The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

542 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
“Three and a half shekels of silver from the ilku-debt of Nabû-ušallim have
Nabû-taklak and Palitu, the wife of Bēl-ušallum, received from Nabûušallim.”
Nabû-ušallim was, in fact, a well-known businessman during the Neo-Babylonian period.
(He is not to be confused with an earlier businessman by the same name, see Hermann
Hunger, “Das Archiv des Nabû- Ušallim,” Baghdader Mitteilungen, Band 5, 1970, pp. 193-
304). His name appears regularly in business contracts from the 40 th year of
Nebuchadnezzar until the 7 th year of Nabonidus. – Cornelia Wunsch, Die Urkunden des
babylonischen Geschäftsmannes Iddin-Marduk, Vol. I (Groningen: STYX Publications, 1993), pp.
27, 28.
In view of this, Furuli’s claim that Nabû-ušallim may have been a king “for at least 4 years”
– which, of course, he must place in the period between Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus –
is refuted by the business documents, which present him only as a businessman during all
these years and even longer.
So what about id AG-GI instead of id AG-I in line 16 on the tablet? As Furuli points out, the
close similarity between the two names appears only in the transliterated forms, not in the
Akkadian (the cuneiform signs for Nabû-ušallim and Nabû-nā’id):
‘We should remember that although gi and i have some resemblance in
English, that is not the case in Akkadian. In the name of the king, gi and i are
not letters or syllables but logograms. Thus they represent two different
words.’ (Furuli, p. 80)
This is true of the latter part of the names. But the first part of the names, ‘Nabû-’, is
identical in cuneiform. It is not so strange, therefore, that the scribe, on beginning to write
the signs for ‘Nabû-nā’id’ in line 16, inadvertently happened to repeat the name he had just
written twice earlier in the text, ‘Nabû-ušallim.’ This kind of error, called dittography, is a
common one. Obviously, the king intended was Nabonidus, as also Jursa rightly points out
in his note on page 128 of his article.
(7) “A king before Nabunaid and his son”
On pages 76, 77 of his book Furuli believes he has found another “unnamed king” who may
have ruled between Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus. He feels he has found this new king
on a tablet at the British Museum known as “The Dynastic Prophecy.” Its museum number
is 40623. The tablet is translated and discussed by A. K. Grayson on pages 24-37 of his
work Babylonian Historical-Literary Texts (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press,
1975. On page 24 Grayson describes the contents and state of the tablet as follows:
“It is a description, in prophetic terms, of the rise and fall of dynasties or
empires, including the fall of Assyria and rise of Babylonia, the fall of
Babylonia and rise of Persia, the fall of Persia and the rise of the Hellenistic
monarchies. Although as in other prophecies no names of kings are given,
there are enough circumstantial details to identify the periods described. …
“The main tablet appears to have had an introductory section (i 1-6) of
which only a few traces are preserved. After a horizontal line the first
‘prophecy’ appears (i 7-25). Although only the ends of lines are preserved, it
is clear that this section contained a description of the fall of Assyria and the
rise of the Chaldaean dynasty.”
This section ends with a horizontal line, which Furuli claims (page 77) marks the end of the
reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. There is no evidence of this. As Grayson points out (page 24),
the various details given “suit admirably for the reign of Nabopolassar.”
The first three lines of the next section in column ii are damaged and illegible, but lines 4-10,
quoted by Furuli, give the following information (the words within brackets are suggested
restorations by Grayson, but the horizontal line after line 10 is on the tablet):