-šuma-iškun, who reigned in the middle of the eighth
century, burned alive sixteen residents of the city of Kutha at the gate
of Zababa in Babylon.
In a
passage warning against the brazen confidence of strength and wealth, the
Babylonian Theodicy remarks how the prominent citizen can be burned in fire by
the king “before his time,” that is to say, before the natural end of his life.
In
addition, the astrological series Enuma Anu Enlil mentions a royal
condemnation to be burned.
….
There
is also evidence in mythology and magic for burning as metaphysical punishment.
Punishment
by the Fiery Furnace in Mesopotamia
The
precise manner of execution in the texts discussed so far cannot be determined.
Although death at the stake seems the more likely possibility, one can envisage
a number of different ways in which a sentence of death by burning can be carried
out. It is fortunate that we have three instances in Mesopotamia where the manner
of execution by burning is specified, and all three cases involve being thrown
into an oven or a furnace. However, these sources have not been discussed in
previous commentaries on Daniel 3. The earliest text (BIN 7, 10) is a letter
of King Rīm-Sîn of Larsa, who reigned from 1822 until 1763
… according
to the middle chronology …. Thus says Rīm-Sîn, your lord. Because he cast a boy
into the oven, you, throw the slave into the kiln.
The
context of this letter cannot be reconstructed and remains enigmatic. Is the king
quoting a proverb or some other form of saying, or is he ordering these
officials to carry out an execution? The two words for “oven” and “kiln” are tinūru
and utūnu. The latter derives from Sumerian UDUN, and occurs more rarely as atūnu,
the form under which it entered the Aramaic language (Nwt) in Daniel 3). The
second occurrence comes from a palace edict of the Assyrian king Aššur-rēša-iši
I (1130–1113 …). It was originally published by Ernst Weidner, who noted with
his usual acumen the parallel between the edict and the motif of the furnace in
Daniel 3.
The
relevant part of the edict reads as follows: …. They shall throw them, either
the woman or the man, the eye-witness, in the oven.
The
word for oven is again utūnu/atūnu, written here with the logogram udun. Unfortunately
the edict is not fully preserved, so it is not entirely clear which
transgression results in death in the oven. Many provisions in Middle Assyrian
edicts sanction inappropriate behavior by palace women and personnel. Thus a
misdemeanor of sexual nature seems probable. The third and final example occurs
in a Neo-Babylonian school text from the Sippar temple library. It is datable
to the first half of the sixth century and is therefore contemporaneous with
the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar II and Nabonidus. The text may well have been
composed earlier, however, since it purports to reproduce a letter of the Old
Babylonian king Samsu-iluna (1750–1712) to a certain Enlil-nādin-šumi, who is
given the title of governor …. The king orders the governor to inscribe on a
stela an encyclical address to the superintendents of all cult centers of
Babylonia.
…. To
Enlil-nādin-šumi, governor of the land … superintendent of all [the cult
centers of A]kkad, speak, thus [Samsu-ilun]a, king of the world …. “(Concerning)
all the cult centers of the land of Akkad, all of those from east to west
[which] I have given entirely into your control, I have heard (reports) that
the temple officials, the collegium … priests of the cult centers of the land
of Akkad, as many as there are, have taken to falsehood, committed an
abomination, been stained with blood, spoken untruths. Inwardly they
profane and desecrate their gods, they prattle and cavort about. Things that their
gods did not command they establish for their gods.”
After
having thus chastised local priests and officials for impiety and sacrilege,
the king concludes his remonstrances with a series of curses, and instructs
Enlil-nādin-šumi to enforce them: You now, destroy them, burn them, roast them,
. . . to the cook’s oven . . . make their smoke billow, bring about their fiery
end with the fierce flame of the box-thorn!
In
spite of the gap in the text, it seems clear that the punishment by burning and
roasting envisaged in the curses is effected by means of a cook’s oven. The
term for oven here is
kīru,
which refers normally to a lime kiln rather than the oven used by cooks
and bakers. Remarkably, in his classic commentary on Daniel, James Montgomery
noted that the furnace of Daniel 3 “must have been similar to our common
lime-kiln, with a perpendicular shaft from the top and an opening at the bottom
for extracting the fused lime.”
The
Letter of Samsu-iluna provides the closest known parallel to Daniel 3, not only
in the manner of execution but also regarding the context in which it is
envisaged, that of a royal order on the correct performance of cultic duties.
The text belonged to the curriculum of Babylonian schools. Apprentice scribes
who joined the royal administration were required to copy and study it. The
Letter propagates an idealized view of the Babylonian monarch as religious
leader and custodian of traditional rites. Given its status as official
text, it is hardly surprising that elements of its ideology resurface with a
slightly different formulation in the Harran Stela of Nabonidus. The
Harran Stela openly propagandizes Nabonidus’s devotion to the moon-god Sîn of
Harran, whom he sought to promote as imperial deity. In a passage that recalls
the tone and thematic content of the Letter of Samsu-iluna, Nabonidus chastises
the administrators and citizens of the cult centers of Babylonia for behaving
sinfully, committing blasphemy and sacrileges, and disregarding the true nature
and worship of Sîn: The god Sîn called me to kingship. He revealed to me in a
night dream (what follows): “Build quickly Ehulhul, the temple of Sîn in
Harran, and I will deliver all lands into your hands.” (But) the people, the
citizens of Babylon, Borsippa, Nippur, Ur, Uruk, (and) Larsa, the temple
administrators (and) the people of the cult centers of the land of Akkad,
offended his (Sîn’s) great godhead and they misbehaved and sinned, (for) they
did not know the great wrath of the king of the gods, Nannar. They forgot their
rites and would speak slanders and lies, devouring each other like dogs. (Thus)
pestilence and famine appeared (ušabšû) among them, and he (the moon-god)
reduced … the people of the land.
….
There
are two other striking points of resemblance between the Letter
of Samsu-iluna, the Harran Stela, and Daniel 3. In all three cases the Babylonian
king addresses his subjects by means of an encyclical proclamation, and the
individuals most specifically targeted by the anticipated punishment are the
priesthood and high officials, who were generally royal appointees. Daniel 3
records that Nebuchadnezzar’s proclamation is addressed to “the satraps, the
prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the
magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces” (Dan 3:2, 3), and the
biblical material further emphasizes that the Jewish companions of Daniel had
been nominated by the king to oversee “the affairs of the province of Babylon”
(Dan 3:12). The motif of the Chaldeans denouncing the three Jewish appointees
stems from the paradigm of the court tale, but the story of officials
falling into disgrace because they contravened the king’s religious
pronunciamentos very probably originates in actual conflicts that erupted
during the reign of Nabonidus.
….
The
executions recorded in Daniel 6 and in the story of Bel and the Dragon,
effected by throwing the condemned into a lion’s pit, appear more feasible and
on the surface more believable than the punishment in the fiery furnace.
However, such a mode of execution finds no parallel in the ancient world. Karel
van der Toorn argued that the story probably originated in the literalization
of an ancient metaphor that is recorded in a letter addressed by the scholar
Urad-Gula to the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.
The scholar
complains that he has unexplainably fallen into disgrace, and in a broken passage
states that he prays to the king day and night “in front of the lion’s pit.”
Earlier in the letter Urad-Gula had said that he used to eat “lion’s morsels,”
which can be understood to mean the fine food apportioned to members of the staff
of schol-ars who advised the king. ….
Mackey’s comment: Beaulieu will
now proceed to discuss what he (wrongly, I suggest) considers to have been “the
transformation of the figure of Nabonidus into that of Nebuchadnezzar”:
V.
Nabonidus and Nebuchadnezzar
A
very important element in the elaboration of Daniel 3 is the transformation of
the figure of Nabonidus into that of Nebuchadnezzar. This could have happened any
time before the court narratives of Daniel 1–6 reached their final form. However,
the discovery of the Prayer of Nabonidus among the Qumran manuscripts(4Q242)
shows that even after the compilation of Daniel in the first decades of the second
century [sic], there continued a parallel tradition that correctly ascribed to
the historical Nabonidus the episodes of the royal disease and the residence in
the oasis of Teima. These episodes appear in Daniel in the form of the sudden
madness, animalization, and exile of Nebuchadnezzar among the beasts. The
Danielic figure of Nebuchadnezzar does not entirely depend on a memory of
Nabonidus, however. The book accurately portrays Nebuchadnezzar as conqueror of
Jerusalem (Dan1:1–2) and builder of Babylon (Dan 4:30). Thus, in Daniel,
various memories of the two kings were woven together into one archetypal
figure. It seems difficult to deny that there is a very close relation between
the story of the two false prophets burned by the historical
Nebuchadnezzar in Jer 29:21–23 and the story of the three Jewish exiles thrown
into the fiery furnace by the fictionalized Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 3. The
books of Daniel and Jeremiah share many more traits. For one thing, the two
prophets were allegedly near contemporaries. The final redactors of Daniel
highlighted this connection in their prophet’s reinterpretation of Jeremiah’s
prediction of the length of the exile (Daniel 9).
Mackey’s comment: The Book of
Daniel does not, in fact, need any “reinterpretation of Jeremiah’s prediction
of the length of the exile”. What stands in need of “reinterpretation” is the
neo-Babylonian succession, the incorrect estimation of which by conventional
scholars has led to apparent discrepancies between Jeremiah and Daniel. On
this, see my:
Prophet Jeremiah's "Seventy Years" of Babylonian Rule
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