THE FALL OF BABYLON AND DANIEL V, 30. 



13 



It may well be imagined with what avidity the Critics 

 pounced upon these pronouncements of Professor Sayce : all 

 the more that tliey supplied a crumb of comfort in a book 

 which otlierwise was in great measure a drastic attack on their 

 theories. Thus the late Dean Farrar in a work of his, Tlie 

 Book of Daniel, publislied in 1895, which may be described as 

 an impassioned attack on the conservative view, quotes, on 

 p. 56, the above passage from Sayce — with many emphatic 

 italics. Dr. Driver in his Daniel (p. xxxi) takes the same view, 

 and all the rest of the Critics have followed in a similar strain. 



The following are the most important passages in the 

 " Annalistic Tablet " — the principal inscription bearing on the 

 Fall of Babylon — according to the translation adopted by 

 Dr. Driver — 



" In the month of Tammuz (July) when Cja^us in the city of 

 Upe (Opis), on the banks of the river Zalzallat, had delivered 

 battle against the troops of Akkad, he subdued the inhabitants of 

 Akkad. ... On the 14th day of the month, Sippar was taken 

 without fighting. Nabu-na'id (Nabonidos) fled. On the 16th 

 Gubaru (Gobryas), governor of the country of Guti, and the soldiers 

 of Cyrus, without fighting entered Babylon. In consequence of 

 delaying Nabu-na'id was taken prisoner in Babylon. ... On the 

 3rd day of Marchesvan (November) Cyrus entered Babylon. . . . 

 Peace for the city he established, peace to all Babylon did Cyrus 

 proclaim. Gubaru (Gobryas) his governor appointed governors in 

 Babylon. From the month of Kislev (December) to the month 

 Adar (March — n:., in the following year, 537 — Driver) the gods of the 

 country of Akkad, whom Nabu-na'id had brought down to Babylon, 

 returned to their own cities. On the 11th day of Marchesvan 

 during the night, Gubaru (Gobryas) made an assault (?) and slew the 

 King's son (?)." 



Dr. Driver adds in a note — 



" The tablet is injured at this point, but ' the king's son ' is the 

 reading which those who have most carefully examined the tablet 

 consider the most probal)le." 



In respect, then, to the Fall of Babylon, three points are 

 maintained by the Critics at the present day : — 



First, that on the 16th Tammuz (July) Gobryas obtained 

 complete possession of Babylon for his master Cyrus. 



Secondly, that notwithstanding this the merchants of 

 Babylon continued to date their contract tablets " in 

 the 17th year of Nabonidus, King of Babylon." 



