The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

540 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
a damaged clay cylinder kept in St. Louis Library. – S. Langdon, (1912), pp. 214, 215; J. A.
Brinkman, Alter Orient und Altes Testament, Vol. 25 (1976), pp. 41-50.
If Belšumiškun really was, or had been, a king, why would he be degraded to the role of a
prince, even by his own son?
Actually, the real position of this Belšumiškun is known. The so-called “Court List,” a prism
found in the western extension of Nebuchadnezzar’s new palace, mentions eleven district
officials of Babylonia. One of them is Belšumiškun, who is there described as the “prince”
or governor over “Puqudu,” a district in the north-eastern part of Babylonia. The officials
on the “Court List” held their positions during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. – Eckhard
Unger, Babylon (1931), p. 291; D. J. Wiseman, Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1985), pp. 62, 73-75.
So why should Neriglissar in one of his royal inscriptions call his father “King of Babylon,”
when he had never occupied that position, and is denied that title in all other texts that
mention him? If Furuli’s quotation, as translated from German, had been correct, a possible
explanation could have been that Neriglissar, who had usurped the Babylonian throne in a
coup d’état, attempted to justify his course of action by claiming royal descent. In the
inscription where Neriglissar seems to be calling his father “the wise prince” (“Neriglissar
Nr. 2”), this title is followed by other epithets: “the hero, the perfect, mighty wall that
eclipses the outlook of the country.” If this description really refers to Belšumiškun and not
to Neriglissar himself (the text is somewhat ambiguous), it would reflect a tendency to
glorify the descent of Neriglissar. But to state in a royal inscription that Belšumiškun had
been “King of Babylon” would have been foolish, as everyone in Babylonia would know
that the claim was false.
It is true that P.-R. Berger in his work Die neubabylonischen Königsinschriften (1973), in which the
inscription “Neriglissar I” is designated ”Ngl Zyl. II, 3,” says the following on page 77 about
the title in Col. I, line 14:
”In Zylinder II, 3 schliesslich steht hinter dem Vaternamen der Königstitel
b. Nach dem bisher üblichen Inschriftsbrauch wären es Aussagen über den
Vater und nicht den Autor. Dafür würde auch die wenigstens graphisch
präteritale Verbalform des Relativsatzes sprechen.”
Translation:
“In Cylinder II, 3, finally, the royal title b. [‘King of Babylon’] stands behind
the name of the father. According to the use in inscriptions common so far,
this would be statements about the father and not about the author. The
graphic preterite verbal form of the relative clause, at least, would also speak
in support of this.”
However, it is quite clear that the phrase in Akkadian is ambiguous. This is shown, for
example, by J. M. Rodwell, who in an article in the work, Records of the Past, Vol. V (London,
1892), translated the phrase without the second comma sign (cuneiform, of course, did not
use comma signs at all), so that the title “king of Babylon” is naturally given to Neriglissar:
“son of BEL-SUM-ISKUN, King of Babylon am I”. (Page 139)
Modern experts on cuneiform agree that this translation is just as possible as the other one.
One of my correspondents sent a question to Dr. Jonathan Taylor at the British Museum
about this matter. In an email dated October 25, 2006, Dr. Taylor answered: