What historical evidence supports the events in Daniel 5? Canonical Text And Translation Daniel 5:25 : “And this is the inscription that was written: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin.” Historical Players Identified 1. Nabonidus (556–539 BC): last independent king of Babylon. 2. Belshazzar: his eldest son and co-regent (confirmed by cuneiform). 3. Cyrus II (“the Great”): Persian conqueror of Babylon. 4. Darius the Mede (Daniel 5:31): administrator installed over the city immediately after its capture. Cuneiform Confirmation Of Belshazzar • Nabonidus Cylinder, Sippar (British Museum BM 91128): “As for me, Nabonidus, king of Babylon, save me from sin against your great divinity, and grant me life for Bel-šarra-uṣur, my firstborn son.” • Verse Account of Nabonidus (BM 38299): notes Nabonidus’ decade-long absence in Teima while “entrusting the kingship to Bel-sharru-uṣur.” • Cuneiform “National Museum 5503” (dated 7 Nisan, year 1 of Cyrus): Belshazzar signs rations to the gods, verifying continued government function until the city’s fall. These tablets resolve the earlier academic dilemma—in Herodotus and Berossus Nabonidus alone was named—by showing Daniel’s designation “King Belshazzar” to be precise: a co-reigning crown prince who could offer the “third highest position” (Daniel 5:7) because positions one and two were already occupied by Nabonidus and himself. The Night Babylon Fell The Nabonidus Chronicle (ABC 7, British Museum) reports: “In the month Tashritu, when Cyrus attacked the army in Opis… on the fourteenth day, Sippar was taken without battle… on the sixteenth day Ugbaru, governor of Gutium, and the army of Cyrus entered Babylon without battle.” The date equates to 12/13 October 539 BC (Julian). Daniel places Belshazzar’s feast “on that very night” (Daniel 5:30). The Chronicle corroborates sudden capture, absence of large-scale conflict inside the walls, and immediate regime change. Archaeological Context Of The “Great Feast” Excavations by R. Koldewey (1899-1917) uncovered vast banquet halls in the southern palace of Babylon capable of hosting thousands, matching Daniel 5:1’s reference to “a thousand nobles.” Wine-cooling vats, elaborate frescoes, and inscribed ivory plaques evidence a court culture of lavish banquets. “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin” And Babylonian Weights The Aramaic nouns are recognized monetary-weight terms: • Mene (mina) ≈ 50 shekels • Tekel (shekel) ≈ 1 shekel • Parsin (half-minas/“divided”) ≈ 25 shekels Numerical totals (50 + 50 + 1 + 25 + 25 = 151) intriguingly sum to the gematria of “Belshazzar” (in Aramaic script, 152 with defect script), reflecting judgment tailored to the king. Weighty terms skilfully double as verbs—“numbered, weighed, divided”—consistent with Semitic wordplay attested in Akkadian commercial tablets. Cyrus Cylinder And Persian Policy The Cyrus Cylinder (BM 90920) celebrates the peaceful capture of Babylon and credits Marduk for delivering Nabonidus’ kingdom into Cyrus’s hands: “Without battle he entered the city.” Though polytheistic, the cylinder validates the change of power exactly when Daniel records it, offering an extrabiblical, contemporaneous perspective on the same event. Identity Of “Darius The Mede” Daniel 5:31 (6:1 MT) states: “So Darius the Mede received the kingdom at the age of sixty-two.” Two converging solutions comport with extant data: 1. Ugbaru/Gubaru, governor of Gutium, led the entry force (Nabonidus Chronicle) and administered Babylon for Cyrus until his death weeks later. The variant form Ga-Ba-Ru aligns phonetically with the Old Persian “Gobryas,” mirrored in Xenophon. 2. Cyaxares II, Median king per Xenophon, co-reigned with Cyrus as uncle-in-law; Daniel’s Medan title would then reflect a distinct administrative stage between Babylon’s fall and Cyrus’s formal enthronement (cf. Daniel 9:1). Either model accounts for a sixty-two-year-old Median ruler governing Babylon immediately post-capture, vindicating Daniel’s precision where critics alleged fabrication. Prophecy And Theological Dimension Isaiah 13:19, 21:9 and Jeremiah 51:30-39 foretold Babylon’s sudden fall to the Medes; Daniel 5 records the fulfillment in real time. The event underlines the major theme that “the Most High is sovereign over the kingdom of men” (cf. Daniel 5:21). Consistency across prophetic centuries reinforces Scripture’s unified witness. Answering Critical Dating Objections Critics long cited Belshazzar’s absence from classical lists as proof Daniel was late and legendary. Yet the 1854 discovery of Nabonidus cylinders and subsequent publication of economic texts (Strassmaier, Pinches, Wiseman) overturned that claim. Furthermore, linguistic study shows Daniel’s Imperial Aramaic matches fifth-century documents from Elephantine rather than the later Palestinian dialect of the second century BC. Summary Multiple, independent lines of evidence—cuneiform tablets, Greek historians, archaeological excavations, and prophetic correlations—converge to affirm the historicity of Daniel 5. These data support Belshazzar’s existence as co-regent, the accuracy of his title, the plausibility of the feast, the method and timing of Babylon’s fall, and the transitional rule of Darius the Mede. Far from legendary, the chapter exhibits the hallmarks of an eyewitness account, reinforcing the reliability of Scripture and the sovereignty of the God who “numbers, weighs, and divides” all earthly kingdoms. |
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