The Empire Next Door: Babylon

So last week we talked about Assyria.

This week, John Belts will be talking about Babylon.

Next week is Easter Sunday, so no Sunday school.

And then the following week we'll conclude with Persia.

As you know, John's a Ph.D. candidate in the Assyriology program

at the Yale Department of Near Eastern.

Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

Let's open in a word of prayer.

Father in heaven, we thank you for this opportunity to learn about your word

and to learn about your world.

We ask that you would bless John with insight.

You would help him to show us all the beautiful connections, Lord,

that the Bible has with history.

We pray that you would open our hearts to your Holy Spirit,

to work in them, Lord, and that we would not merely gain intellectual knowledge,

but knowledge of you.

We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Amen.

Okay.

Okay.

Welcome, everybody.

Glad that you all decided to come back and hear me ramble on again.

So that's good.

As Tom said, we're talking about some of the different major empires

and geopolitical figures that show up in the Hebrew Bible.

And last week we talked about Assyria,

and this week we're going to talk about Babylonia,

or the Neo-Babylonian Empire,

and we'll talk a little bit about what that means.

So just a quick recap from last time.

We talked a little bit about how the ancient Israelites and the Judeans

were sort of smaller, weaker powers trapped sort of in between larger sort of superpowers of their day.

And the ones that we're focusing, so Egypt on this side,

and a series of different empires on this side.

So those are the three that we're looking at, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia.

Okay.

So we talked about that.

We talked about how even though they are sort of smaller nations that don't have a lot of power in and of themselves,

they do sort of form this land bridge between Africa, Asia, and Europe.

And so these larger powers did want to control that area.

So this is why a lot of these superpowers will have an interest in the area where Israel and Judah are,

even though they're not necessarily the biggest players on the stage.

So let's go through Assyria.

You can see me being scared again.

Babylonia.

Okay.

So let's start with three.

There's a number of different verses, several hundred verses, right,

in the Hebrew Bible that mention Babylonia specifically.

But I pulled three just to sort of talk about,

just to get us sort of started in thinking about who these people are as we encounter them in the Bible.

Right.

So in 2 Kings 25,

we first hear about how King Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem,

besieged it,

and conquered the city and sacked it

and deported a large amount of the population to Babylonia.

So Babylon appears as a very sort of like destructive force,

and this is a very traumatic event that happens in the history of Israel and Judah.

But then we hear later in the same chapter

that 37 years into his exile,

King Jehoiachin of Judah

is released under Nebuchadnezzar's successor

and allowed to sort of live in Babylon

and at least not be a prisoner,

but be,

I don't know,

someone less than,

slightly less than a prisoner,

house arrest maybe.

And then finally in Jeremiah,

and this happens a number of other places,

but again,

this is just emblematic,

where God says,

promises that he is going to destroy

Babylon

for what it's done to his people.

And he says,

as I punished the king of Assyria.

So already we're seeing this sort of a,

you know,

an idea that there is a sort of succession

of these empires.

So we have these three different sort of depictions

sort of of the Babylonians that we find in the Hebrew Bible.

One very much of destruction and trauma,

one of Judeans living in Babylonia,

and one of sort of God's retribution against Babylon

for the destruction of Jerusalem.

Okay.

So let's talk a little bit about the history of the Babylonian Empire.

As I said,

last week we talked about Assyria,

and I mentioned the sort of downfall of the Assyrian Empire.

The Assyrians were sort of projected out from their sort of main core area

and took over much of the Near East as we know it,

down into even as far as Egypt,

and were known for their excessive cruelty

and bragging about their excessive cruelty.

And eventually this sort of caught up with them

and the people of Babylonia down here

and another group called the Medes up here

sort of formed an alliance

and attacked the Assyrian heartland

and sacked all of their capital cities

and basically ended the Assyrian Empire.

So with that,

with the collapse of the Assyrian Empire,

there's sort of a power vacuum.

Somebody has to take over.

And the king of Babylonia,

Nabopolassar,

who was Nebuchadnezzar's father,

we'll get to Nebuchadnezzar in a couple minutes,

sort of begins to,

there we go,

begins to sort of reincorporate

as much of the Assyrian holdings

into his empire as he could.

This happens particularly more than

under Nebuchadnezzar II as well,

who is the biblical Nebuchadnezzar.

We call this period the Babylonian Empire.

It lasts for a little under 100 years.

Babylonia and Babylon as we know it

have been around for a good 2,000 years or so

before this.

So if in school,

if you ever learned about Hammurabi

and his famous law code,

that's back maybe during the time of Abraham.

So this is a long time before this.

But sort of like we did with Assyrian history,

I want to break down

the Neo-Babylonian Empire

into three phases

because three is a good number

and it's easy to sort of divide things

into parts of three.

So the first one is expansion and consolidation.

This is sort of in the aftermath

of the collapse of Assyria

and Nebuchadnezzar

and Nebuchadnezzar

sort of are sort of consolidating

their hold on this territory.

And this is going to cover,

again, we'll get to this

when we talk about biblical connections

in a little bit.

But this is going to cover

the period when Judah is destroyed.

Sorry, I missed this last time too.

I always forget to give the outline

of what I'm doing.

We're going to first talk about

the history of the Neo-Babylonian Empire

and then we'll go over some notes

about sort of their culture

and then finally we'll hit

with more biblical connections.

Again, I missed that last time too.

So.

So we first have this period

of expansion and consolidation.

After Nebuchadnezzar dies,

there's what we could call

sort of a revolving door of kings.

We have this king, Amal Marduk.

In the Bible, his name is rendered

in Hebrew as Evel Marodach.

And he reigns for about two years

and then we have three more kings,

two or three more kings after him

who reign for even less than that.

So it's a very, very quick turnover of kings,

usually not a good sign of stability.

And then we hit our third period

of what I've termed to be dramatic

the mad king, Nabonidus.

Nabonidus was a military commander

under Nebuchadnezzar

and he, after some of these weak kings

sort of launched a military coup,

took over,

and actually did sort of have

a relatively lengthy reign

even though he was sort of

an elderly man already by that point.

He and sort of his son Belshazzar

also did some of the ruling at that point.

There may have been a co-regency

between them for a little bit.

The reason I call him the mad king

is that he seems to have had

a particular,

we'll get into this

with Babylonian culture a little bit.

But he seems to have had

a particular fascination

with the moon god

and sort of really pushed

the worship of the moon god

over and above

some of the other deities

that were more common

in Babylonia.

And this may have put him at odds

with some of the priesthood

of some of these different gods

and other sort of powerful figures

in Babylonian society.

He also campaigned down into Tema,

which is today in Saudi Arabia,

and spent a number of years living there,

which is when he left his son Belshazzar

as sort of either a co-regent

or a governor in Babylonia itself.

And historians are a little divided

as to why he ran away

to the Arabian desert

for several years.

Some people who really lean into the idea

that he was like a mad king

really think that he had,

you know,

some kind of religious epiphany

that like he was just like,

I need to go to the desert

and worship the moon god.

Other people think,

I think that it's more likely

that he's trying to control

certain trade routes

that came up through.

Down,

okay,

off the screen,

in Yemen today,

right?

There's a trade in frankincense

and spice

that would,

moves up through this area here.

And this was becoming

a real lucrative trade

at this point.

Think like oil today,

right?

You can control an oil pipeline,

right?

This is one of the things now

with the Russia and Ukraine thing

is,

you know,

if people cut off,

anyway,

modern geopolitics.

We'll stick with Babylon.

I'm better with Babylonian geopolitics.

So he,

it's possible

that he may have wanted

to control

some of these trade routes

in spice

because that's a very,

would have provided

a lot of wealth.

But at any rate,

he stayed there

for a number of years

and then

ended up returning

to Babylon.

But later,

later,

Babylonian authors

who wrote about this

sort of portrayed him

as,

as kind of a mad king

who angered the gods

by pursuing this other cult

and stuff like that.

So there were a lot of people,

even in Babylon itself,

who really didn't like him.

And so when we get to,

do I have a slide here?

Oh,

we'll come back to that.

So basically,

the end of

the Babylonian empire

will come when

the,

and we'll hit this again

next time,

more in detail,

but when the Medes,

again,

team up with a different group,

the Persians,

actually the Persians

team up with the Medes,

if you want to look at it

that way,

that Persians take over

the Medes.

But a guy named,

by the name of Cyrus,

who is the king

of the Persians,

invades Babylonia

and probably,

seems to have had

a pretty easy time

conquering it

and it's thought

that there were

a lot of people

who wanted a turnover

of regime

after Nabonidus' reign.

So,

Cyrus will take over

and inaugurate

the Persian empire,

which we'll look at

next time.

So this is a,

it's a fairly short,

again,

moving from about

the 620s

to the 530s

BC,

right?

So that's just

90-ish years

for an empire.

It's not very,

not very long

compared to the Assyrians

who had a couple

hundred years

under their belt.

But it's incredibly

influential,

partly because of

some of the things

that they do,

such as sacking Jerusalem,

which, of course,

ends up in the Bible

and we have it today.

But I wanted to

next look at

some things about

Babylonian culture.

So these are

some different

clay tablets

that we have here

in the Babylonian

collection at Yale.

I showed,

when we did

the Assyrians,

I showed some

clay objects

before with

writing on,

so these have

a writing system

called cuneiform

on them,

which is written

with signs

that are sort of

these little

triangular wedge

shapes

that are incised

into clay.

And I should have

put a better

view of what

that looks like,

but I didn't.

We'll have to

look at these.

And this is

what I spend

a lot of my

time looking at,

are these

beautiful objects

that some people

think look like

rocks and some

people think

look like

cookies.

But I had a

picture,

every now and

then I'll post

a picture online

of myself

holding a tablet

and someone

will be like,

oh, wow,

did you bake

cookies?

No, no.

No, it's not

a cookie.

But I do see

the resemblance.

It's fair.

Anyway, so

this is what

a lot of

these big

empires in

Mesopotamia

wrote on.

They wrote on

these tablets

of clay

with this

sort of

impressing

these sort

of wedge-shaped

signs into

them.

And the

Babylonians in

particular had

a very rich

culture in

this.

So much

so that

they

were in

many ways

more culturally

powerful than

Assyria.

So the

Assyrians

actually would,

when they

were the

big power

on the

scene,

would actually

imitate

Babylonian

culture.

So they

would import

Babylonian

literature and

scribes and

ideologies and

different things

like that.

And even in

some of the

royal inscriptions

that the

Assyrian kings

made, they

would imitate

the language

of Babylonia

because it

always just

had more of

a cultural

force to

it.

But the

Babylonians

were, like

the Assyrians,

also very

militarily

powerful.

They

practiced, we

talked about

with the

Assyrians, how

they practiced

sort of this

form of

mutual deportation

as part of

their sort

of campaign

of terror and

psychological

warfare that

they would

take people

from one

side of

their empire

and move

and move

them to

the other

once they

would conquer

a place.

And this

had the

effect of

breaking up

people's

attachment to

land, the

ability to

resist and

fight back.

The Babylonians

did something

similar, except

they practiced

what we sometimes

call one-way

deportation, which

is they would

take people from

an area like

Judah when they

conquered it, and

they would just

move them into

their heartland.

It's thought

that they may

have had a

labor shortage, and

they were trying

to get an

influx of

people who

could then

become workers,

so they would

forcibly move

people closer

to their

heartland.

Here we are.

So as I

said, culturally

the Babylonians

were very

powerful, and

they have, so

a lot of the

major literary

works that

come out of

Babylonia, or

sorry, that

come out of

Mesopotamia are

Babylonian in

origin.

So if you

ever had to

read the

Epic of

Gilgamesh, for

example, in

like a high

school literature

class or

something, world

lit, this is a

tablet from that

epic.

This particular

copy is actually

a lot older than

the period we're

talking about.

This is closer to

Hammurabi's time,

right?

So that's closer to

Abraham.

So there's a

creation myth

called Numa

Elish that was

Babylonian and

very popular, a

flood story about

a guy named

Atrahasis who

survives a

worldwide flood,

lots of, again,

really interesting

literature that

comes out of

Babylonia.

And I,

oops, hit my

mic, and I in

particular like

working with

literary sources.

last week we

also talked about

the Assyrian king

and how the

Assyrian king was

sort of the

high priest of

the Assyrian

chief god

Ashur, and so

he had a lot of

like autocratic,

authoritarian power

that came out of

that.

The Babylonian king

had a little bit of

a different

relationship with

the priesthood

around him.

He was not the

high priest of the

Babylonian chief

deity whose name

was Marduk,

not Marmaduke,

that's the comic

from the newspaper.

So he was still

very authoritarian,

very much in

control, but the

priesthood of

Marduk and of

other individual

deities also had a

significant amount

of power.

And again, think

back to Nabonidus

who really wanted

to stress a

particular god and

other priests

didn't like that,

and he was still

able to force them

to go along with

it, but when they

had a chance to

take an out,

they did.

And the power

of this priesthood

also comes from

the fact that

a lot of,

in Mesopotamia,

they,

sorry, in

Babylonia in

particular,

there were large,

temples were not

just like our

equivalent of a

church, right?

Temples in

Babylonia specifically

were often large

estates.

They controlled

vast amounts of

agricultural land

and the income

from that land,

and so there's

people, for example,

who are economic

historians who just

dig into that whole

system and how that

worked, and I don't

know enough about

money to do that.

I just know that it

was very powerful,

and it gave them a

lot of ability to

affect society and

to affect sort of

the way things

where it is, where

they derived a lot

of their power

from that meant

that they could

keep the king in

check sometimes.

So one final

example on that

is that the,

one of the

projects that

took place in

these Babylonian

temples was a

series of

astronomical

observation

projects.

So from about

the, we think,

from about the

600s down to

about the turn

of the era,

every night

Babylonian priests

would go up to

the top of

their, these

temples, which

were sort of

these big kind

of stepped

pyramid-looking

things, and

they would take

observations of

where different

planets were in

the sky, and if

they saw a

comet, and if

there were, what

the weather was

like, and all

these different

things.

And, so this

is a whole side

thing I could

give a whole

thing on, but

they were able

to sort of

create the

beginnings of

mathematical

observational

astronomy.

And so if

you look at,

for example,

the later

Greek

astronomer

Ptolemy,

when he wrote

his big book

of astronomy,

the Almagist,

he has a bunch

of charts in

the back of

it that give

a whole bunch

of data and

numbers about

things.

And he says,

I got this

data from, he

calls them

Chaldean priests,

he means

Babylonian

priests.

And it's very

clear from the

data he has

that he got

it from them.

And that book

is considered

one of the

foundations of

the beginnings

of Western

astronomy.

So if you

like astronomy,

you have

Babylonian

priests in

some sense

to thank for

that.

But they

were able to

continue doing

these observations

even when there

were regime

changes, even

when the

Assyrians would

come in and

conquer Babylon,

even when

later the

Persians came

in and later

Alexander the

Great came in

and conquered.

These Babylonian

priests, their

temples had

enough autonomy

that they were

able to just

kind of keep

doing this

astronomy project

for several

hundred years.

It's actually

the longest

running human

research project.

So, you

know, and

this tablet

that I'm

holding here

is actually

an astronomical

it's not one

of the diaries.

I think it's

one of the

if I remember

I think it's

a predictive

text, a text

where they're

actually going

through and

trying to say

like okay if

that planet's

here at this

time and

here at that

time then at

this time it's

going to be

there.

So, yeah.

John, is that

the background

for the Magi

viewing star

in Matthew,

the Chaldeans

who are

observing the

heavens?

It very well

could be.

There's a lot

of debate

about who

the Magi

were that

come and

visit Jesus

in the

Gospel of

Matthew but

yeah, the

possibilities for

that range

from Persian

astronomers who

would have

gotten their

data also from

Babylonians to

maybe Babylonians

themselves who

were still doing

astronomical

projects at that

time.

We just don't

know.

But it's a

possibility.

So a lot of

biblical

connections here

mostly because of

the Babylonian

exile.

As I said,

you know,

at the end

of the Book

of Kings,

the Kingdom

of Judah

finally ends

up succumbing

to Babylonian

conquest.

The Assyrians

before them had

never actually

managed,

if you remember

from last week,

had never

managed to

actually fully

conquer

Judah.

They had

tried under

Sennacherib and

we talked about

that invasion and

how that may or

may not have

gone.

according to

Sennacherib and

in the Bible.

And Nebuchadnezzar,

at first, it

seems like he

may not have

initially wanted

to fully conquer

Judah.

It seems that,

again, because

they're here and

they're on that

highway that sort

of runs between

his empire and

Egypt, a lot of

historians think

that he may have

intended to

simply just,

he wanted the

Judeans to be

on his side

as a buffer

state against

Egypt so that

the Egyptians

couldn't come

and cut into

his empire.

But the

Judeans didn't

really want to

do that and

seemed more

likely to cut a

deal with the

Egyptians.

And so he just

decided the

easiest thing in

that case was

just to conquer

them.

So from a

geopolitical

perspective,

that's how we

get the

Babylonian exile.

And this is,

again, one of

the most pivotal

events in the

shaping of what

will then become

early Judaism.

And a lot of

the biblical

books that we

have come from

this time period.

a lot of

prophets, for

example, I've

just listed

Jeremiah and

Ezekiel here

who write at

that time.

Jeremiah kind

of, he gets

the, he sees

where things are

going.

He says,

look, he

says, we

can't be cutting

a deal with

Egypt, right?

We, you

know, God

wants us to

just lay

low.

If the

Babylonians want

us to do

their thing,

let them do

their thing.

And

interestingly, it

seems that when

you look at the

things that the

people, the other

people who are

speaking against

Jeremiah say,

they reference the

earlier campaigns

by Sennacherib,

not so much in

directly, but

they have this

idea that they're

like, well, the

Assyrians couldn't

take Jerusalem,

so what do we

think the

Babylonians are

going to do?

God won't let

anything bad

happen to us.

And Jeremiah

says, well, that's

not how things

work.

So Ezekiel, also

writing in the

same time, actually

writing in exile.

He was a

priest who was, a

Judean priest who

was taken into

exile.

So he is probably

actually writing from

Babylon itself and

delivering his

oracles from there.

He works, he's, a

lot of his oracles

come at this

interesting time when

some of the

people have been

taken initially and

Nebuchadnezzar is

hoping that like

this, the Judeans

will kind of get

in line and he

won't have to do

anything more.

And he hasn't

actually had to

come in and

destroy the city

yet.

So Ezekiel writes

at this interesting

time when he's

kind of, at least a

lot of his

material, partway

through his career

the whole city

gets destroyed.

But his early

career, there's a

lot of stuff where

he talks about,

you know, sort

of like, guys,

I'm in exile and

if you don't get

your act together

you're going to

be here too.

So we sort of, we

see the whole thing

in process.

Daniel and his

friends are also

said to have been

taken into exile by

Nebuchadnezzar,

right, especially in

Daniel 1.

You read about them

being taken there

and not being

trained in all the

different, in all

the Babylonian

culture, right, so

their literature and

they probably learned

some Babylonian

astronomy and all

this stuff, right?

And the historical

work that is the

Book of Kings, right,

since it ends right

with the exile, the

exile, or right

around the exile,

seems to have been

sort of something that

was compiled and

written sort of

around that time as

a way of explaining

to people, like,

guys, this is why

we were taken into

exile.

If we look back

through our history,

we can see how we

consistently didn't

follow God, and he

told us we're not

going to get to stay

in our land if we

don't follow him, and

then here we are, the

exile.

So it serves this

sort of purpose of

explaining how they

got where they were,

right, which is a lot

of good history does

that.

Interestingly, too,

again, looking at

things in my field,

there's also, just a

few years ago, there

were a number of

texts published from a

site called Al-Yehudu,

which in Babylonian just

means the, like, Judah

city, city of Judah.

And it's from a place

that seems to be, it's

right in the heartland

of Babylonia, and

there's a number of

people there who have

names that sound an

awful lot like good

Judean names.

And so we can

actually see some of

these people who are

living in exile.

And I know some

people who work on

these texts, and it's

very interesting.

They have a lot of,

we get to see that, I

mean, a lot of these

texts are things like

loan contracts and

marriage contracts and,

you know, the minutiae

of life, right?

We don't have, like,

hello, I'm a Judean

exile, and my name is

Bill.

And, you know, we don't

get that, unfortunately.

But we do get their

financial records, which

is kind of fun, and we

can sort of begin to

reconstruct aspects of

what life may have been

like for them in exile.

So that's really

exciting.

Yeah, I think that's

basically, I talked

about Amal Marduk,

Evel Marodach, releasing

Yehoiachin, the Judean

king, a little bit

already at the

beginning, right?

So this is another

example of somebody who

gets to sort of live,

you know, a Judean who's

taken into captivity, but

then gets to sort of live

in Babylonia.

So again, to draw it

back to where we

started, with these sort

of three themes of

Babylonia, right?

Babylon as the

destroyer of Jerusalem,

Babylon as a place

where Judeans now live,

right?

In fact, until the

20th century, really,

there was a huge, huge

Jewish community that

lived in Babylonia,

right?

The Babylonian Talmud,

one of the major works

of Rabbinic Judaism,

was compiled in

Mesopotamia at a much

later time than this,

right?

This is a couple

centuries after Christ.

But that Babylonian

Jewish community gets its

start from these exiles

because when they get a

chance to go back, not

everybody goes back.

And finally, then, as we

touched on a little bit

and we'll hit next time,

Babylon will suffer

punishment from the Judean

perspective of what it's

done to Jerusalem, just as

Assyria suffers punishment.

So, okay, that's all I have

for this week.

Questions?

Yeah?

Under what king was the

Hanging Gardens of

Babylon built and did the

Hanging Gardens of

Babylon really exist?

Great question.

So, according to, so the

Hanging Gardens of

Babylon are something that

we know of specifically

from Greek historians who

were writing a little bit

after this period, often in

the Persian period, right?

And so, and they

attribute it to, if I

remember correctly, whoops,

why did I go there?

They attribute it

specifically to

Nebuchadnezzar, right?

Archaeologically, we

haven't found anything in

Babylon that seems to be

something like this.

There is an Assyriologist

who has suggested that

actually the, that the

Hanging Gardens of

Babylon were actually in

Assyria and that it was an

Assyrian king who built

them.

And she thinks there's a

specific part of the

archaeological site of

Nineveh, which hasn't been

fully dug, that might have

these gardens in them.

It's a theory that some

Assyriologists agree with and

some don't.

I haven't, I haven't looked at

it enough to know what I

think.

I know, I think my advisor

doesn't buy it, but it has

some strengths, it has some

weaknesses.

But yeah, it's probably

based on something.

I'll put it that way.

Yeah, Tom?

I just wanted to point out the

start of the Jewish community

in Babylon, that in the area

where I studied, like the

ancient Near East and the

medieval period, there's still

tons of Jews living in what

was Babylonia.

Now we call it Iraq, but like in

the 7th, 8th century, you get

Persian kings talking about this

huge Jewish community.

So that started 1200, or like

you said, I mean, even until

the 1930s, there were lots of

Jews still living there.

Yeah.

It lasted like 2,500 years.

Yeah.

That community.

It's a long time.

Yeah, your stuff is a lot

closer to the Babylonian town

than my stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that was, I mean, it

wasn't just for a period, it

wasn't just a Jewish community.

There was a period where it

was like the Jewish community,

where it was the most powerful,

most educated Jewish community

in the world for hundreds of

years.

There's another question in

here somewhere, I think.

Yeah.

So this may be beyond what you,

but obviously Genesis 11, you

have a Tower of Babel, and then

you have this place later called

Babylon.

Is there a relationship

archaeologically, historically,

biblically?

Yeah, so it's...

This is hotly debated as well,

as I think you know.

Yeah.

So there is a connection

between the name, right?

Babel, Babylon.

There's different sort of

etymologies that, you know,

ancient people love coming up

with...

Well, even we do this today as

well.

I shouldn't say ancient people do

this, but people love coming up

with etymologies for how things,

where words come from, right?

So the Babylonians, for example,

said that Babel, which is how

they pronounce Babylon, right?

Actually, Babylon is how the

Greeks pronounced it, right?

So it's really Babel, right?

But they said Babel comes from

Bab-ili.

And Babu in Akkadian is gate,

Elu is God.

So Bab-ili is gate of the gods.

And so that's how...

That's what they etymologize it as.

The...

In the Bible, right,

we get this story about

how it comes from a root meaning

to mix, right?

Because it's where God

mixed up the languages.

So we don't know exactly

what site is being referred to

by the Tower of Babel narrative,

whether it's Babylon itself.

Some people will suggest

that it might be something

in one of the Assyrian capitals.

We're not quite sure.

It's hotly debated.

Sure.

John, is it fair to say

that some of this stuff,

before the Neo-Babylian Empire,

when we get to the time

of, quote, the Tower of Babel,

we're dealing with, like,

the mists of history here.

Like, this is so far back

that we have...

Right.

And this is...

We don't have cuneiform tablets

that even would have gone

back that far, right?

Like, two...

I guess maybe...

Well, back as far...

So we get cuneiform writing

as far back as, like,

3,200.

Okay.

Right.

So pretty far back.

But we also just keep in mind,

it's also very spotty.

Right?

So sometimes we're like,

oh, we have a huge archives,

but it's only economic tech.

It's all receipts.

Right?

So we're like,

well, we know what the city

looked like,

and we know what people

were buying and selling there,

but we don't know

anything else, right?

Or sometimes we'll dig up something

and we'll get something

that I like,

which is literary texts.

And then we're like,

oh, well, we know what...

At least the scribes,

anyway, were reading.

And maybe what stories

people were telling each other.

But what do you go from that?

So there's a lot

of different things.

And this is where

it gets interesting,

you know,

in trying to...

as readers of the Bible,

when we look at this kind of stuff,

because we have both, like,

what we read in the Bible

and what we do with it theologically,

and we also have

what we can sort of talk about,

what we can verify historically,

where things overlap.

Part of the reason

I've focused on the periods

that I've focused on here

is because we actually have

a lot more sources

that allow us to sort of

line these things up together

and then sort of look

at how they're interacting

a little bit more so.

I mean, we have things

from earlier periods,

don't get me wrong.

But there's plenty of gaps

in there

where certain things

can be happening, right?

Like, we don't have Abraham

attested in a cuneiform document,

even though we probably have

documents from the time period...

We have documents

from the time period

when he lived.

It's just...

the ones we happened to find

don't mention him.

Or maybe because he was living

sort of as a nomad,

and he may not have shown up

in those records, right?

So there's a lot of things

like this that we sort of

have to take into account.

And this goes in, I think,

also with the Tower of Babel

narrative as well,

is, you know,

they can be referring

to something that we

simply may not have

the text for.

Yeah?

Do you think because of the...

Okay, whoever was king

at the time,

or whatever empire

was in power,

that money was more

the focus,

and that's why you're saying

some records that only

contain receipts,

power over money?

Sort of.

So one of the things

is that, like,

when we think of writing...

Because we write everything,

right?

I mean,

I wrote my notes,

you know?

I still write, too,

even though there's computers.

Exactly.

Well, whether we're typing

or writing by hand,

like, the written word

is such a huge part

of our lives.

But when we look

at the development,

particularly in Mesopotamia,

the development of writing,

it's very much centered

around administration.

So most of the very early sources

we have,

these things from, like,

you know, 3,100

up through the 2,000s,

a lot of that is...

And even beyond that,

a lot of what we have

are these sort of economic

and administrative records,

simply because that's...

You know, accounting

was one of the main things

they used it for.

And so it's...

I think even today,

if we looked at, you know...

If we actually kept

all the receipts that we got

and didn't just throw them out

like I always do

instead of being better

at my own personal accounting,

right?

Like, we might have,

in many cases, like,

if we looked at all the paper

we have,

we might actually have

a lot more receipts

than we do, you know,

novels, right?

So if we actually kept

every single one

from every transaction.

And so this is, you know...

I think I might have mentioned

this a little bit last time, too,

but because they wrote

on clay, you know,

especially if it's fired

or even if it's just sun-dried,

right?

You have something that is...

Especially if it's fired,

you have something

that's essentially

as robust as your coffee cup,

as your coffee mug, right?

But that you bury it

in the ground,

it's going to survive.

So because they wrote

on a very durable material,

we have a lot of this stuff

that still survives.

Whereas if...

When they start writing

on papyrus and parchment

in the Persian period,

we start losing sources

as historians

because a lot of that stuff

just disintegrates over time.

Got it.

Thank you.

I'm curious,

what are the...

Are there estimates

on how much is yet

to be dug up

out of the ground?

Probably a lot.

It's hard to sort of estimate

what you don't have

or how much you don't know.

Well, like you said,

there was a site in Nineveh

that is known to exist

that just hasn't been dug up.

Like, is that...

Are there many such sites?

Yes.

So there are a number

of sites and parts of sites.

The other thing, too,

is a lot of times

when a site...

When an archaeological site

is dug,

especially if it's a big one

like Nineveh,

they focus on certain areas

of the site

because you can't really...

Unless you just trash the site,

you can't scientifically

excavate a whole area

unless you have, you know,

millions and millions

of dollars

and all kinds of logistics

and stuff like that, right?

So there's a lot of...

There's still a lot of areas

that still need to be dug up.

One of the...

One of the complicating factors

is that we have

not only, you know,

archaeological excavations

that dig things up,

but looters,

especially in the wake

of the Second Gulf War

and ISIS

and the Syrian Civil War.

There are a lot of sites

throughout this whole area here,

especially,

that you can see...

I've seen satellite images,

right?

And they'll show you,

you know,

before some of this stuff

and, you know,

three years later.

And you have what looks

like a nice hill

in the before

and in the after

it's just pockmarked.

And you can tell

that you've had looters

in there with

sometimes shovels,

sometimes backhoes,

right?

just digging stuff up

to sell in the black market.

And as a historian,

it's heart-rending.

I feel for the people as well

because the reason

they're doing it

is because they need

to make money

to feed their families

and there's a war on.

But it's heart-rending

because that's a lot of...

Sometimes this material

does come to light

and scholars do get

to look at it.

But a lot of the

valuable information

about where it comes from,

you know,

was it found in, like,

some sort of

administrative building

or a palace archive

or someone's private home?

This is all information

that historians can use

to help tell us more

about what's going on.

And we lose all that information

if someone just takes it

and then sells it somewhere.

Yeah.

The Bible records,

you know,

Daniel being brought over

to Babylon.

We know about the writing

on the wall.

To me,

spectacular things

in terms of,

you know,

Daniel surviving

in the lion's den

and the fire of the darkness

and the writing on the wall

and all that other stuff,

which is in the Bible.

Now, my question to you is,

is there anything

in the Babylonian literature

or archaeological findings

that verify that?

Yeah.

Not a lot specifically.

It's not necessarily

the kind of thing

that if it happened,

a Babylonian king

is going to have put

in their records.

right?

Like,

I got really mad

at one of my courtiers

and I threw him

in a lion's den,

but he wasn't eaten

and now I feel

a little bit chagrined.

You know,

like,

this stuff doesn't end up

in their records.

There's some people

who have suggested,

you know,

there's the story

where Nebuchadnezzar

goes insane

for a couple of years

and people have debated

about,

you know,

somebody even fairly recently

in a seriologist

has written suggesting

that, you know,

because there are gaps

when we don't have

a lot of sources

from Nebuchadnezzar's reign

and we are always

asking the question

of, like,

was,

is that just because

we don't have sources

for those,

you know,

just luck of the draw,

luck of what we did

or didn't dig up

or was,

did he actually have

some sort of

mental breakdown

at some point?

So that is a possibility.

Some people also connect

that more with Nabonidus

and the sort of

mad king tradition.

Even though, again,

it's a different king,

so there's a problem there,

right?

But,

yeah,

so we don't have

a lot of it.

It is interesting

in Daniel

that Belshazzar,

Nabonidus' son,

shows up

as the last king

before the Persians

come in,

right?

So,

which,

which is reflected

in,

in the historical text,

the fact that we have

Belshazzar

ruling

either as a co-regent

or as a governor

under

his father,

Nabonidus.

So,

I think it's interesting

that that

shows up

as something

that comes through

in Daniel

that doesn't

come through

some of the

other sources

because we didn't

know this

until,

or we didn't

have evidence

of this

in the cuneiform

records,

I should say,

until about 50

years ago.

Yeah,

Tom.

John,

I wanted to ask you

about the genre

of history

because you're

talking about

different genres

that are referenced

in the cuneiform

tablets,

so receipts

and then some

mythological,

fictional writings

or mythological

writings or stories

people would tell,

but in terms of

the genre that we

would call

history writing,

I've heard at least

that that's kind of

a relatively new

genre as far as

human civilization

is concerned.

It didn't come about

until more recently

than we would think,

and that,

so I guess I'm

wondering about the

Babylonians.

Did they do that?

Did they just have

some list of dates?

I know they had

date lists and stuff,

but did they actually

say,

the king went and

did this because

of the following

reasons,

but the right,

you know,

like a full-blown

historical narrative,

or does that genre

not even exist yet

in Babylonian?

Yeah,

so this is also

a hotly debated

question.

You know,

when does history

writing start?

When do we go

from just sort of

recording dates

when things happen

to sort of

giving a narrative,

giving an interpretation

for what happened?

I mean,

in the Greek tradition,

right,

Herodotus is usually

called the father

of history,

and he's writing

in, you know,

the mid-Persian period.

So...

That's like 450,

right,

what's that?

Yeah,

something like that.

Yeah.

So the Cineiform tradition

often in historiographical

circles gets a lot

of flack for

having texts

that are mostly

like,

in this date,

I went and I conquered

this city,