The Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II is one of the superlative baddie of the HebrewBible(known to Christians as the Old Testament ) . In the biblical Holy Writ 2 Rex , Nebuchadnezzarand his army lay siege to Jerusalem , ransack atomic number 79 and other treasure from the temple , abduct the Judean king and his royal court , and carry off 10,000 policeman , journeyman and skilled workers into expatriate in Babylon . Ten years later , Nebuchadnezzar returns and razes Solomon ’s temple to the undercoat .
And in another unforgettable storey in Daniel , Nebuchadnezzar is penalize for his hubris and wanders the wild like a beast eating grass for seven years .
The question is : Did any of this really happen ? For centuries , historian and scriptural scholars have searched for clues about the veridical - life Nebuchadnezzar II , who ruled the Babylonian Empire at the peak of its power from 605 to 562 B.C.E. We know from the archeological record that Nebuchadnezzar was a passe-partout builder , arouse Babylon to a grandeur unrivaled in the ancient Near East .
But was Nebuchadnezzar really the tyrant who sacked Jerusalem and sent the Judeans into exile , and is there any trueness to the Bible ’s history of his " bestial " bout with lunacy ?
The Babylonians Left Great Records
" Nebuchadnezzar is one of those characters in the Bible for whom we have an tremendous amount of data point from non - scriptural source , " saysEckart Frahm , a professor of Near Eastern languages and civilizations at Yale University . " There ’s just a frightful amount of material . "
archeologist have regain tenner of thousands of clay tablets and other inscribed objects from site across the ancient Babylonian Empire , which stretched from the Mediterranean Sea ( innovative - day Egypt and Israel ) to the Persian Gulf ( Iraq , Iran and Kuwait ) . They were written in cuneiform and include everything from royal proclamation to accounting documents .
" Among [ these school text ] are many , many inscriptions written in Nebuchadnezzar ’s own name , " say Frahm , " and patently in these texts he presents himself not as a villain , but as the ' great builder . ' He ’s very eager to indicate that he built these monumental temples and palaces , and that he ’s also very pious . He squeal that he ’s constantly thinking of the idol when building temples to them . "
Nebuchadnezzar does n’t write anything about his political or military exploits , but some important point were captured in a remarkable set of Lucius DuBignon Clay tablet known as the Babylonian Chronicles .
In 2 Billie Jean King , we learn that the Judean King Jehoiakim refused to pay tribute to Babylon , so Nebuchanezzar invade Judah to quash the rebellion . The Babylonian Chronicles confirm this , and supply an exact date for the conquest of Jerusalem ( 597 B.C.E. ):
" There ’s no reason to doubt that this really happened , " say Frahm of both the first Babylonian siege in 597 B.C.E. and the 2nd in 587 B.C.E. " On both occasions , many citizenry in Jerusalem were in fact taken into deportee , include the royal fellowship . "
Proof of Judah in Exile
King Jehoiakim died either before or during the siege , leave his 18 - year - old son Jehoiachin to taste Nebuchadnezzar ’s wrath . Along with the immature world-beater and his extended royal house , thousands of Jerusalem ’s elites — officials , priests , warrior , artisans — were all marched to Babylon .
The bitterness of the Babylonian deportee for the Judeans is captured in the famous opening origin ofPsalm 137 :
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and cry / when we remember Zion .
But what proof do we have that King Jehoiachin and chiliad more Judeans were in fact hale off to Babylon ?
In the former twentieth 100 , archaeologists hollow beneath the ruination of an ancient Babylonian castle found 14 vaulted rooms they first believed to be part of the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon , but later figured out were part of a royal entrepot . In that storehouse were more remains tablets , mostly records of the day - to - day social occasion of the palace . And among those tablets was a 3 - inch tall sherd containing the name " Jehoiakhin , king of Judah . "
The shard turned out to be part of a " ration listing " signal how much oil and grocery were give to King Jehoiachin and his exiled Judean royal court in Babylon .
" That was a remarkable discovery , " pronounce Frahm .
The ration list specifically mention Jehoiachin , other Judean dignitary and Jehoiachin ’s five sons . The quantities of the rations were sizable , which historians take as a sign of the zodiac that the exiled imperial home were cover well in Babylon , and that Jehoiachin probably was n’t interlock up for 37 years as relate in2 Billie Jean King 25:27 .
The Madness of King Nebuchadnezzar?
So where does this leave the famous story of Nebuchadnezzar losing his marbles and eating grass for seven years ? Are there also hints in the historic track record ?
First , let ’s recapitulate the story as told in Daniel 4 . In the Bible write up , Nebuchadnezzar has a troubling dream that none of his court of justice magicians could interpret , so he involve Daniel , a young exiled Judean do it as a visionary . To Daniel , the dream is readable : If Nebuchadnezzar does n’t repent and praise the one true God , he will be stricken with a madness that will cause him to wander the wild like a beast . The story continues :
like a shot what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was satisfy . He was driven away from the great unwashed and eat grass like the ox . His consistency was swamp with the dew of heaven until his tomentum grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the hook of a bird .
A Tale of Two ‘Mad Kings’
fabulously , there is an independent record of a Babylonian king go mad and wandering in the wilderness for year . But it was n’t Nebuchadnezzar , says Frahm . In Babylonian text , the " mad big businessman " was Nabonidus , a king who rein two decades after Nebuchadnezzar and end up losing the Babylonian Empire to the Persians .
According to the records , King Nabonidus replaced the Babylonian god with a raw moonshine god and then extend his troops on a strange hunting expedition into the Arabian Desert to attack some towns , including Yathrib , the late Medina . He then dwelled the next 10 years in the Arabian metropolis of Tayma .
" This sojourn of Nabonidus in Arabia for 10 years is understandably the background signal of the narration of Nebuchadnezzar in the wilderness , " allege Frahm .
There ’s even forcible substantiation of the Nabonidus story also being tie to a Hebraical sage . Four fragments discover among the Dead Sea Scrolls contained what ’s now known as thePrayer of Nabonidus :
Frahm says that the " exorcist " in the Nabonidus chronicle is clearly Daniel , and it ’s easy to read why the author of Daniel would have substituted the " tyrant " Nebuchadnezzar in their retelling . ( There ’s no grounds that Nabonidus eat dope . )
" In this divinity , where you have to be punished for the sins you committed , it makes sense that it ’s Nebuchadnezzar and not Nabonidus who is state to have had this strange installment , " say Frahm .
History vs. Literature
The Hebrew Bible is an incredible document , not only for the faithful , but for historians like Frahm . In books like 2 power and Jeremiah , there are accounts of Nebuchadnezzar and later Babylonian kings that have been independently affirm by ancient cuneiform tablet go back from Babylonian sites .
But then you have the stories in Daniel about thefiery furnace , Nebuchadnezzar ’s dreams and being imprecate with a seven - year folly , all of which Frahm account not as history , but literature .
What does the illustration of Nebuchadnezzar learn us about the historicity of the Bible ? That it ’s neither entirely factual nor exclusively made up , Frahm says .
" You have to look at the detail , " says Frahm . " When we have these independent sources , as we do for the 6th one C B.C.E. , you do have a near chance of envision out what is historically correct and what is later theological rendition . "
