THE FALL OF BABYLON AND DANIEL V, 30. 



21 



Sir Ivobert Anderson said that the paper had cleared up 

 difficulties which he had felt in the course of that stud}' of Daniel, 

 which had led to his publishing his book on the subject, more than 

 thirty years ago. ^Yith reference to Daniel v, 30, seeing that it 

 was held by some that the true reading of the Annalistic Tablet was 

 " the wife " (not the son) " of the king died," he had referred to the 

 British Museum, and learned that the gap in the tablet at this point 

 left enough space for the word " son," but not for the word " wife." 

 The fact that the decree of Cyrus for the building of the Temple 

 was found in Ecbatana (Ezra vi, 2), afforded seemingly conclusive 

 evidence of the identity of G6br\'as with Darius the Mede. He 

 was a prince of the ro^'al house of Media, and it is to be presumed 

 that, after his three years' reign as vassal King of Babylon, he was 

 sent back to his own country, and carried with him the archives of 

 his reign. 



" The historical errors of Daniel, paraded by our English critics, 

 were all taken from Bertholdt's book of more than a centmy ago ; 

 and though every one of these " errors " had been disposed of by 

 the researches or b}' the erudition of our own times, the critics 

 had as yet offered no apology or retraction. 



Dr. Pinches said : Mr. Craig Kobinson has made my views 

 clearer as to the events leading up to the taking of Babylon, and I 

 feel that my thanks are due to him for this. It is a long time since 

 I first made acquaintance with the Annalistic Tablet. I remember 

 sitting, more years ago than I care to count, in Dr. Birch's room at 

 the British jNluseum, with a large tra}' of tablets before me, when 

 Su" Henry Ivawlinson, who was present, speaking of the one that I 

 was examining, said, "You ought to find the name of Astyages 

 there." And there, in fact, it was — one or two strokes of the l)rush 

 revealed it — ^in the document in question — the Annalistic Tablet. 

 I do not propose to discuss here the chronology of the Book of 

 Daniel, which offers several difficulties, but the accuracy of the 

 narrative therein is remarkable. The classical writers state that 

 great excavations were made in order to drain the river (the 

 Euphrates), but the tablets give no indications of this. AYith regard 

 to the discrepancy in the names of the kings, it is to be noted that 

 Belshazzar, according to Josephus, was called Nabonidus by the 

 Babylonians {Anfiij., X, xxi, 2), " Baltasar, who by the Babylonians 

 was called Naboandelus," but the inscriptions show that the former 



