Fascinating Find

A historian visiting the British Museum to research some of their large collection of Assyrian cuneiform tablets has made a fascinating discovery. Michael Jursa, a scholar from Vienna, has found an inscription that appears to validate the existence of a very minor official detailed in the Old Testament.

Michael Jursa, a visiting professor from Vienna, let out such a cry last Thursday. He had made what has been called the most important find in Biblical archaeology for 100 years, a discovery that supports the view that the historical books of the Old Testament are based on fact.

Searching for Babylonian financial accounts among the tablets, Prof Jursa suddenly came across a name he half remembered – Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, described there in a hand 2,500 years old, as "the chief eunuch" of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon.

Prof Jursa, an Assyriologist, checked the Old Testament and there in chapter 39 of the Book of Jeremiah, he found, spelled differently, the same name – Nebo-Sarsekim.

Nebo-Sarsekim, according to Jeremiah, was Nebuchadnezzar II's "chief officer" and was with him at the siege of Jerusalem in 587 BC, when the Babylonians overran the city.

From a historical standpoint, such a confirmation of a very minor detail adds credence to the entire text. They wax a little too enthusiastic in the rest of the story, I think, but this certainly is an important historical find. More about cuneiform writing can be found here.