Contemporary compositions with Daniel: Autobiography of Adad-Guppi and Nabonidus' stelae


koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

13 June 2010


The texts are fascinating. What we bring together here on the same table for investigation is the autobiography of Adad-Guppi and Nabonidus' stelae. 

Four stelae were discovered in 1906 and in 1957 respectively, but they all belong to the same set that were originally placed at the temple of the moongod Sin in Harran. Harran is a city in North-west Mesopotamia and is situated near the Euphrates.

A drama played itself before our eyes and all are confirmed and talked about in Daniel, the Autobiography of Nabonidus' mother, Adad-Guppi and by Nabonidus himself, the father of the last king of Babylon, Belshazzar.


Modern excavations of the text

Text H1A was found in 1906 by H. Pognon about six km north of Harran. It was an Autobiography of Adad-Guppi the mother of Nabonidus and also Nabonidus' funeral description of his mother. Bandits robbed it out of the mosque and carried it 6km to the north of Harran. 

Text H1B was found at the Harran Mosque excavated in 1956, revealed in 1957. The stela was found upside down and reused as a stepping stone on an entrance at the north of the mosque. Dr. G. Rice found it. It is a duplicate of H1A.

Text H2A was found at the east entrance of the same mosque also used as a stepping stone in the entrance.

Text H2B was found at the west entrance of the mosque and served also as a stepping stone for the visitors to the Middle Age mosque.

Apparently the three stelae are in Ankara and Urfa.


Dating the texts

An accurate dating of the texts are possible. The data in the autobiography of Adad-Guppi is remarkably correct and reliable. Those modern critics who are trying to dispute the chronology of the Adad-Guppi text or that of Nabonidus, do not understand how the chronological calculations of the ancients work. They sometimes use two systems side by side. One is an Assyrian counting system that may or may not be two years longer than the Babylonian system that is two years shorter. Calculating the 9th year of Sargon II is such an example. For the Babylonians it is the 9th palu of Sargon II but for the Assyrians it is the 11th palu of Sargon II, and yet the same event. There is no discrepancy since the king Sargon II was an usurper to the thrown and usurpers to power have problems to calculate their "beginnings". Stelae H1A and H1B were composed by Nabonidus after the death of his mother which occured 104 years after her birth, in the 20th year of Ashurbanipal, thus in 649 BCE. She died in 545 BCE and these stelae speaks of her funeral (H1B Col. III:5-56).


Dating the diary of his mother

Adad-Guppi wrote her diary probably on velums since Thutmosis III wrote his campaigns first on velums and then on the walls of Karnak and kept the velums together in the temple. These velums were then used by Nabonidus for his stelae after her death. Her diary was completed after he built the city and temple at Harran since she speaks of it in the first person as an accomplished fact (H1B Col. I:26).


Dating the stelae of Nabonidus

Two texts which are duplicates of each other, H2A and H2B were completed after the 10 years in hiding in Tema'. The ten years hiding was already an accomplished fact in the text. That means these two stelae were completed after 539 BCE.


Importance of the texts

Tremper Longman III published a book in 1991 speaking about the "Fictional Akkadian Autobiographies". If we speak about fiction and function the two must not be confused. When data functions in a text that does not mean the data is now fictional. The surprising aspect of Adad-Guppi's text is how reliable they composed their datings and calculations over two hundred years.

Adad-Guppi was a healthy centenarian who influenced the Babylonian empire in a magnificent way: she paved the way for its fall.

The religion of Babylon was Marduk as the chief god of the Babylonian pantheon. This lady at the age of 9 in 640 BCE chose to follow a different religion, Sin the moongod. She devoted her life to the god and attempted to encourage all kings to follow the same route. She was not successful for 68 years between Nabopolassar until Evill-Merodach. Her son followed her and in his fifth year in 549 BCE, he got a dream from the god to built a temple in Harran (H2A Col. I:11 and 12-13). 


Content correlations with the Bible

One of the surprising and encouraging aspects of the texts are that there are correspondences in phraseology and phenomena.


1. The king receives dreams to motivate him for building projects. We are reminded by Nebuchadnezzar's dream earlier as explained in Daniel 2 and 4.


2. The action of a woman grabbing the hem of the god for attention (H1B Col. I:12) is interesting and reminds us of the woman who grabbed Jesus' garment in the gospels. There is a 500 year difference though.


3. She said that she prayed to her god without ceasing and one is reminded of the same actions of Daniel in Daniel 9:4.


4. She gave sacrifices and tithes to the temple by day, month, and year (H1B Col. I:16). We read in Daniel of evening sacrifices.


5. In order to entreat the god she refuse to use accessories and luxury items and by abstention she hoped to calm the god. We may call it a lamention mode (H1B Col. I:21-25). Daniel abstained for three weeks from special food, Daniel 10:2-3.


6. Adad-Guppi prayed to her god and he saw her and paid attention to her (H1B Col. I:34-37). Also with Daniel God answered his prayer in Daniel 9:20-23ff.


7. The issue of the prayer of Adad-Guppi was about the city and temple and the glory of her goddess (H1B Col. I:26-27). Daniel also focussed on the character of God, city and the temple in his prayer in Daniel 9:24-27.


8. In a dream the god supposedly appeared to Adad-Guppi for her son to build the city and temple (H1B Col. II:5-8). In Daniel 9 Gabriel appeared and announced some future events to Daniel regarding the city and temple and future Messiah to come as well as the future Antichrist.


9. Nabonidus hid in Tema' for 10 years and he uses the expression "the appointed time" when his situation was changed. It is of course appointed by his god for him to change his future (H2B Col. II:11; Col. III:4). Nabonidus then used the Rebellion in Heaven motif, the victory of the War in Heaven and his victorious god coming back to administer a kind of apocalyptic fulfillment on earth, "Enlil of the gods, king of kings, lord of lord" and the gods quake and tremble (H2B Col. II:14-42). The prophets of the Old Testament are full of these descriptions of the terrible day of the Lord for the wicked but the wonderful day of the Lord for the righteous and remnant of His keeping.


10. Nabonidus said that "In the night season a dream was disturbing, until the word. . . " (H2B Col. III:3). Daniel says similarly in the 1st year of Belshazzar that "I was looking in my vision by night, and behold the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea" (Daniel 7:2).


11. Just like Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2 and 4 and Belshazzar in Daniel 6 so Nabonidus consulted diviners and interpreters "with diviners and interpreters I instructed myself in the way" (H2B Col. III:1-2).


Conclusions

There are no late compositions of Daniel in Antiochus Epiphanes time. Daniel is as authentic sixth century BCE a composition as Nabonidus description of 539 BCE is. Daniel's descriptions were earlier than Nabonidus and there is a possibility that Nabonidus could have had Daniel's descriptions at hand for him to use similar phraseology from Daniel to give himself authentication and legitimacy for his own supposed revelations.

Because Adad-Guppi had such a strong influence as the royal mother and palace female, she influenced her son and grandson to be so strange in their behavior, Nabonidus revolutionary against Marduk and his son secular and frivolous like Ikhnaton in the Egyptian history. The Bible is an authentic data engine that is cardinal for a proper understanding of ancient times. 

 

Sources:

1. http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sitchin/Adda_Guppi_Harran.htm

2. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adad-happe

Adad-Guppi died on the 17th of April 546 and that is when Belshazzar called a three day mourning for her in Babylon. However, her son Nabonidus only cried and lamented her death between 11th of June and 9th of July 546 BCE.

3. C. J. Gadd, "The Harran inscriptions of Nabonidus" Anatolian Studies 8 (1958), 35-92.

4. http://www.caeno.org/_Eponym/pdf/Rice_Adad%20guppi%20discovered.pdf

Newspaper report of dr. Rice of his findings in 1956-57.

5. Tremper Longman III, Fictional Akkadian Autobiography (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1991).

 

adad cuppi chronology 1a.jpg adad guppi stela north entrance a.jpg adad guppi stela east entrance a.jpg adad guppi stela west entrance a.jpg