by
Damien F. Mackey
Just
as the Book of Tobit, of a man who served as a high official during
the
Neo-Assyrian era, enables for us to know the true sequence of
three
of the Assyrian kings, so, thankfully, does the Book of Daniel provide us
with
exact knowledge of a succession of three later kings, two being Chaldeans
and
one a Medo-Persian: Nebuchednezzar; Belshazzar; Darius the Mede.
So-called ‘Middle’ Assyrian and ‘Middle’
Babylonian rulers will be found to re-emerge during Neo Assyrian and Neo Babylonian
(or Chaldean) times, where they properly belong.
In other words, the phantom ‘Middle’
era needs to be folded into the Neo era.
I have demonstrated this necessity in
detail in various articles now, including the sequence of three C12th BC
Shutrukid (Elamite) kings turning up again during the reign of king Sennacherib
of Assyria, C8th BC.
On this, see e.g. Volume One, p. 181
of my 2007 thesis):
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and
its Background
(2) Damien Mackey
| The University of Sydney - Academia.edu
Previously I wrote – though somewhat
too optimistically, as it turned out:
…. Marc Van de Mieroop will give one perfect
sequence (as I see it) of four Middle Assyrian kings, who, nevertheless, need
to be folded into the Neo Assyrian era, where Van de Mieroop has these four
kings listed again, but now in the wrong sequence.
I refer to his “King Lists” towards the end of his
book, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 -323 BC.
The following I would consider to be a perfect
Assyrian sequence of kings (p. 294):
Adad-nirari [I]
Shalmaneser [I]
Tukulti-Ninurta [I]
Assur-nadin-apli [I]
where Tukulti-Ninurta = Sennacherib and
Assur-nadin-apli = Ashurnasirpal = Esarhaddon.
This sequence accords perfectly with the
neo-Assyrian sequence given in Tobit 1: “Shalmaneser”; “Sennacherib”;
“Esarhaddon”.
But on p. 295, the same four kings will become
skewed, as follows:
Adad-nirari [II]
Tukulti-Ninurta [II]
Ashurnasirpal [II]
Shalmaneser [III]
….
I have since modified all of this by relegating
Adad-Nirari (from the top) to the bottom of these lists:
Adding Adad Nirari to Shalmaneser as Assyrian kings needing to be re
shuffled
(6) Adding Adad Nirari to
Shalmaneser as Assyrian kings needing to be re shuffled
Daniel and the Chaldeans
Just as the Book of Tobit, of a man
who served as a high official during the Neo-Assyrian era, enables for us to
know the true sequence of three of the Assyrian kings, so, thankfully, does the
Book of Daniel provide us with exact knowledge (cf. Daniel 2:45) of
a succession of three later kings, two being Chaldeans and one a Medo-Persian: viz.,
Nebuchednezzar; Belshazzar; Darius the Mede.
I find these three kings listed twice
- though both times in perfect succession - but hidden away in the haystack of
the conventional Neo-Babylonian (or Chaldean) to Medo-Persian dynasty.
{I have taken the liberty here of
adding Belshazzar, the son of Nabonidus}
Marc Van de Mieroop lists them as
follows (pp. 292-293):
Nebuchadnezzar [II]
Evil-Merodach
Neriglissar
Labashi-Marduk
Nabonidus
[Belshazzar]
…
Cyrus
Here we get the Danielic sequence:
Nebuchadnezzar
Evil-Merodach = Belshazzar
Neriglissar = Darius the Mede
and, again:
Nabonidus = Nebuchadnezzar
Belshazzar
Cyrus = Darius the Mede
For more detail on all of this, see
e.g. my article:
Sixty-two
years of Darius, who was Cyrus ‘the Great’
(6) Sixty-two years of Darius,
who was Cyrus 'the Great'
