The cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament - The Search For ...

134 THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS AND THE 0. T.
436 was connected with the person of Nabunit (comp. Herod. I.
188). In order to make the above statement clear I
append the following table. Upon this I would merely remark
that Herodotus, who like every other ancient Greek, never
mentions Nebukadnezzar under this, his proper name,
always replaces this altogether strange designation by one
that at all events seemed pronounceable to him, and was
moreover shorter and more current, viz, Labynet i. e.
Nabunit.
I. II.
Book of Daniel. Herodotus.
Nebukadnezzar, father. Labynetus I, father.
Belshazzar, son and last king. Labynetus II, son and last king.
437 VI. 1. And Darius, the Mede , succeeded to the king-
dom; comp. verse 29 : under the rule of Darius and
during the rule of Cyrus, the Persian. In accordance with
the notices of classical and oriental writers, with which
we have hitherto been acquainted, the hypothesis of a
Median interregnum has appeared, to say the least, ex-
tremely improbable. But by the recently discovered
cylinder of Cyrus as well as by NabUna'id's annals such a
theory has been finally disposed -of. Both these docu-
ments represent the last king of Babylon, called Nabtin§,'id,
as being immediately succeeded in the rule over Babylonia
by the Persian Cyrus. Comp. Cyrus-cyl. 17 foil.; Nabu-
nit's Annals Rev. col. I. 12 foil. The conception of a
Daniel was acquainted with the Books of Ezra and Neheraiah, it is,
on the other hand, quite certain, from the verbal agreement of
Bar. II. 6 with Dan. IX. 7; Bar. II. 10 with Dan. IX. 10, that the
author of the Book of Baruch went to Dan. IX as his special and
immediate authority. Comp. E. Schiirer in Protestant. Real-Encyclo-
padie 2nd ed. I, p. 501; J. J. Kneucker, Das Buch Baruch 1879,
pp. 31 foil.