01The record
19th-century objection: classical sources named Nabonidus, not Belshazzar, as last king
Archaeology (Neo-Babylonian)
Belshazzar as Co-Regent of Babylon
Cuneiform recoveries from the 19th century forward show Belshazzar - named king in Daniel 5 - was Nabonidus's eldest son and co-regent in Babylon, reversing a standard 19th-century objection to Daniel.
high confidenceArchaeological
THE CLAIM
For much of the nineteenth century, classical sources named Nabonidus, not Belshazzar
- 119th-century objectionThe record
- 2Cuneiform tablets confirm BelshazzarArtifact
- 3Daniel 5The text
- 4Still openThe text
WHERE IT STANDS
Firmly established
high confidence
BABYLON'S OWN RECORDS
The Nabonidus Chronicle · the Verse Account
Nabonidus stayed in Tema. “The king's son, the princes and his troops were in Akkad” — the crown prince held Babylon with the powers of the throne while the throne itself was elsewhere.
Two men held royal authority at once. First place was taken.
THE TEXT IT MEETS
Daniel 5:29
“Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with purple, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.”
The third place is the detail a late and uninformed writer would have had no reason to invent — and the tablets are the reason it makes sense.
The span, dated
550s BC
Nabonidus leaves for Tema
The Nabonidus Chronicle (British Museum tablet BM 35382) records a ten-year residence in Arabia while “the king's son” and “the princes” governed Babylon.
539 BC
The writing on the wall
Daniel 5 names Belshazzar king at the fall of the city, and has him offer Daniel “the third place in the kingdom” — not the second.
Before 1854
The standard objection
Herodotus, Xenophon and Berossus name Nabonidus as Babylon's last king. Belshazzar was treated as a figure Daniel invented.
1854
Cuneiform names him
J. G. Taylor recovers four foundation cylinders of Nabonidus from the ziggurat at Ur. Each closes with a prayer for “Belshazzar, the eldest son — my offspring.” H. C. Rawlinson announces the identification the same year.
1929
The co-regency established
Raymond Philip Dougherty's Nabonidus and Belshazzar (Yale) gathers the tablets and shows Belshazzar exercising royal authority with full executive powers in his father's absence.
Today
British Museum — and one open question
Nobody now denies Belshazzar existed. What remains argued is Daniel's use of “father” for Nebuchadnezzar — dynastic predecessor in Near Eastern usage, as the Assyrians call Jehu “son of Omri.”
The claim
Daniel 5 names Belshazzar as king of Babylon at the city's fall (539 BC) and recounts Daniel's interpretation of the writing on the wall. For much of the nineteenth century, classical sources (Herodotus, Xenophon, Berossus) named Nabonidus, not Belshazzar, as last king of Babylon. This apparent contradiction was a standard critical objection to the historical reliability of Daniel.
The evidence
In the nineteenth century, cuneiform tablets from Babylonian archives began to document Belshazzar as Nabonidus's eldest son. In 1854 J. G. Taylor recovered four foundation cylinders of Nabonidus from the ziggurat at Ur; each closes with a prayer for "Belshazzar, the eldest son - my offspring," and H. C. Rawlinson announced the identification with Daniel's Belshazzar that same year. Paul-Alain Beaulieu (The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556-539 BC, Yale University Press, 1989) gathers the full cuneiform dossier.
The Nabonidus Chronicle (British Museum tablet BM 35382) documents Nabonidus's ten-year residence in Tema (Arabia) while "the king's son" and "the princes" governed Babylon. Raymond Philip Dougherty's Nabonidus and Belshazzar (Yale University Press, 1929) gathered the cuneiform evidence and established that Belshazzar exercised royal authority as co-regent during Nabonidus's absence - including, per the Verse Account of Nabonidus, holding the title of crown prince with full executive powers.
4 pieces of evidence
What this establishes
- 02Artifact
Cuneiform tablets confirm Belshazzar as Nabonidus's eldest son and co-regent
- 03The text
Daniel 5:16 third place in the kingdom fits the co-regency exactly
- 04The text
Still open: Daniel calling Nebuchadnezzar Belshazzar's father needs explanation
1 objection taken at full strength
The objections, answered
THE OBJECTION01A strong critical reading still notes that Daniel 5 contains technical inaccuracies even after the cuneiform recoveries. It calls Belshazzar "king" (Aramaic melek) rather than "crown prince," and names Nebuchadnezzar as Belshazzar's "father" (Daniel 5:2, 11, 18, 22), when Nabonidus was his biological father. John J. Collins (Daniel, Hermeneia, Fortress, 1993) argues that the narrative reflects a Hellenistic author working from oral tradition, and that the co-regency discovery does not resolve the Nebuchadnezzar-father issue.
THE ANSWER
Edwin M. Yamauchi (Persia and the Bible, Baker, 1990) and Alan R. Millard ("Daniel and Belshazzar in History," Biblical Archaeology Review 11:3, 1985) make two responses: (a) Ancient Near Eastern kinship terminology routinely used "father" for any royal predecessor or ancestor - the Neo-Assyrian record, for instance, calls Jehu "son of Omri" although Jehu destroyed Omri's line; Daniel's usage fits the convention. (b) Belshazzar's exercise of royal powers - including the offer of "the third place in the kingdom" (Daniel 5:16), since Nabonidus held first and Belshazzar second - is historically precise in a way that a late, uninformed author is unlikely to have invented. R. K. Harrison (Introduction to the Old Testament, Eerdmans, 1969) emphasizes that the nineteenth-century claim that Belshazzar never existed has been definitively reversed by the cuneiform record.
4 passages
Key verses
Berean Standard Bible
“Later, King Belshazzar held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, and he drank wine with them.”
Daniel 5:1
“There is a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy gods in him. In the days of your father he was found to have insight, intelligence, and wisdom like that of the gods. Your father, King Nebuchadnezzar, appointed him chief of the magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and diviners. Your own father, the king,”
Daniel 5:11
But I have heard about you, that you are able to give interpretations and solve difficult problems. Therefore, if you can read this inscription and give me its interpretation, you will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around your neck, and you will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.”
Daniel 5:16
“That very night Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans was slain,”
Daniel 5:30
THE RECEIPTS
Sources
- Raymond Philip Dougherty, Nabonidus and Belshazzar (Yale University Press, 1929)
- Alan R. Millard, Daniel and Belshazzar in History (Biblical Archaeology Review 11:3, 1985)
- Edwin M. Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible (Baker Book House, 1990)
- Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556-539 B.C. (Yale University Press, 1989)
◈Contested pointscontested
Open questions
The precise force of "father" in Daniel 5 - dynastic ancestor or biological father - remains a live question. The literary form of the chapter (court-tale genre versus annalistic history) and its composition date are central to the broader scholarship on Daniel.
- No cuneiform document anywhere calls Belshazzar king. He is mar sharri, "the king's son," throughout — in the Nabonidus Chronicle, in the Verse Account, and in the business archives, where Nabonidus holds the throne to the final year. John J. Collins (Daniel, Hermeneia, Fortress, 1993) presses the point that Daniel 5 confers on him a title Babylon itself withheld, and that a co-regent exercising delegated authority is not what melek means.
- The same Chronicle records that the Akitu, the New Year festival, went unheld year after year because "the king did not come to Babylon" — and only the reigning king could conduct it. The very text that proves Nabonidus was absent also proves that Belshazzar could not stand in his place at the one ceremony that made a man king in Babylonian eyes. Royal powers in the archive and royal standing in the cult are two different things.
- Daniel 5 never mentions Nabonidus at all, and four times calls Nebuchadnezzar the father of Belshazzar (5:2, 11, 18, 22). The standard reply — that "father" in Near Eastern usage means any royal predecessor — carries more weight in the stock parallel of Jehu "son of Omri," where Jehu at least took Omri's throne. Nabonidus was a usurper from outside Nebuchadnezzar's house, and Belshazzar was of no blood relation to Nebuchadnezzar whatever.
- The chapter's other historical claims have found no confirmation. The Nabonidus Chronicle says Babylon was entered in 539 BC without a battle and Cyrus was received with acclaim, which sits awkwardly beside the night of slaughter Daniel 5:30 implies; and "Darius the Mede," who "took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old" (5:31), corresponds to no ruler in any Persian or Babylonian source. Vindication on Belshazzar does not carry the rest of the chapter with it.
- Collins and others argue that a Belshazzar remembered as ruling in Babylon is exactly the kind of detail Jewish tradition could preserve without archives — Baruch 1:11-12 pairs Nebuchadnezzar with "Belshazzar his son" — so a second-century author working from older court tales might know the name without knowing the reign. The cuneiform recovery answers a nineteenth-century objection; it does not by itself establish a sixth-century author.