The translation and publicizing of a cuneiform tablet—basically a receipt for a temple donation—mentioning one Chief Eunuch Nabu-sharrussu-ukin has certainly generated a lot of interest in biblioblogdom. I was away from both home and work all day long; during that time, a number of comments were added to my earlier post on this topic, and several other posts have appeared, for example, Claude’s follow-up as well as notices and comments by Peter Kirk, Stephen Hebert, BK (sorry, that’s all the ID I have), Limbidgit (twice: here and here), Metacatholic, Henry Neufeld, and Jan Pieter van de Giessen (twice: here and here)—and probably others that I have missed (I would welcome links in the comments).

From Claude, who learned it from Peter, I learned that Michael Jursa’s translation of the tablet (it’s neither a cylinder nor a cylinder seal, Jim) has been published in the Telegraph as follows:

(Regarding) 1.5 minas (0.75 kg) of gold, the property of Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, the chief eunuch, which he sent via Arad-Banitu the eunuch to [the temple] Esangila: Arad-Banitu has delivered [it] to Esangila. In the presence of Bel-usat, son of Alpaya, the royal bodyguard, [and of] Nadin, son of Marduk-zer-ibni. Month XI, day 18, year 10 [of] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

It’s great to have the actual translation now—and so quickly!—but all the data salient to assessing a possible biblical connection were already given in earlier reports.

In a comment to my earlier post, Kevin Edgecomb cited the attestations of Sin-magir/Simmagir as a place name, which adds weight to the case in favor of the (T)NIV’s rendering of the list of Babylonian officials in Jeremiah 39:3 over against the NRSV/NJPSV rendering. (There are a number of other translations that could be cited, of course; these are the ones I happen to look at most often.) Let’s call these the three-official rendering (Nergal-sharezer of Samgar, Chief Eunuch Nebo-sarsekim, and Chief Mag Nergal-sharezer) and the four-official rendering (Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Chief Eunuch Sarsekim, and Chief Mag Nergal-sharezer) instead of tying them to specific translations. In my opinion, there are several good reasons to prefer the three-official rendering:

• The three-official rendering successfully distinguishes the two Nergal-sharezers, which seems like a reasonable desideratum. (This argument is obviously subjective.)
• The three-official rendering gives each person in the list an additional identifier, which is “standard operating procedure” in Jeremiah 39 when dealing with Babylonian officials—even those with unique names who play a prominent role in the narrative (compare the treatment of Nebuzaradan, whose name is always accompanied by a title).
• “Samgar” is potentially a straightforward Hebraicization of “Sin-magir/Simmagir,” an attested Neo-Babylonian place name. (Thanks, Kevin!)
• “Nebo-sarsekim,” if such a name appears in Jeremiah 39:3, is potentially a straightforward Hebraicization of “Nabu-sharrussu-ukin,” a name attested Neo-Babylonian personal name. (Yes, this statement represents a shift from some earlier comments that I have made. Keep reading, please.)
• The LXX translator(s) read סמגר נבו סרסכים רב סריס as Σαμαγωθ καὶ Ναβουσαχαρ καὶ Ναβουσαρις. Clearly, the LXX is imperfect here, as the translator(s) rendered רב סריס as if it were נבו סריס, but this is easily explained as an error resulting from jumpy eyes (note the graphical similarity of נב and רב, and of סריס and סרסכים). It’s a perfectly understandable error of scribal mechanics. But it’s very important for our purposes that the LXX translator(s)—working long before the Masoretes joined the נבו in question to the preceding סמגר with a maqqeph—joined the נבו to the following סרסכים to yield the name Ναβουσαχαρ. (By the way, if you try to look this up, remember that LXX Jeremiah is in a different sequence from MT Jeremiah; MT Jeremiah 39 finds its parallel in LXX Jeremiah 46.)

In the fourth bullet point above, it may seem that I am moving close to Peter’s suggestion—see also BK’s question in the comments to my earlier post—that the Nabu-sharrussu-ukin temple gift receipt proves the translation “Samgar, Chief Eunuch Nebo-sarsekim” to be correct over against “Samgar-nebo, Chief Eunuch Sarsekim.” That’s not exactly accurate, though; my point is more nuanced, though the ultimate difference is one of degree. My point is that having the name Nabu-sharrussu-ukin actually attested for a Neo-Babylonian person—whoever he might be—adds a degree of probability to the “Nebo-sarsekim” reading, just because we know it’s a genuine Neo-Babylonian name. Another important piece of data, which I don’t have, would be whether Samgar-nebo is attested as a genuine Neo-Babylonian name. Such attestation would weaken—yea, perhaps even negate—the probative value of the Nabu-sharrussu-ukin tablet for solving the translation issue in Jeremiah 39:3.

Yesterday I was leaning slightly toward the three-official translation of Jeremiah 39:3. The new data (Sin-magir as a place name; the LXX translation) convince me more strongly that this leaning is correct.

If so, what would this mean for drawing a connection between the tablet’s charitable donator and the biblical character? The tablet gives us a Chief Eunuch Nabu-sharrussu-ukin in 595 BCE; the biblical story gives us a Chief Eunuch Nebo-sarsekim in 587 BCE. Could these be the same person? Well, sure they could. My hunch is that it’s more probable than not. However, proof for that hunch is lacking. Please remember that Jeremiah 39 names two different people named Nergal-sharezer, and two different people with the title Rab-saris (Chief Eunuch). It is possible that there were two different individuals named Chief Eunuch Nebo-sarsekim, especially if “Nebo-sarsekim” were a royally-conferred name rather than one given at birth by this fellow’s parents. My gut tells me that these being the same person is more likely than there being two different men with the same name and title, but the data doesn’t quite allow my brain to hold firmly with my gut on this matter.

So what would all of this mean for the historical accuracy of the book of Jeremiah? Well, quite honestly, nobody ought to doubt that the book of Jeremiah is populated with characters bearing the names of real people. Both major (e.g. Jehoiachin) and minor (e.g., Gemariah/Gemaryahu) characters can be found mentioned in nonbiblical sources (e.g., Babylonian tablets and bullae, for the two aforementioned, respectively). It truly should come as no surprise to learn that the author of Jeremiah knew what (s)he was talking about when (s)he listed one “Chief Eunuch Nebo-sarsekim” among the participants in the siege. Nevertheless, it’s pretty cool to have a tablet mentioning someone who appears to possibly be the same guy. Call a spade a spade: the author of Jeremiah 39 mentions a Chief Eunuch Nebo-sarsekim (or, at least, I think [s]he does), and so does a Babylonian temple receipt. If we accept on other grounds that there is such a person mentioned in the verse, we might then go on to infer—we cannot show—that the two Chief Eunuchs are the same person. If the Nebo-sarsekim of Jeremiah 39 is not a real person, he has at least a very realistic person. This does not prove the historical accuracy of the book of Jeremiah in each and every part. It could, however, form part of a cumulative case in favor of such accuracy, though here I would recommend at least enough caution to carefully discern the possible sources of Jeremiah and treat them independently in this regard.

A couple or three other comments are appropriate before I close this post.

First, the Telegraph claims that Jursa’s translation of the tablet “has been called the most important find in Biblical archaeology for 100 years.” The Telegraph doesn’t say who has so labeled the translation of this tablet, but the claim itself is idiotic. No way is this find more important than the Dead Sea Scrolls, the House of the Bullae, or the Tel Dan inscription, to name but three possible contenders.

Second, I have to disagree with Peter Kirk on one point. Peter wrote:

Also the date on the tablet, the tenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, is two years after Nebuchadnezzar first sacked the temple in Jerusalem and took all the gold from it, 2 Kings 24:13. So the gold mentioned in this tablet could well have been Nebo-Sarsekim’s share of the spoil from Jerusalem.

There is no evidence whatsoever to link Chief Eunuch Nabu-sharrussu-ukin to the Babylonian plundering of the temple/treasury in 598/7 BCE (reign of Jehoiachin). Jeremiah 39 concerns the siege of Jerusalem c. 587/6 BCE (reign of Zedekiah). Even if (as I now think probable, but not definitive) the tablet’s Nabu-sharrussu-ukin is the same person as Jeremiah 39′s Nebo-sarsekim, assigning him a “share of the spoil from Jerusalem” in 598/7 BCE is sheer fanciful speculation.

Third, Jim West floats the idea, ostensibly derived from conversations with an anonymous “leading Old Testament scholar” (which in Jimspeak could mean anyone skeptical of the biblical narratives’ historical veracity, as long as they live in England, Italy, or Denmark), of a biblical author deriving the name and title “Chief Eunuch Nebo-sarsekim” from research in a Babylonian archive. Ridiculous. No, really. Just try to imagine this for yourself. Which seems truer to life: (a) a biblical author writing that “Babylonian official X was present during and after the siege during Zedekiah’s reign” because (s)he knew that to be true, or at least knew of a tradition to that effect, or (b) a biblical writer combing through stacks of Akkadian cuneiform temple receipts, happening upon a cool name/title combo, and writing this otherwise unknown personage into a fictional story which just happens to include accurate historical data like “Nebuchadnezzar’s army besieged and defeated Jerusalem”? The likelihood of a Judean exile or even a Yehudian scribe doing such research into the Babylonian archives is far-fetched indeed, but if such research were done, the notion that such a scribe was just mining tablets for realistic names to put into a fictional story, rather than doing actual historical research, is even sillier.