ASHURBANIPAL AND NABONIDUS

EDITPUBLISHED JUNE 11, 2017 BY AMAIC

 

by

 Damien F. Mackey

 

Historian Paul-Alain Beaulieu (The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556-539BC) has identified ‘the idea of imperial continuity with Assyria, centred on the figure of Ashurbanipal’ as one of ‘the main characteristics of Nabonidus’ personality’ (p. 2).

 
  
Introduction
 
Not surprising that we are going to find many Book of Daniel-like elements in the biography of the eccentric neo-Babylonian king, Nabonidus, if I am correct in identifying him with both Nebuchednezzar II ‘the Great’ and:
 

“Nebuchednezzar” of the Book of Daniel

https://www.academia.edu/23886406/_Nebuchednezzar_of_the_Book_of_Daniel

 
The likenesses between Nabonidus and the biblical king have amazed some biblically-minded writers who adhere to the conventional view that Nebuchednezzar II and Nabonidus were quite separate neo-Babylonian kings. Consider, for instance, the following extraordinary parallels rightly discerned by John A. Tvedtnes, but without his realising that this really is Daniel’s king (https://www.lds.org/ensign/1986/09/nebuchadnezzar-or-nabonidus-mistaken-identities-in-the-book-of-daniel?lang=eng):
 
 
Nebuchadnezzar or Nabonidus?
Mistaken Identities in the Book of Daniel

A classic example of textual errors caused by “careless transcribers” or “ignorant translators” is contained in the book of Daniel. The events chronicled in the present-day book would have originally been recorded in Hebrew, the early language of the Jews. However, the book of Daniel found in the Hebrew Bible is a combination of Hebrew and Aramaic, the language of the Jews after they returned from Babylon. From Daniel 2:4 through 7:8, the text is in Aramaic. [Dan. 2:4–7:8] It is in this middle section that we find discrepancies between the biblical text and other ancient records. These discrepancies involve the identity of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who first subdued and then destroyed Jerusalem.

During his forty-year reign, Nebuchadnezzar ruled much of the Near East and rebuilt the great city of Babylon, replete with its hundreds of temples and its world-renowned hanging gardens. Some thirty years before his death in 561 B.C., he subdued Jerusalem (598 B.C.), taking its king, Jehoiakim, captive to Babylon and replacing him with Jehoiachin. When Jehoiachin proved disloyal, he was also deposed and replaced by his uncle, Zedekiah. When Zedekiah, too, revolted against his overlord, Nebuchadnezzar attacked the city.

In 586 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, taking the remainder of its people—along with many others from throughout the kingdom of Judah into captivity. (See 2 Kgs. 24–25.) One of the early Jewish captives, Daniel, won favor with the king and became known as a wise and trusted counselor.

Chapters two, three, and four of Daniel purport to contain accounts about Nebuchadnezzar. But only the first and best-known of these—the account of his dream about the great statue destroyed by a stone cut out of a mountainside—is actually about him. The stories in chapters three and four, as well as a reference in chapter five, are actually about another king named Nabonidus, not Nebuchadnezzar. [Dan. 2; Dan. 3; Dan. 4; Dan. 5]

Chapter three recounts that the king “made an image of gold … : he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon.” (Dan. 3:1.) When this new idol was set up, a decree went forth that when music sounded, people were to prostrate themselves before the statue.

Chapter four tells of another dream of the king, this time about a great tree that was hewn down by order of God. [Dan. 4] Again Daniel was called upon for an interpretation. The tree, said the prophet, represented the sinful king, who would become mad, living for seven years “with the beasts of the field” and eating grass “as oxen.” (Dan. 4:23–26.) This prophecy was fulfilled when the king “was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.” (Dan. 4:33.) Ultimately, the king was healed, returned to his throne, and praised God.

In chapter five, the scene changes abruptly. Here we find that “Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.” (Dan. 5:1.) In verse two, he is identified as the son of Nebuchadnezzar, the king who had destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. At the feast, a finger appears, writing an ominous message on the plaster of the wall. Daniel, summoned to interpret the writing, informs the assembly that the Medes and Persians will take the kingdom.

It is this reference in chapter five that highlights the misidentification problem in the book of Daniel. Belshazzar was actually the son of Nabonidus, not of Nebuchadnezzar. And Belshazzar was never king [sic], but only crown prince.
….
Other ancient records establish that Belshazzar was actually Nabonidus’ son and that Belshazzar was never king—only crown prince. From the “Verse Account of Nabonidus,” preserved on a clay tablet and found at Babylon, we read a contemporary account of Nabonidus that sounds very much like the “Nebuchadnezzar” of Daniel 3–5 [Dan. 3–5]:

“His/protective deity became hostile to him,/and he, the former favorite of the gods/is now/seized by misfortunes: … against the will of the gods he performed an unholy action, … he thought out something worthless:/He had made the image of a deity/which nobody had/ever/seen in/this/country./ He introduced it into the temple/he placed/it/upon a pedestal; … he called it by the name of Nanna, … it is adorned with a … of lapis/lazuli, crowned with a tiara. …” (Pritchard, p. 313.)

The one difference between this story and the one from Daniel 3 is that the Babylonian text says the idol was made of brick, covered with gypsum and bitumin to make the facing brilliant, while the Daniel account says it was made of gold. But the ninety-foot-high statue could hardly have been made of pure gold. Continuing from the Babylonian text:

“After he had obtained what he desired, a work of utter deceit, had built/this/abomination, a work of unholiness—when the third year was about to begin he entrusted the ‘Camp’ to his oldest/son/, the firstborn, the troops everywhere in the country he ordered under his/command/. He let/everything/ go, entrusted the kingship to him and, himself, he started out for a long journey, the/military/forces of Akkad marching with him; he turned towards Tema /deep/in the west. … When he arrived there, he killed in battle the prince of Tema … and he, himself, took his residence in/Te/ma, the forces of Akkad /were also stationed/there.” (Pritchard, p. 313.)

The rest of the text becomes fragmentary, but we can discern that Nabonidus ordered the slaughter of many people in the northern Arabian town of Tema and that he enslaved large numbers of them. Column four on the tablet is in especially bad shape, but we can discern the words “The king is mad.”

This brings us to the account of “Nebuchadnezzar’s” madness in Daniel 4. The Babylonian accounts do not mention that Nebuchadnezzar became mad. But it is well known that Nabonidus did. Records kept by the Babylonian priests confirm Nabonidus’s temporary madness in the wilderness of Tema. The records show that Nabonidus “stayed in Tema” at least from the seventh through eleventh years of his reign, leaving “the crown prince, the officials and the army” in Babylonia. During this time, the New Year festival, over which only the king could preside, was omitted.

….

The Dead Sea scrolls found at Qumran in 1948 confirm that Nabonidus, not Nebuchadnezzar, was the mad king. A fragmentary document titled “The Prayer of Nabonidus” tells of a king NBNY (Hebrew uses no vowels) who, while at Tema, was diseased by the God of Israel. A Jewish adviser (no doubt Daniel) counsels him to honor God, reminding him, “Thou has been smitten with this noisesome fever … for seven years because thou hast been praying to gods of silver and stone, which gods are but stock and stone, mere clay.” (Theodore H. Gaster, The Dead Sea Scriptures, 3d ed., Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/ Doubleday, 1976, p. 537.)

The fact that the gods of silver and gold were actually made of stock and stone might indicate gold or silver plating, which could identify the brick idol of Nabonidus with the gold idol mentioned in the book of Daniel.

….

How could such apparent errors have crept into the sacred record? ….

[End of quote]

 
My answer: Conventional neo-Babylonian history, and not the Book of Daniel, is at fault.
 
The great Assyrian ruler, Ashurbanipal, who so significantly influenced king Nabonidus, has certain features that also may remind one of Daniel’s “Nebuchednezzar” – so much so, in fact, that I had initially wondered about exploring an identification of the two.
I had then written:

Nabonidus is somewhat like an Assyrian king. He adopts Assyrian titulature and boasts of having the Assyrian kings as his “royal ancestors”. There is nothing particularly strange about his supposed long stay in Teima in Arabia. This was a typical campaign region adopted by the neo-Assyrian kings. There is nothing particularly remarkable about his desire to restore the Ehulhul temple of Sin in Harran. Ashurbanipal did that.
Nabonidus is said to have had two major goals, to restore that Sin temple and to establish the empire of Babylon along the lines of the neo-Assyrians. Once again, Ashurbanipal is particularly mentioned as being his inspiration.
Nabonidus was not singular in not taking the hand of Bel in Babylon for many years, due to what he calls the impiety of the Babylonians. Ashurbanipal (and now you will notice that he keeps turning up) could not shake the hand of Bel after his brother Shamash-shum-ukin had revolted against him, barring Babylon, Borsippa, etc. to him. He tells us this explicitly.
Nabonidus is not singular either in not expecting to become king. Ashurbanipal had felt the same.
…. They share many Babylonian building works and restorations, too.
…. Ashurbanipal of 41-43 years of reign (figures vary) … Nebuchednezzar II the Great of an established 43 years of reign.
….
The great Nebuchednezzar has left only 4 known depictions of himself, we are told. Ridiculous! ….
The last 35 years of Nebuchednezzar are hardly known, they say.
….
It is doubted whether Nebuchednezzar conquered Egypt as according to the Bible. … Ashurbanipal … certainly did conquer Egypt.
The many queries about whether an inscription belongs to Nebuchednezzar or Nabonidus now dissolves.
It was Nabonidus, not Nebuchednezzar, they say, who built the famous palace in Babylon.
Nabonidus’s well known madness (perhaps the Teima phase) is Nebuchednezzar’s madness.
Nabonidus calls Sin “the God of gods” (ilani sa ilani), the exact phrase used by Nebuchednezzar in Daniel 2:47 of Daniel’s God (“the God of gods”).
Looking for a fiery furnace? Well, Ashurbanipal has one. His brother dies in it.
“Saulmagina my rebellious brother, who made war with me, they threw into a burning fiery furnace, and destroyed his life” (Caiger, p. 176).
….
Oh, yes, and Belshazzar, they say, was Nabonidus’s son, not Nebuchednezzar’s son. Contrary to the Bible.
And Belshazzar was not a king, they also say.
Well he wasn’t a king while Nabonidus = Nebuchednezzar …. reigned.
But he was later. I’ll believe Daniel 5 (Writing on the Wall).

Ashurbanipal also apparently had a lions’ den.
For, according to Jonathan Grey, The Forbidden Secret (p. 102):

….

The biblical book of Daniel also records that the Hebrew captive Daniel was tossed into a den lions. (Daniel chapter 6)
That such ‘lion’s [sic] den’ punishment was in keeping with the times is now proven by the discovery of that same inscription of Ashurbanipal that we just mentioned. It continues thus:

The rest of the people who had rebelled they threw alive among bulls and lions, as Sennacherib my grandfather used to do. Lo, again following his footsteps, those men I threw into the midst of them.

On one occasion, as the famed excavator Marcel Dieulafoy was digging amid the ruins of Babylon, he fell into a pit that appeared like an like an ancient well. After being rescued by his companions, he proceeded with the work of identification. How astonished was he to find that the pit had been used as a cage for wild animals! And upon the curb was this inscription:
 

The Place of Execution, where men who angered the king died torn by wild animals.

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Further Israelite Influence upon Esarhaddon

Historical Window for

Jonah’s Nineveh Visit

 

Part Five (ii):

Further Israelite Influence

upon Esarhaddon

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

“Apart from the identical sequence of topics in both curses, there is an astounding parallel regarding the syntax. Curses invoking Yhwh or the gods as subjects causing calamity, alternate with curses in which natural forces are the subjects, or sentences that just describe the result of the preceding curse. In Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and EST § 56, these alternations occur at parallel positions”.

 

 

Introduction

 

Following on from the mission of the prophet Jonah to Nineveh - perhaps just prior to the beginning of Esarhaddon’s reign after the murder of his father, Sennacherib, according to what I have estimated in this series - the kingdom of Assyria may have embraced to a form of religious monotheism (see Part Five (i)).

There are also indications that king Esarhaddon of Assyria, who appears to have been favourably disposed towards Israel (Tobit 1:21; 2:1), was inspired at least to some degree by Mosaïc Law, specifically Deuteronomy 28 and its influence upon Esarhaddon’s Vassal Treaty.

The following account of comparisons between Deuteronomy 28 and the Vassal Treaty will typically take the modern approach that always has Israel as being influenced by the pagans. The reader is encouraged to consider that it may have been the other way around.

 

 

Deuteronomy 28 and Tell Tayinat

 

[Taken from: http://www.ve.org.za/index.php/VE/article/view/870/1867]

 

….

The discovery of Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty (EST) at Tell Tayinat confirms the Assyrian application of this text on western vassals and suggests that the oath tablet was given to Manasseh of Judah in 672 BC, the year in which the king of Assyria had all his empire and vassals swear an oath or treaty promising to adhere to the regulations set for his succession, and that this cuneiform tablet was set up for formal display somewhere inside the temple of Jerusalem. The finding of the Tell Tayinat tablet and its elaborate curses of §§ 53–55 that invoke deities from Palestine, back up the claim of the 1995 doctoral thesis of the author of this article that the impressive similarities between Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and curses from § 56 of the EST are due to direct borrowing from the EST. This implies that these Hebrew verses came to existence between 672 BC and 622 BC, the year in which a Torah scroll was found in the temple of Jerusalem, causing Josiah to swear a loyalty oath in the presence of Yhwh. This article aimed to highlight the similarities between EST § 56 and Deuteronomy 28 as regards syntax and vocabulary, interpret the previously unknown curses that astoundingly invoke deities from Palestine, and conclude with a hypothesis of the composition of the book of Deuteronomy.

 

Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaties § 56

This section highlights the parallels between Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and EST § 56, the curse of the great gods. Although lists comparing curse motifs in extra biblical texts with Deuteronomy 28 present a lot of motif parallels, a careful look at such lists shows that the paralleling of motifs destroys the sequence of elements in one text in order to fit it to the sequence of the other (eds. Kitchen & Lawrence 2012:244,

Dt 1–32 being number 83 in their counting of ANE treaties). In Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and EST § 56, however, the sequence of motifs is identical. In only two cases does a topic appear at a slightly different position, and in both these cases one can explain the difference as a deliberate scribal arrangement.

Apart from the identical sequence of topics in both curses, there is an astounding parallel regarding the syntax. Curses invoking Yhwh or the gods as subjects causing calamity, alternate with curses in which natural forces are the subjects, or sentences that just describe the result of the preceding curse. In Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and EST § 56, these alternations occur at parallel positions.

There is still another syntactical parallel between the Assyrian and the Hebrew text. The curses invoking the divinity are optative sentences. In Assyrian, precative verbal forms mark the optative. In Hebrew, yiqtol-x formations mark the optative. Although most English translations render Deuteronomy 28:20–44 as indicative, the Hebrew text alternates between invocations of Yhwh that concede to him the option of punishing in optative yiqtol-x, and sections in the indicative dealing with the consequences of Yhwh’s punishments or the harmful effect of natural forces. The following translation will indicate an optative sentence by using ‘may’. A similar comparison has previously been published (Steymans 1995). The comparison presented here has been amended to highlight vocabulary and syntactical features common to both texts.

There is not much need for the diachronic separation in Deuteronomy 28:20–44. Three verses show elements of later elaboration.

 

Deuteronomy 28:20c

Deuteronomy 28: 20c: ‘[because of your evildoing] in forsaking Me’.

This ending of the first curse reads in Hebrew: mipp^enê rō^ac ma^calelê-kā ’^ašer ^cazabtā-nî. The three words at the beginning do not appear elsewhere in Deuteronomy, however, they appear in Jeremiah three times (Jr 4:4; 21:12; 44:22). Since the curse section following in Deuteronomy 28:45–62 has a lot of links to Jeremiah, it is safe to suggest that the scribe who added the curses after verse 45 also added mipp^enê rō^ac ma^calelê-kā in order to point to the prophetic language (cf. Is 1:16; Hs 9:15) right at the beginning and prepare for the following links with Jeremiah. Nowhere else does the relative clause ’^ašer ^cazabtā-nî follow rō^ac ma^calelê-kā in the Hebrew Bible. There is ’^ašer ^cazābû-nî in Jeremiah 1:16 and ka’^ašer ^cazabtem ’ôtî in Jeremiah 5:19. The relative clause in Jeremiah expressing that the people leave (forsake) Yhwh differs from the one in Deuteronomy 28:20. In addition, it does not occur in context with mipp^enê rō^ac ma^calelê-kā in Jeremiah. In Deuteronomy, the verb ^c.z.b is linked to the Levites in Deuteronomy 12:19 and 14:27.

Deuteronomy 29:25 quotes the statements of people passing by giving the reason for the disaster that befell Israel: ‘Because they forsook the covenant of Yhwh, the God of their fathers’ (^cal ’^ašer ^cāz^ebû ’et b^erît Yhwh ’^ælōhê ’^abōtām). Deuteronomy 31 quotes the words of God, predicting that his people:

… will begin to prostitue themselves to the foreign gods in their midst, the gods of the land into which they are going; they will forsake me [wa-^cazāba-nî], and break my covenant, which I have made with them. (Dt 31:16)

It is important to notice that Deuteronomy 28:20 is the first occurrence in Deuteronomy where the verb ^c.z.b means ‘leaving or forsaking Yhwh’, and that this meaning is taken up in Deuteronomy 29 and 31. Further use of the verb ^c.z.b speaks about Yhwh leaving or abandoning his people (Dt 31:6, 8, 16, 17; 32:26). Hence, ^c.z.b only means leaving Yhwh as a form of disobedience in Deuteronomy 28:20, the first verse of the curse section, and then in two quotations, namely in the words of other people (Dt 29:25) and of Yhwh (Dt 31:16). Prophetic language uses the verb in a similar sense, however, never in the context of rō^ac ma^calelê-kā.

The verb ezābu, the Assyrian equivalent of Hebrew ^c.z.b, occurs in line 479 of § 56 with food and water as subjects. The only other occurrence of the verb in the EST is in line 172 of § 14, a stipulation closely linked to the whole treaty’s ‘first commandment’ in § 4 through the word repetition of a.šà ‘field’ (l. 49, l. 165), naṣāru ‘protect’ (l. 50, l. 168), uru ‘city’ (l. 49, l. 166), gammurtu ‘totality’ (l. 53, l. 169), libbu ‘heart’ (l. 51, 53, l. 169). The treaty’s addressees must protect Assurbanipal in country (field) and town (city), and advise him in total truth of their heart according to § 4. Then § 14, demanding them to protect Assurbanibal, repeats this order in case of a rebellion. The stipulation ends: ‘You shall Assurbanibal […] let escape [leave]’ [the dangerous situation tušezabā-ni-ni, ezābu-causative Š-stem].

Without claiming to be able to prove it, the verb ^c.z.b in verse 20c may have been inspired by the EST. The verb is rare in Deuteronomy and the EST, but it is existent in § 56 and the important stipulation of § 14 – and in Deuteronomy 28, it may be the relict of the conditional clause that opened the curse section in the Judean loyalty oath. The Judean scribe reversed the main offence against the overlord, using the same verb. As regards Assurbanibal, the main offence is not to let him leave (= rescue him from) any dangerous situation. As regards Yhwh, the main offence is to leave (= forsake) him in disobedience. Thus, the curse section of the Judean loyalty oath might have begun with something like: ‘If you leave [forsake] him [kî ta^cazbennû; cf. Dt 14:27], Yhwh may send on you curse’, picking up the conjunction kî of most conditional laws in Deuteronomy. When DtrL, a pre-exilic scribe (Braulik 2011; Lohfink 1997, 2000), added the blessing of Deuteronomy 28 to his account of a covenant in Moab and the conquest of the land – starting with the bārûk-formulas (Dt 28:3–5) together with the corresponding ’ārûr-formulas (Dt 28:16–19) and the alternative introductions of blessing and curse in Deuteronomy 28:1f. and 15 – the conditional clause kî ta^cazbennû was transferred to the end of verse 20 and the verb changed into perfect kî ^cazabtô (cf. Dt 13:11; 22:2, i.e. the taw moved from the front of the verbal form to its end and the nun energicum was deleted). A later scribe inserted the allusion to Jeremiah mipp^enê rō^ac ma^calelê-kā and replaced kî by ’^ašer. The first person pronoun present in the Masoretic text today may be a technical mistake made by one scribe during the transmission process confusing waw with nun, letters that look similar in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet as they do in the Hebrew ‘square script’, because he knew Deuteronomy by heart and was influenced by the first person pronouns in Deuteronomy 29:15 and 31:16. One Septuagint manuscript has the third person pronoun, and Old Latin has ‘because you have forsaken the Lord’.

 

Deuteronomy 28:21a

Deuteronomy 28:21aI: ‘until he has put an end to you [on the soil, 21aR you are entering to possess]’.

The phrase mē^cal hā-’^adāmâ ’^ašer ’attâ bā’ šāmmâ l^e-rišt-āh appears similarly in Deuteronomy 12:1, 21:1, 30:18, 31:13 and 32:47. However, it appears absolutely identically in Deuteronomy 28:63. Verse 63 starts with a small poem later inserted in the curse section (Steymans 1995). The scribe who added the poem also added the phrase in verse 21 in order to bracket his addition in Deuteronomy 28:63–65 with the section Deuteronomy 28:20–44. Since a previous scribe already added to verse 20, the first verse of the oldest part of the curse section, this later scribe added to the second verse of this section, namely verse 21.

 

Deuteronomy 28:36b

Deuteronomy 28:36b: ‘There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. [37a] You will become a horror, a proverb and a byword among all the peoples, [aR] where the Lord will drive you’.

Verses 36b and 37 assess worshipping of other gods as punishment, and not as sin. The same idea is present in Deuteronomy 4:28, 28:64 and 29:17. Thus, this passage may be an addition by the same scribe who added his poem in Deuteronomy 28:63–65.

Italics mark the common vocabulary and syntactical parallels in Deuteronomy 28 and the EST. The Assyrian and Hebrew language only sometimes use common Semitic roots in exactly the same meaning. Identical or semantically corresponding Semitic roots are put in parentheses. Every sentence starts a new line. The Bible text indicates main and subordinate clauses according to Richter (1991): ‘I’ meaning infinitive and ‘R’ meaning relative clause. The Assyrian text follows Parpola and Watanabe (1988).

Since both texts are rather long, they are divided into sections for convenience. The texts are arranged in tables (Tables 2–9) with three columns. Two columns parallel Deuteronomy 28: 20–44 with EST § 56, model for the sequential arrangement of topics. The third column gives the text of other inserted curse paragraphs, because the scribe composing Deuteronomy 28:20–44 considered their topic fitting to the topic indicated by § 56.

Both curse sequences begin with the divinity as subject of the clause and the keyword curse taken from the Semitic root ’.r.r. (Table 2). The predicate of line 474 maḫāṣu [to strike] may have been the inspiration for the series of curses using the predicate n.k.h-Hiphil [to strike] in Deuteronomy 28:22, 27, 28 and 35 (Table 4, 7f.).

TABLE 2: Divine curse using the semitic root ’.r.r.

The divinities are the subject of the syntax of the curse. The ending of life is the common topic, in Hebrew it is expressed with an infinitive of k.l.h, and in Akkadian with the Mesopotamian vegetable metaphor of ‘rooting out’ (Table 3).

TABLE 3: The deity brings existance to a termination.

TABLE 4: Natural forces chase the cursed humans.

Pestilence is the concluding illness in EST, line 480 of the following section of § 56 (Table 5). This section is marked in line 479 by a shift of the subject from divinity to natural entities. The Hebrew scribe transferred the topic of pestilence to verse 21, as the beginning of a series of illnesses unfolded in verse 22 (Table 4). Thus, he makes pestilence a heading, whereas it was a conclusion in the Assyrian text. The Hebrew scribe did not adopt the Mesopotamian concern for the ghost of the dead in accordance to the general reluctance of the Hebrew Bible in dealing with the afterlife.

TABLE 5: Lack of food due to the impossibility of agriculture.

The Judean scribe took up the verb ‘to strike’ from the first curse of § 56 together with the divine subject. Then he followed the shift from divine subject to natural entity by making the diseases the actors of the chasing, as are shade and daylight in § 56 (Table 4).

The headwords ‘food’ and ‘water’, as well as ‘want’, ‘famine’ and ‘hunger’ in § 56 provide the topic for this section. The Assyrian curse of § 56 starts with entities (food and water) as subject of the sentence. The Judean scribe follows this by making sky and ground the subjects of the Hebrew sentences. He elaborates on the topic by inserting a curse from § 63. His attention was called to this curse whilst reading the EST through the co-occurrence of ‘ground’ and ‘sky’ together with ‘the great gods […] who are mentioned by name in this tablet’, which is similar to the beginning of § 56. The word kaqquru [ground, earth] is written in syllables in § 63, indicating the Assyrian pronunciation of the logogram ki.tim in § 56 (Parpola & Watanabe 1988:92, sub kaqquru). Hence, when read aloud there is a link (Table 5).

Only one exemplar from Calhu has a dividing line between lines 529 and 530, thus counting a § 63 and a § 64, as do the modern editions. All other manuscripts from Calhu, as well as the tablet from Tell Tayinat, present lines 526–533 (= § 63 + 64) as one single paragraph (Lauinger 2012:120). It is one single curse and the Judean scribe was right in taking it up completely. However, he changed the sequence of the similes. The EST lists the metals in a sequence of decreasing hardness – from iron to lead – in the following § 65. By doing so, the Assyrian text inverts the common sequence of heaven and earth to ground and sky. The Hebrew scribe changed the sequence to heaven and earth, but kept the comparison of sky with bronze and ground with iron. Both curses change their subjects. EST § 63 starts with the gods who turn the ground into iron. The subjects of the next sentence are natural entities, namely rain, dew and burning coals. Mixing both Assyrian syntactical structures, the one with divine subject in lines 526–529 and those with natural elements as subject in line 530 (§ 63) and lines 479 and 480 (§ 56), the Hebrew text starts with sky and ground as subjects, following the vocabulary of lines 526–529 and the syntax of lines 479 and 480. Then Yhwh is the subject causing harmful rain, following the syntax of lines 526–529, where the gods are the subject. Military defeat is the topic of § 65, a curse using the simile of lead in order to denote military weakness. The sons and daughters taken by the hand by their fleeing parents link this paragraph to the young women and young men of § 56, whose bodies are mutilated in the squares of Assur before the eyes of their parents, relatives and neighbours.

EST § 56 does not describe military defeat, however, the scene of line 481f. presupposes deportation because the mutilation of bodies takes place in the city of Assur. This might be the finale of a triumphal procession in which captives of rebellious countries were carried through the streets of Assur. Thus, the topic of military defeat only alluded to in § 56 and the topic of corpses being food for animals then expressed in § 56, probably has lead the eye of the Judean scribe to § 41: the curse invoking Ninurta, which clearly speaks of defeat. He conflated § 41 and § 56 in order to create verse 25f. He began his curse by invoking Yhwh instead of Ninurta and expressing defeat. He kept the Semitic root ’.k.l present as verbal form in the Š-stem in § 41 (feed) in form of the noun expressing the effect of the curse in verse 26a (food). In addition, he changed the subject. The addressees of the curse are the subject of verse 26, as are the addressees’ young women and men in § 56. The Hebrew curse continues to have the corpses being the subject of verse 26, whereas the Assyrian one of § 56 has the earth as subject. Both curses share the topic of refused burial. Both curses have an international flavour by becoming a horror to foreign kingdoms, as well as a spectacle in the capital of the multi-ethnic Assyrian empire. The combination of birds and beasts in verse 26 conflates the birds (eagle and vulture) of § 41 and the beasts (dog and pig) of § 56 (Table 6).

TABLE 6: The results of military defeat using the semitic root ’.k.l.

It has long been noticed that Deuteronomy 28:27–29 parallel the Sin and Shamash curses of Assyrian treaties. However, being aware of the topic indicated by § 56 line 485, one realises that the Judean scribe rearranged the complete sequence of Anu-Venus curses, that is §§ 38A–42, in order to elaborate on the topics he found in § 56. The headwords ‘sighing’ and ‘sleeplessness’ link § 56 with the Anu-curse in § 38A, and the skin disease rendered ‘leprosy’ links the Sin-curse § 39 with the skin disease translated ‘scurvy’ in Deuteronomy 28:27. Loss of eyesight (blindness), as well as darkness, link Deuteronomy 28:29 with § 56 and the Shamash-curse in § 40 (Table 7).

TABLE 7: The curse motifs of Anu, Sin, and Šamaš.

The subjects change. Verse 27 starts with the divinity as subject, as do §§ 38A–40. Verse 29 shifts to the addressees as subject, as do the Sin-curse (roam in the desert) and the Shamash-curse (walk about). Both the biblical and the Assyrian curses focus on the desperate way the people move (grope about).

Having elaborated on the topic of military defeat by using imagery of § 41 to create Deuteronomy 28:25, the Judean scribe now elaborates on § 42. This curse invokes Venus, a manifestation of Ishtar, and offers the headwords ‘eyes’ taken up in verses 32 and 34, ‘lying’ as a metaphor for sexual intercourse and rape taken up in verse 30, ‘sons’ taken up in verse 32, and ‘enemy’ taken up in verse 31. The loss of possession to spoiling soldiers is the common topic. The metaphor of an irresistible flood in § 56 also denotes military defeat. The Biblical text is enriched by futility curses that add the topics house and vineyard, as well as curses that focus on cattle. It is not before Deuteronomy 28:31e and 32a that the Assyrian headwords are taken up again. The Venus curse focuses on the impossibility of transferring property as a heritage to the next generation. There is no deportation from the land. However, the enemy is in the land and takes all goods. The biblical curse goes one step further in making the sons themselves a chattel to be taken by the spoiling army. Their parents remain in their land, consumed by the yearning for their children (Table 8).

TABLE 8: The motif of plundering enemies followed by baleful wishes.

The return to illness in Deuteronomy 28:34 and 35 is inspired by the term ‘ill’ in § 56. The Tell Fekhariye inscription reveals that the rendering of curses that are mere invocations in Assyrian as futility curses in a West-Semitic text is not uncommon (Steymans 1995:156–161, 181–185).

There is no curse in EST that deals with deportation. Deportation, however, is the topic of § 25, an admonition that the oath-takers must enounce. Thus, Judeans who were bound by the EST had to say this to their children. Any Judean scribe must have been aware of this admonition. The headword ‘son’ links it to the topic of several curses of the EST. The most striking correspondence between Deuteronomy 28:36 and EST § 25 is the combination of setting a king over oneself and deportation (Table 9).

TABLE 9: Deportation and appointment of a king.

After the topic ‘lack of food’ in verse 26 in correspondence to line 479, the fact that the topic reappears with the root ’.k.l ‘to eat’ in verse 39 and line 490 is a further indication of the common structure of both curse sections. Another identical root connects both texts, namely ^c.l.h [to come up, rise]. In § 56, the root occurs in line 489 with the metaphor of a flood that symbolises enemies. In Deuteronomy 28, the root occurs three times in verse 43, turning the stranger (a person to be cared for according to the biblical law) into an enemy. The Judean scribe elaborated on the topics given in § 56 by creating futility curses. He kept the sequence of food, drink, and then ointment. However, he discarded clothing and repeated deportation of sons and daughters instead. The last line of § 56 lists three types of spirits that haunt the dwelling places. The Assyrian verb ḫīaru means ‘to choose, to select’, and exists also in the noun ḫā’iru/ḫāmiru/ḫāwiru [spouse]. The verb can mean ‘to marry’. The spirits are not evil per se – they may even have protective power (Wiggermann 1992:69, 96, 218f., 221). The point being made in both the Assyrian and the biblical curse is that entities that are not harmful in general and must be protected (as the stranger in the Bible) or may be protecting forces (as the spirits in ANE belief) turn out to be harmful and threaten the intimate space where one dwells (‘in your midst, your houses’) (Table 10). ….

 

 

Did Jonah’s visit inspire monotheism in the kingdom of Assyria?

 

Historical Window for

Jonah’s Nineveh Visit

 

Part Five (i): Did Jonah’s visit inspire monotheism in the kingdom of Assyria?

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

“A strange religious revolution took place in the time of Adad-nirari III, which can be compared with that of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ikhnaton. For an unknown reason Nabu (Nebo), the god of Borsippa, seems to have been proclaimed sole god, or at least the principal god, of the empire”.

 

Francis D. Nichol

 

 

Introduction

 

Whilst I would once have thought that Akhnaton’s Atonism influencing the ‘Nebo revolution’  was likely - then having king Adad-nirari III following on closely from the El Amarna [EA] age (revised) - I would now, with my lowering of this neo-Assyrian period by up to a century:

 

Re-shuffling the Pack of Neo-Assyrian Kings

 

https://www.academia.edu/33167712/Re-shuffling_the_pack_of_neo-Assyrian_kings

 

and with the prophet Jonah and his mission now located to the very eve of the reign of a revised Adad-nirari III (perhaps when a high official such as Ahikar was “king [governor] of Nineveh):

 

Book of Jonah’s ‘King of Nineveh’

 

consider the “strange religious revolution” of pharaoh Akhnaton and Queen Nefertiti to be entirely a different one (chronologically and theologically) from that thought to have occurred at the time of neo-Assyrian king Adad-nirari III.  

On a previous occasion I had written:

My reconstruction of EA (Akhnaton and Nefertiti) in its relation to the time of Ahab and Jezebel has led me to conclude that the Baalism that the Bible records at this time was reflected in the Atonism of, principally, Akhetaton in Egypt, and that the erasure of that Baalism was done through the same agency that defaced and erased Akhnaton and his unique project.

Now I learn from Mackenzie’s article (Donald A. MacKenzie, Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, 1915) that a similar régime as Akhnaton’s was effected in Assyro-Babylonia at the time of Adad-nirari III (or IV: Mackenzie), with the legendary Queen Sammuramat (or Semiramis) having unique power for a woman, likened (once more, as in the case of the Jezebel seal) to Queen Tiy. My conclusion will be that Sammuramat was Nefertiti/Tiy (Jezebel) in Mesopotamia. 

[End of quote]

Whilst I still firmly hold Queen Nefertiti to have been the biblical bad-woman, Jezebel:

Queen Nefertiti Sealed as Jezebel

https://www.academia.edu/31088456/Queen_Nefertiti_Sealed_as_Jezebel

I would now no longer extend this alter ego-ism to include Queen Tiy. 

And Queen Sammuramat (‘Semiramis’), for her part, can no longer belong to the EA era according to my more recent revision of her - now equating her with the significant neo-Assyrian queen, Naqia (Zakutu): 

Naqia of Assyria and 'Semiramis'. Part Two: Naqia attached to Semiramis?

 

https://www.academia.edu/31620155/Naqia_of_Assyria_and_Semiramis._Part_Two_Naqia_attached_to

The influence of the two historical queens, Nefertiti and Naqia, ought not to be underestimated. 

If Nefertiti were Jezebel, as I maintain, then she was one who actually spurred on her husband, and may therefore have been instrumental in fostering the strange and somewhat Indic cult of Atonism in EA’s Egypt. The very first we hear of Jezebel is in association with Baal worship (I Kings 16:31): “[King Ahab] also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him”. 

And she, again, was apparently the wind beneath his idolatrous wings (I Kings 21:25): “… there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the LORD, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up”.

Likewise, Queen Semiramis may have been instrumental in the case of the (different) religious reform at the time of Adad-nirari III. Writing of “The Age of Semiramis” in his Chapter XVIII, Donald MacKenzie will make some interesting observations about her, including this one: “Queen Sammu-rammat of Assyria, like Tiy of Egypt, is associated with social and religious innovations”. Here is a part of MacKenzie’s intriguing account of this semi-legendary queen:

…. One of the most interesting figures in Mesopotamian history came into prominence during the Assyrian Middle [sic] Empire period. This was the famous Sammu-rammat, the Babylonian wife of an Assyrian ruler. Like Sargon of Akkad, Alexander the Great, and Dietrich von Bern, she made, by reason of her achievements and influence, a deep impression on the popular imagination, and as these monarchs became identified in tradition with gods of war and fertility, she had attached to her memory the myths associated with the mother goddess of love and battle who presided over the destinies of mankind. In her character as the legendary Semiramis of Greek literature, the Assyrian queen was reputed to have been the daughter of Derceto, the dove and fish goddess of Askalon, and to have departed from earth in bird form.

It is not quite certain whether Sammu-rammat was the wife of Shamshi-Adad VII [we now take this as V] or of his son, Adad-nirari IV [III]. Before the former monarch reduced Babylonia to the status of an Assyrian province, he had signed a treaty of peace with its king, and it is suggested that it was confirmed by a matrimonial alliance. This treaty was repudiated by King Bau-akh-iddina, who was transported with his palace treasures to Assyria.

As Sammu-rammat was evidently a royal princess of Babylonia, it seems probable that her marriage was arranged with purpose to legitimatize the succession of the Assyrian overlords to the Babylonian throne. The principle of "mother right" was ever popular in those countries where the worship of the Great Mother was perpetuated if not in official at any rate in domestic religion. Not a few Egyptian Pharaohs reigned as husbands or as sons of royal ladies. Succession by the female line was also observed among the Hittites. When Hattusil II gave his daughter in marriage to Putakhi, king of the Amorites, he inserted a clause in the treaty of alliance "to the effect that the sovereignty over the Amorite should belong to the son and descendants of his daughter for evermore".[464]

As queen or queen-mother, Sammu-rammat occupied as prominent a position in Assyria as did Queen Tiy of Egypt during the lifetime of her husband, Amenhotep III, and the early part of the reign of her son, Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton). The Tell-el-Amarna letters testify to Tiy's influence in the Egyptian "Foreign Office", and we know that at home she was joint ruler with her husband and took part with him in public ceremonials. During their reign a temple was erected to the mother goddess Mut, and beside it was formed a great lake on which sailed the "barque of Aton" in connection with mysterious religious ceremonials. After Akhenaton's religious revolt was inaugurated, the worship of Mut was discontinued and Tiy went into retirement. In Akhenaton's time the vulture symbol of the goddess Mut did not appear above the sculptured figures of royalty.

What connection the god Aton had with Mut during the period of the Tiy regime remains obscure. There is no evidence that Aton was first exalted as the son of the Great Mother goddess, although this is not improbable.

Queen Sammu-rammat of Assyria, like Tiy of Egypt, is associated with social and religious innovations. She was the first, and, indeed, the only Assyrian royal lady, to be referred to on equal terms with her royal husband in official inscriptions. In a dedication to the god Nebo, that deity is reputed to be the protector of "the life of Adad-nirari, king of the land of Ashur, his lord, and the life of Sammu-rammat, she of the palace, his lady".[465]

During the reign of Adad-nirari IV the Assyrian Court radiated Babylonian culture and traditions. The king not only recorded his descent from the first Shalmaneser, but also claimed to be a descendant of Bel-kap-kapu, an earlier, but, to us, unknown, Babylonian monarch than "Sulili", i.e. Sumu-la-ilu, the great-great-grandfather of Hammurabi. Bel-kap-kapu was reputed to have been an overlord of Assyria.

Apparently Adad-nirari desired to be regarded as the legitimate heir to the thrones of Assyria and Babylonia. His claim upon the latter country must have had a substantial basis. It is not too much to assume that he was a son of a princess of its ancient royal family. Sammurammat may therefore have been his mother. She could have been called his "wife" in the mythological sense, the king having become "husband of his mother". If such was the case, the royal pair probably posed as the high priest and high priestess of the ancient goddess cult--the incarnations of the Great Mother and the son who displaced his sire.

The worship of the Great Mother was the popular religion of the indigenous peoples of western Asia, including parts of Asia Minor, Egypt, and southern and western Europe. It appears to have been closely associated with agricultural rites practised among representative communities of the Mediterranean race. In Babylonia and Assyria the peoples of the goddess cult fused with the peoples of the god cult, but the prominence maintained by Ishtar, who absorbed many of the old mother deities, testifies to the persistence of immemorial habits of thought and antique religious ceremonials among the descendants of the earliest settlers in the Tigro-Euphrates valley. ….

It must be recognized, in this connection, that an official religion was not always a full reflection of popular beliefs. In all the great civilizations of antiquity it was invariably a compromise between the beliefs of the military aristocracy and the masses of mingled peoples over whom they held sway. Temple worship had therefore a political aspect; it was intended, among other things, to strengthen the position of the ruling classes. But ancient deities could still be worshipped, and were worshipped, in homes and fields, in groves and on mountain tops, as the case might be. Jeremiah has testified to the persistence of the folk practices in connection with the worship of the mother goddess among the inhabitants of Palestine. Sacrificial fires were lit and cakes were baked and offered to the "Queen of Heaven" in the streets of Jerusalem and other cities. In Babylonia and Egypt domestic religious practices were never completely supplanted by temple ceremonies in which rulers took a prominent part. It was always possible, therefore, for usurpers to make popular appeal by reviving ancient and persistent forms of worship. As we have seen, Jehu of Israel, after stamping out Phoenician Baal worship, secured a strong following by giving official recognition to the cult of the golden calf.

 

MacKenzie now proceeds to draw his hopeful religious parallel between EA and Sammuramat alongside Adad-nirari III:

 

It is not possible to set forth in detail, or with intimate knowledge, the various innovations which Sammu-rammat introduced, or with which she was credited, during the reigns of Adad-nirari IV (810-782 B.C.) and his father. No discovery has been made of documents like the Tell-el-Amarna "letters", which would shed light on the social and political life of this interesting period.

…. The prominence given to Nebo, the god of Borsippa, during the reign of Adad-nirari IV is highly significant. He appears in his later character as a god of culture and wisdom, the patron of scribes and artists, and the wise counsellor of the deities. He symbolized the intellectual life of the southern kingdom, which was more closely associated with religious ethics than that of war-loving Assyria.

A great temple was erected to Nebo at Kalkhi, and four statues of him were placed within it, two of which are now in the British Museum. On one of these was cut the inscription, from which we have quoted, lauding the exalted and wise deity and invoking him to protect Adad-nirari and the lady of the palace, Sammu-rammat, and closing with the exhortation, "Whoso cometh in after time, let him trust in Nebo and trust in no other god".

 

 

In light of my revisions, however, I would be more likely to conclude now with the view expressed in the following piece, conventionally dated, that this apparent unexpected reversion of Assyria to a religious form of monotheism was due to the effects of “Jonah’s mission to Nineveh” (http://bibarchae.tripod.com/001_Attendant_god_Nabu_Nimrud.htm):

 

Attendant god, 810 - 800 BC, Temple of Nabu, Nimrud (Kalhu) [see above]
This is one of a pair of statues that stood outside the doorway of the temple of Nabu, god of writing. The cuneiform inscription on it (translation available here) mentions King Adad-Nirari III (810-783 BC), and his powerful mother, queen Sammuramat (Semiramis). The end of the inscription says, "Trust in Nabu, do not trust in any other god". Clasping the hands together over or just below the chest, with the right hand over the left, whilst in a standing position, is very common posture in mesopotamian statues, and I think it is a votive gesture done by worshippers. It is still done today, as part of the Muslim prayer ritual.

This is the first photo I took. The statue is the first thing you see on the right of room 6, the start of the Ancient Near East section on the ground floor of the west wing of the museum. Below is an excerpt from the SDA Bible Commentary that is related to it. It says that the statue is of Nabu, set up by a governor dedicated to the king, but the museum sign said it was of an attendant god and dates it older than in the article below:

 

“A strange religious revolution took place in the time of Adad-nirari III, which can be compared with that of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ikhnaton. For an unknown reason Nabu (Nebo), the god of Borsippa, seems to have been proclaimed sole god, or at least the principal god, of the empire. A Nabu temple was erected in 787 B.C. at Calah, and on a Nabu statue one of the governors dedicated to the king appear the significant words, "Trust in Nabu, do not trust in any other god" The favorite place accorded Nabu in the religious life of Assyria is revealed by the fact that no other god appears so often in personal names. This monotheistic revolution had as short a life as the Aton revolution in Egypt. The worshipers of the Assyrian national deities quickly recovered from their impotence, reoccupied their privileged places, and suppressed Nabu. This is the reason that so little is known concerning the events during the time of the monotheistic revolution. Biblical chronology places Jonah's ministry in the time of Jeroboam II, of Israel, who reigned from 793 to 753 b.c. Hence, Jonah's mission to Nineveh may have occurred in the reign of Adad-nirari III, and may have had something to do with his decision to abandon the old gods and serve only one deity. This explanation can, however, be given only as a possibility, because source material for that period is so scanty and fragmentary that a complete reconstruction of the political and religious history of Assyria during the time under consideration is not yet possible”.

[End of quote]

 

With Adad-nirari III greatly filled out as Esarhaddon, however, as according to my revisions, then the “scanty and fragmentary” “source material for that period” correspondingly gets filled out. The Assyrian inscription reading “… trust in Nebo and trust in no other god” is purely Yahwistic and Isaianic (26:4): “Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal”. Nor is it surprising to find there an echo of the contemporaneous Isaiah, given that (https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/bcc/jonah-3.html)

 

Jeremiah and Isaiah both were doubtless influenced by Jonah, especially Isaiah who, in full harmony with the inevitable deductions that appear mandatory in the Book of Jonah, prophesied again and again the rejection of Israel and the acceptance of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God.