by
Damien
F. Mackey
Whilst, in conventional terms,
Nebuchednezzar II did not begin to reign until c. 605 BC, about 80 years after
the death of Hezekiah (c. 686 BC), according to the revision proposed [here],
Nebuchednezzar’s youth would have
overlapped with the late reign of Hezekiah.
“Bagoas” and
Esarhaddon
Little did I
realise at the time, when invited in the Year 2000 by professor Rifaat Ebied to
choose between the era of King Hezekiah and the era of King Josiah for the
subject matter of a doctoral thesis (for more on this, see:
King
Hezekiah of Judah and his amazing contemporaries
that Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s were in fact the very same era, that Hezekiah
was Josiah.
My
article:
explains
the revision that I have more recently set out for the later kings of Judah.
But so
radical a revision of Judah must needs be accompanied by, for instance, a
similarly radical revision of whoever Assyro-Babylonian dynasts were
contemporaneous with these kings of Judah. Amongst the articles that I have
written on that score are:
Aligning Neo
Babylonia with Book of Daniel. Part One: Shortening the Chaldean Dynasty
and the
more important:
Aligning
Neo-Babylonia with Book of Daniel. Part Two: Merging late neo-Assyrians with
Chaldeans
The
upshot of all this is, in the case of the Nebuchednezzar the Great, that his
life now comes within close range of King Hezekiah.
Whilst,
in conventional terms, Nebuchednezzar II did not begin to reign until c. 605
BC, about 80 years after the death of Hezekiah (c. 686 BC), according to the
revision proposed above, Nebuchednezzar’s
youth would have overlapped with the late reign of Hezekiah.
And, if
the Jewish tradition be correct, that the future Nebuchednezzar II himself had
participated in Sennacherib’s ill-fated campaign at the time of king Hezekiah -
quite a chronological impossibility in conventional terms - then Nebuchednezzar
may even be the wrongly-named “Bagoas”, who was second-in-command to
(Ashur-nadin-shumi =) “Holofernes” himself. See e.g. my article:
An early
glimpse of Nebuchednezzar II?
Now, if
Sennacherib’s eldest son, Ashur-nadin-shumi, was “Holofernes”, the leader of
the disastrous invasion of Israel by the 185,000 Assyrians, then who was –
where was? – Esarhaddon in all of this, he being the son who would most
unexpectedly succeed Sennacherib? Well, if Nebuchednezzar had in fact been
personally involved in this campaign, as according to Jewish tradition, then
that, too, is where we must find Esarhaddon, at least if I am correct that:
"As we know from the correspondence left by the
roya1 physicians and exorcists … [Esarhaddon’s] days were governed by spells of
fever and dizziness, violent fits of vomiting, diarrhoea and painful earaches.
Depressions and fear of impending death were a constant in his life. In
addition, his physical appearance was affected by the marks of a permanent skin
rash that covered large parts of his body and especially his face". (Karen
Radner)
In a multi-part
“Nebuchednezzar syndrome” series, I have listed and described a number of
Assyro-Babylonian (and even supposedly Persian) kings who have the earmarks of
the biblico-historical Nebuchednezzar: dreams;
illness-madness; interfering with rubrics; building Babylon; invasion of Egypt,
megalomania; fiery furnace; revival and ‘conversion’:
Esarhaddon, in
particular, seems to ‘scream out’ to be identified with Nebuchednezzar.
It was only
late in this series that I realised that I even had to include the Babylonian,
Nabopolassar, in the list. He is generally considered to have been the father
of Nebuchednezzar. “Nebuchednezzar syndrome” features (not listed above) that I
began to pick up with Nabopolassar were other common ones such as, not expecting to be named king; and an
almost fanatical precision about
foundation alignment.
Ashurbanipal; Nabonidus; Cambyses
“Fragments of a Scroll found near the Dead Sea likely makes an amazing
reference to
the prophet
Daniel. The fragment, found in a cave located along the cliffs overlooking
the Dead Sea, is
known as the "Prayer of Nabonidus."
biblehistory.net
Apart from the
many “Nebuchednezzar syndrome” parallels, see Part One:
https://www.academia.edu/39005954/The_many_faces_of_Nebuchednezzar._Part_One_Bagoas_and_Esarhaddon Nabonidus,
supposedly ‘centring himself upon Ashurbanipal’, has further striking
likenesses to Ashurbanipal:
Ashurbanipal
and Nabonidus
and has striking
likenesses to the biblical “Nebuchednezzar”:
Does King
Nabonidus reflect Daniel's "Nebuchednezzar"?
In an intriguing
article, “The Prophet Daniel”:
we read this:
Fragments
of a Scroll found near the Dead Sea likely makes an amazing reference to the
prophet Daniel. The fragment, found in a cave located along the cliffs
overlooking the Dead Sea, is known as the "Prayer of Nabonidus." The
artifact, which doesn't seem to draw much attention in Biblical
archaeology circles, is actually very important. First of all it is a copy of a
scroll written in the language of Babylon, Aramaic, not Hebrew as in the case
of the majority of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Aramaic was the language spoken in
ancient Babylon. The reason this is important is because Daniel the prophet
was educated in the Aramaic language of Babylon. We found this stated in
Daniel 1:4 and in Daniel 2:4.
….
Prayer of
Nabonidus
There is
also evidence that the original book of Daniel from chapters 2:4 through
chapters 7:28 were also written in this ancient Aramaic language known as
Chaldee (the language of Babylon), the same language used in Babylonian
documents of the 7th century B.C.
This
evidence comes from other Dead Sea Scroll fragments found of the book of
Daniel. These fragments confirm the fact that the events spoken of in the book
of Daniel were written down by Daniel in ancient Aramaic during the time of his
captivity in Babylon.
Now the
text of the "Prayer of Nabonidus" is an account of the Babylonian
king Nabonidus, the father of the Biblical ruler Belshazzar. In his account,
Nabonidus had come down with a disease while away from Babylon at his stay at
the oasis city of Teman in Saudi Arabia. He prayed to his false gods and idols
of silver, gold, wood, stone and clay, but to no avail. So he sought the help
from a Jew who was part of the exiles taken into captivity back to Babylon.
This Jew tells Nabonidus to worship and honor the Most High God instead of his
foreign gods.
This Jew, referred to here, is most likely the prophet Daniel. We know
from Scripture that Daniel was still alive during the reign of Nabonidus and
his son Belshazzar. Scripture also indicates that the Queen of Babylon,
likely the Queen of Nabonidus, Belshazzar's mother, believed that Daniel was,
in her words, "A man in the kingdom in whom dwelt the Spirit of the Holy
God, . . . like the wisdom of the gods whom Nebuchadnezzar your father
(grandfather) - your father the king (Nabonidus) - made him chief of the
magicians. astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers." Daniel 5:11
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So Daniel was considered to be the chief man to
go to under both king Nebuchadnezzar and king Nabonidus when dealing with
issues concerning God.
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Now, these fragments of the scroll give
evidence outside of the Bible that Nabonidus likely called upon Daniel's
advise after his prayers to his false gods had failed.
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Cambyses too,
apart from having some of the earmarks of “Nebuchednezzar syndrome”: madness; conquest of Egypt, had the
alternative name of “Nebuchadnezzar”:
Cambyses also named Nebuchadnezzar? Part Three: ‘Sacred disease’ (read
madness) of King Cambyses
And, perhaps
further strengthening the contemporaneity of Cambyses with the neo-Assyrian
era, I have suggested an identification of the important official in Egypt, Udjahorresne[t], who acted
as the king’s guide and mentor there, with Ushanahuru, the son (possibly
Crown Prince) of the great Tirhakah of Egypt/Ethiopia:
Cambyses mentored in Egypt by Udjahorresne. Part One: Too many invasions
of Egypt
Cambyses mentored in Egypt by Udjahorresne. Part Two: Meeting and
identifying Udjahorresne
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‘Artaxerxes king of Babylon’
‘But in all this time was not I at
Jerusalem: for in the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon came
I to the king, and after certain days obtained I leave of the king’.
Nehemiah
13:6
There are two
kings “Artaxerxes” with whom Nebuchednezzar appears to have a greater, or
lesser, connection.
The first is
Artaxerxes III ‘Ochus’, who I claim to be another of those fictitious, late
production characters, a composite based upon real Mesopotamian kings – most
notably Sennacherib and Nebuchednezzar.
Emmet Sweeney
had, in the 1990’s, identified Artaxerxes III ‘Ochus’ with Nebuchednezzar (see
E. Scott’s Hatshepsut, Queen of Sheba, pp. 170-171)
For my own
articles on the subject, see e.g:
Artaxerxes
III and Judith
and:
"Nebuchednezzar
Syndrome": dreams, illness-madness, Egyptophobia. Part Two: Ashurbanipal;
Nabonidus; Cambyses; Artaxerxes III
and:
Medo-Persian
History Archaeologically Light. Part Three: Artaxerxes III ‘Ochus’
The Artaxerxes
of the Book of Nehemiah is quite a different matter.
He is a real
flesh and blood king, who has been badly mis-identified and mis-dated.
He is, again,
Nebuchednezzar the great King of Babylon. See my multi-part series:
Governor
Nehemiah's master "Artaxerxes king of Babylon". Part One: Nehemiah
and that ‘broken down wall’
commencing with:
Finally, also to
be considered for a ‘face’ of King Nebuchednezzar - given the need to fold the
Middle Babylonian period with the Neo Babylonian period - is Nebuchednezzar I.
This is what I
wrote on the matter in:
King
Hezekiah of Judah and his amazing contemporaries
…..
My other move on Sennacherib at
that time involved the necessary (in terms of the revision) folding of Middle
Assyro-Babylonian history with Neo Assyro-Babylonian history.
Revised attempts at this so far
do not seem to have been very successful.
I thought that I had found the
perfect solution with my folding of the mighty Middle Babylonian king,
Nebuchednezzar I, conventionally dated to the C12th BC - he, I then declared to
have been ‘the Babylonian face’ of Sargon II/Sennacherib.
Such an identification, which
seemed to have massive support from the succession of Shutrukid-Elamite kings
of the time having names virtually identical to the succession of Elamite kings
at the time of Sargon II/Sennacherib … had the further advantage of providing
Sargon II/Sennacherib with the name, “Nebuchednezzar”, just as the Assyrian
king is named in the Book of Judith (“Nebuchadnezzar”).
My more recent collapsing of the
late neo-Assyrian era into the early neo-Babylonian era has caused me to drop
the identification of Nebuchednezzar I with Sargon II/Sennacherib:
More appropriately, now,
Nebuchednezzar I might be found to have been Nebuchednezzar II.
Fortunately though, with this
tightened chronology, the impressive Shutrukid-Elamite parallels that I had
established in my thesis might still remain viable.
Having rejected my former
folding of Nebuchednezzar I with Sargon II/Sennacherib the question must be
asked, ‘At what point does Middle fold with Neo?’
This all awaits
further potential development.
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