by
Damien F. Mackey
“The chief official gave them new names: to Daniel, the name Belteshazzar;
to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abednego?”
Daniel 1:7
William H. Shea has quite convincingly identified Daniel’s three Jewish colleagues, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, in the Babylonian records:
William H. Shea’s hopeful historical evidence for Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
(3) William H. Shea's hopeful historical evidence for Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
And I have proposed a historical identification of important royal significance for the “chief official” (Daniel 1:7 above), who is Ashpenaz:
A Median connection needed for Neriglissar as Darius the Mede
(3) A Median connection needed for Neriglissar as Darius the Mede | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
More recently, I have historically identified Daniel himself as the chronologically appropriate Governor of Babylon, Ubāru (= Gubaru, Ugbaru):
Prophet Daniel as Esarhaddon’s governor of Babylon, Ubāru
(5) Prophet Daniel as Esarhaddon's governor of Babylon, Ubāru | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
The name Ubāru cannot, however, be identified in the Babylonian name, Belteshazzar, given to Daniel (as we read), since Ubāru is simply a descriptive name meaning “stranger, foreign guest, resident alien, guest-friend”.
Exactly what Daniel was in Babylonian Exile.
So, the task still is left to us to find Daniel in the records under a Belteshazzar name.
Belteshazzar is not the same name as Belshazzar
It is natural for those not too familiar with Babylonian names to presume that Belteshazzar was a Bel-name, the Bel element being found in the name of the ill-fated king, Belshazzar, son of Nebuchednezzar, famous for the Writing on the Wall episode (Daniel 5).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belshazzar
“Belshazzar (Babylonian cuneiform: Bēl-šar-uṣur,[1][2] meaning "Bel, protect the king";[3] Hebrew: בֵּלְשַׁאצַּר Bēlšaʾṣṣar) …”.
But, according to linguists, the Belteshazzar element (with components such as e.g. balatu, shar, usur) is lacking a theophoric, meaning it still needs to be attached to a god-name, such as Marduk, or Nabu.
My preference would be for Nabu, since Nebuchednezzar himself had said that Daniel bore the name of his god, presumably meaning Nabu (Nebo) here, since it was the theophoric element in the king’s own name (Daniel 4:8): “Finally, Daniel came into my presence and I told him the dream. (He is called Belteshazzar, after the name of my god, and the spirit of the holy gods is in him)”.
A potential Babylonian name for Daniel’s Belteshazzar – amongst various possibilities – would be, say, Nabû-bul-liṭ-su (Nabu-bullitsu), somewhat imperfectly transliterated as Belteshazzar. The name Nabu-bullitsu can be found listed e.g. in the Index (p. 159) of Sir W. Budge’s Babylonian Life and History. It comes close to Belteshazzar, which is, after all, a foreign transliteration of an originally Babylonian name.
Whilst there may not be any known governor of Babylon from the early reign of Nebuchednezzar (qua Nebuchednezzar) until the first few years of Cyrus - as I would anticipate from the Book of Daniel that there should be - however, thanks to my identification of Nebuchednezzar (and Daniel’s “Nebuchadnezzar”) with (Esarhaddon and) King Nabonidus:
Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar
(5) Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu0
then such an official comes right into view. And he has both Nabu and bullit elements in his name. He is Nabu-ahhe-bullit, who was governor of Babylon from at least Nabonidus’s 8th year until the 3rd year of Cyrus.
Thus we read in the following article:
http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?id=177754;article=15087
From the contemporary cuneiform contract tablets, we know that Terike-sarrutsu was the governor (shakin mati) of Babylonia in Year 1 Nabunaid [Nabonidus] (555/4 BC).
Nabu-ahhe-bullit succeeded him as office holder by Year 8 Nabunaid (548/7 BC). This man remained in office down to Year 3 Cyrus but became a subordinate of the governor Gubaru, the appointee of Cyrus, when Babylon was captured by the army of Cyrus in 539 BC. He is not to be confused with Ugbaru.
[End of quote]
Rather than Daniel’s having at this stage become “a subordinate” of Gubaru’s, though, who he actually was (see above), he may have departed (one way or another) from the political scene.
By now Daniel would have been in his 60’s or 70’s.
The conventional history has set the career of Nabu-ahhe-bullit somewhat differently.
He emerges there as an official of Nebuchednezzar, and already with a son, in 595 BC:
https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1089&context=jats
“In 595 BC Nebuchadnezzar released a royal document which condemned Baba-aha-iddina son of Nabu-ahhe-bullit, one of his top officials …”.
And he was still active in the 15th year of Nabonidus (Nabu-na'id):
https://www.spurlock.illinois.edu/collections/search-collection/details.php?a=1913.14.1652
“[(Document concerning) [. . .] [property] of Nabu which Sin-etir, [son] of Kina rented out 9lit., gave) to Nabu-ahhe-bullit, son of Nana-aha-iddina from the fifteenth day of the month of Addaru, fourteenth year, until the fifteenth day of the month of Nisanu, fifteenth year of Nabu-na'id, king of Babylon, for a month's rent of four shekels of silver. Sin-etir was paid the four shekels of silver, the rent of his boat, by Nabu-ahhe-bullit”.
Whereas, in conventional terms, about half a century would be required to span this period from 595 BC to the 15th year of Nabonidus, c. 541 BC, in my scheme, on the other hand, with Nebuchednezzar as Nabonidus, the period is reduced to about 5 years.
Finally, as we read at Encyclopaedia Iranica:
https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/babylonia-i
“Cyrus retained as governor of Babylonia a native Babylonian [sic], Nabu-ahhe-bullit, who had held the post before the Persian conquest, under Nabonidus”.
This site, having failed to recognise Nabu-ahhe-bullit as Ugbaru (Ubāru), will make the earlier declaration that: “Supreme administrative power in Babylonia belonged to the Persian satrap. The first governor of the city of Babylon was Cyrus’s general, Ugbaru, who in effect held power over the whole of Mesopotamia”.
This is how I would tentatively reconstruct the chronology of Daniel’s governorship:
Daniel, as Nabu-ahhe-bullit, had been appointed governor of Babylon close to the third year of Nebuchednezzar (= Nabonidus), who reigned for 43 years. That is a service of almost four decades.
He continued on through the 3-4 years of Belshazzar, son of Nabonidus, envisaging himself in Susa (Daniel 8:1-2): “In the third year of King Belshazzar’s reign, I, Daniel, had a vision, after the one that had already appeared to me. In my vision I saw myself in the citadel of Susa in the province of Elam …”.
He was still in Babylon in the 1st year of Cyrus, but then moved to Susa, Cyrus’s capital, and served the king until his 3rd year.
Finally, now with my revised Neo-Babylonian history, we may have virtually a perfectly matching chronology for Daniel and his proposed alter ego, Nabu-ahhe-bullit.
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