Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>]

Actually this is not an argument from silence. We do have a source 
which names Belshazzar as the "son" of Nebuchadnezzar. (But where does 
it say that he was his immediate successor?) The same source names 
Darius the Mede as king of Babylon. This source is of uncertain date 
and reliability. But there is no reason to question it if (as here) 
other sources do not contradict it. We generally accept, at least 
provisionally, other ancient historical sources (e.g. Herodotus, 
Caesar) even when they are much later and uncorroborated. In fact here 
we have some rather partial (and ambiguous) corroboration. Why can we 
not give the same provisional acceptance to our historical source in 
this case?

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: Diachronic study (was Purpose for discussion)
Author:  <mc2499 AT mclink.it> at Internet
Date:    22/02/2000 23:51

<snip>
>
>RF
>The Hebrew and Aramaic word )B ("av") can refer to one's father, 
>grandfather, great grandfather etc. Some researchers have claimed that 
>Nabonid was married to to Nitocris, the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar. So 
>there is no real evidence against the designation "son".

This is of course itself an argument from silence, as are all those you 
have put forward on this matter. The text says that Belshazzar was son of 
Nebuchadnezzar. The text also shows the immediate successor of 
Nebuchadnezzar was Belshazzar. To make all this fit with what we know of 
the history, we have to assume that the writer didn't mean that Belshazzar 
was sired by Nebuchadnezzar although there is no indication to take "av" 
any way other than the literal sense. We have to assume that Nabonidus, who 
is not known in the text, was married to the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar. As 
there is no evidence to contradict the assumptions necessary to arrive 
here, the logic holds sort of, yet I think the relevant literal 
understanding of the indications of the text are being put aside for 
tendentious reasons and nothing else.

<snip>