How Darius
the Mede
Was deleted
From history
AND WHO DID IT
In the previous issue of Bible and Spade, a double tragedy was recounted for
Belshazzar, the sub-king who was reigning in Babylon while his father, King
Nabonidus, was busy digging up old temples and worshipping the moon god Sin in
the Arabian desert.
1
e rst tragedy for Belshazzar was his being slain on the night
of a feast, as described both in the book of Daniel and in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. e
Cyropaedia’s account (7.5.15–30) relates details about his death and who it was that
killed him. e Cyropaedia’s information in these matters is not found in the biblical
text, but it is in harmony with it. e second tragedy for Belshazzar was having his
name deleted in the rewrite of history undertaken by the Persians. e rewrite, or
false narrative, was so successful that from the time of Herodotus (h century BC)
until the 19th century AD the only known sources that preserved Belshazzar’s name
were the book of Daniel and sources derived from it. is fact (not opinion) has
rightfully been interpreted by conservative Bible scholars as rm evidence for the
sixth–century BC composition of the book of Daniel.
e reason for expunging Belshazzar’s name was that his known active worship of
Marduk, Babylon’s chief god, could not be reconciled with the Persian party line that
it was Marduk’s will that Cyrus should rule in Babylon instead of Belshazzar’s father,
Nabonidus, who had neglected Marduk. is narrative, however, ran into diculties
when considering Belshazzar and his devotion to Marduk. e solution: omit both
Belshazzar’s name and any mention of his role as ruler in Babylon at the end of
the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Cyrus himself must have been the instigator of this
policy, because the earliest instance of it is found in the Cyrus Cylinder, which
he commissioned sometime between the takeover of Babylon in 539 BC and
his death in 530.
e present study will show that the same propagandistic rewriting
of history was applied to the Darius of the book of Daniel. In this case,
however, the propaganda has been even more successful than it was in
the case of Belshazzar. Skeptical scholarship asserts either that Daniel’s
Darius never existed, or that events related to him in the book of
Daniel represent a confused remembrance of Darius I Hystaspes,
who reigned from 522 to 486 BC. For example, John J. Collins says:
“No such person as Darius the Mede is known to have existed
apart from the narrative of Daniel. e Babylonian Empire did
not fall to the Medes but to the Persians.”
2
Carol Newsom makes
a similar remark: “e gure of Darius the Mede has posed
an interpretive puzzle since antiquity because his existence
cannot be reconciled with other historical sources.”
3
Bible and Spade 35.3 and 4 (2022)
24
However, in contradiction to the skeptical scholarship just
quoted, there were ancient sources independent of the Bible
that remembered Darius’s name. One such source was Berossus,
a Chaldean who ourished in the early third century BC. It is
thought that the source of Berossus’s information was the trove
of cuneiform records found in the Esagila temple of Babylon.
4
Berossus’s work survives only in extracts recorded by later
authors, who themselves were quoting abridgements of
Berossus by Alexander Polyhistor and Abydenus. e relevant
passage from Berossus is found in Josephus (Against Apion
1.153
5
) and in the Armenian translation of Eusebius’s Chronicle.
e Josephus passage deals with the defeat of Nabonidus
by Cyrus, aer which Nabonidus “was humanely treated by
Cyrus, who dismissed him from Babylonia, but gave him
Carmania for his residence.”
6
e extract in Eusebius agrees
with Josephus’s citation of Berossus but goes further by
including the following sentence from Berossus’s account:
“(But) Darius the king took away some of his [Nabonidus’s]
province for himself.”
7
is King Darius who took some of
the province of Carmania for himself, thus overriding the
disposition of Cyrus, must have been the highest ruler of
the kingdom. at he had such a position—one higher than
that of Cyrus—is in agreement with the narrative of Daniel 6,
where only someone who held supreme authority could have
issued a command that no one could pray to any god or king
but to himself for thirty days. Berossus therefore veries that
there was a Darius who reigned supremely right aer the fall
of Babylon to the Medes and Persians.
is agreement of an extra-biblical source with the
Bible regarding King Darius presents a problem to
commentators who advocate that the book of Daniel or
major parts of it were written in the second century BC.
In order to explain away this verication of the Bible,
various critics have held that the Darius mentioned
by Berossus was Darius I Hystaspes. In this regard it
is curious that those who readily dismiss the biblical
statements about Darius as unhistorical nevertheless
accept as a factual datum the statement of Berossus,
displaying an unscholarly unwillingness to give the Bible
the same level of credence they accept for other ancient
texts. us Paul-Alain Beaulieu, whom many would
regard as the chief authority on Nabonidus and events
related to his reign, maintains that Berossus’s statement
refers to Darius Hystaspes.
8
ere are various problems with this explanation. One
diculty is that Daniel 5:31 gives the age of Darius as about
62 at the takeover of Babylon in 539 BC, whereas Darius
Hystaspes was a young man of about 28 when he assumed the
kingship in 522 BC, 17 years later.
9
Another problem is that
Darius Hystaspes was a Persian, not a Mede. Critics might
dismiss both of these issues because they arise based on a
conict with biblical texts, and such critics have a prejudice
against taking as historical any statement of the Bible unless it
can be veried by an independent source. But such a dismissal
would not explain why the biblical author would have given
the wrong nationality and wrong age for Darius “the Mede” if
this character was a mistaken memory of the youthful Darius
Hystaspes, a Persian. Another problem for the critics who
maintain that the Darius of the book of Daniel was a mistaken
remembrance of Darius Hystaspes is that extra-biblical
inscriptions indicate that Nabonidus would have been about
105 years of age in 522 BC, the very earliest date in which
Darius Hystaspes could have dispossessed him from Carmania
if Berossus’s Darius is taken to be Darius Hystaspes.
10
Such
an advanced age for Nabonidus, requisite to synchronize him
with Darius Hystaspes, is possible but extremely unlikely.
ese considerations show the folly of attempts to explain away
Darius the Mede as a distorted memory of Darius Hystaspes;
in actuality, Berossus must have been writing about a King
Darius who reigned before Darius Hystaspes.
ere is another source independent of the Bible that also
speaks of a King Darius before Darius Hystaspes. Valerius
Harpocration, who wrote in the second century AD, was
Le:
2012 Wikimedia Commons
Bible and Spade 35.3, 4 (2022)
associated with the Great Library at Alexandria and thus
would have had access to ancient works that were lost when
the library was burned. Harpocration wrote the following
regarding the daric (a coin): “Darics are not named, as most
suppose, aer Darius the father of Xerxes [Darius I Hystaspes],
but aer a certain other more ancient king.”
11
Harpocration’s
reference to a King Darius who lived before Darius Hystaspes
was cited by two of the great German Bible commentators
of the 19th century: E. W. Hengstenberg, in his Dissertations
on the Genuineness of Daniel,
12
and C. F. Keil, in his Daniel
commentary in the Keil and Delitzsch series.
13
e critics have
never dealt adequately with this additional attestation of a
King Darius earlier than Darius Hystaspes, for whom the most
obvious identication is Daniel’s Darius the Mede. An article I
wrote along with Steven D. Anderson in 2016 that deals more
extensively with the citations from Berossus and Harpocration
concludes with these words:
e combined testimony of Harpocration and Berossus
therefore witnesses to the existence of a Median king whose
role, timing, and authority correspond exactly to the role,
timing, and authority of Daniel’s Darius.…e existence of
these two references should lead writers to reconsider the
common assertion that Darius the Mede is not recognized
by any ancient source outside of the book of Daniel and
works that depend on it.
14
We have seen that three ancient authors—Daniel, Berossus,
and Harpocration—knew of a Darius who preceded Darius
Hystaspes. Daniel and Berossus specically connected
the reign of this earlier Darius with the end of the Neo-
Babylonian Empire in 539 BC. is prompts an inquiry into
whether Darius could have been known to other ancient
historians under a dierent name, since monarchs of the time
had both a birth name and a throne name, the throne name
being adopted when regency was assumed. Because of this
well-known practice, writers both ancient and modern have
attempted to identify Darius with various individuals who
were prominent in the history of Babylon around 539 BC. e
literature associated with this eort is vast and will only be
briey summarized in what follows. e four candidates that
will be discussed (others that are less credible will be ignored)
are (1) Ugbaru (Greek Gobryas), governor of Gutium; (2)
Gubaru, governor of Babylon; (3) Cyrus; and (4) Cyaxares II,
king of Media. e following analysis will point out diculties
with the rst three options and explain why Cyaxares II meets
all the requisite criteria.
In Xenophon’s Cyropaedia (4.6.1–2), Gobryas is introduced
as a Babylonian (“Assyrian” in Xenophon’s terminology) and
as governor of Gutium who defected from his Babylonian
overlord and joined the Medes and Persians because of
wrongs done to him by the young king of Babylon.
15
Gobryas
is the Greek form of Akkadian Ugbaru or Gubaru. e rst
strike against identifying Gobryas with Darius the Mede is
therefore that, according to Xenophon, he was not a Mede
but an Assyrian (= Babylonian). e second diculty with
this identication is that the Babylonian Chronicle relates
that Ugbaru (Xenophon’s Gobryas) was instrumental as a
commander under Cyrus in the taking of Babylon on Tishri
16 (October 12), 539 BC, but that he died 25 days later, on the
11th of Heshvan (November 6).
16
Daniel’s Darius, however,
must have been on the throne on Nisan 1 (March 24) of 538
BC in order for him to have a “year one” assigned to him
in Daniel 9:1.
17
A nal strike against identifying Gobryas/
Ugbaru with Daniel’s Darius is that even if he could have been
governor of Babylon for 25 days aer the taking of the city, he
would not have had the authority to issue a command that no
prayer could be made to any king or god for thirty days except
to himself, as specied in Daniel 6:7–9. Neither could Ugbaru
have had the authority to write “to all the peoples, nations,
and languages that dwell in all the earth” to “make a decree,
that in all my royal dominion people are to tremble and fear
before the God of Daniel” (Dn 6:25, 6:26). Only someone who
was the supreme authority in the land could have issued such
commands. Ugbaru could not have done this, because he was
under the authority of Cyrus (and of the real Darius the Mede;
see below). With all these strikes against identifying Gobryas/
Ugbaru as Darius the Mede, it is strange that this position still
nds advocates.
Recognizing some of these diculties in the Ugbaru =
Darius equation, John Whitcomb hypothesized that Darius
was another name for a governor of Babylon named Gubaru,
whom he distinguished from Ugbaru, governor of Gutium.
18
However, the only contract texts that recognized the years
of governorship for this Gubaru are from 534 to 524 BC.
19
is time frame does not match the reign of Daniel’s Darius,
which began at the fall of Babylon in late 539 BC and ended
sometime before the rst full year of Cyrus, which began in
Nisan of 537.
20
In addition to this dating problem, the same
problem of lacking supreme authority that was discussed
for Ugbaru, governor of Gutium, would apply to Gubaru,
governor of Babylon. Because of these diculties, Whitcomb’s
identication is now quite universally discarded.
e third identication, that Darius was the second name
of Cyrus the Great, is at least as old as eodotion and the
Septuagint translation of Daniel, which translations read
“Cyrus” in place of “Darius” in Daniel 11:1. is theory became
rather popular among evangelicals aer it was advocated by
the noted Assyriologist Donald Wiseman.
21
It depends on
translating the waw-connective of Daniel 6:28 as “even” or “that
is” rather than the more common “and.” With this approach,
6:28 could be translated as “Daniel prospered during the reign
of Darius, even [or “that is”] the reign of Cyrus the Persian.”
A major problem with this interpretation is the diculty
of describing Cyrus as a Mede. Although his mother was a
Median princess, royal lineage at the time was traced through
Bible and Spade 35.3, 4 (2022)
26
Above:
Le:
Cyropaedia
Bible and Spade 35.3, 4 (2022)
Above:
Panorama photo by Georgios Giannopoulos (Ggia) 2010/Wikimedia Commons
99
1
Army RoadArmy Road
NN
2233455
66
77
88
the father, and in all contemporary records Cyrus identi es
himself as a Persian and a descendant of Persian kings. Cyrus’s
Persian lineage is di cult to reconcile with how Daniel 9:1
identi es Darius as being “by descent a Mede,” as well as with
the apparent distinction in measuring by the third year of
Cyrus in Daniel 10:1 and by a year of Darius before that in 11:1.
Another di culty that is o en overlooked is that the Median
Darius was “about 62 years of age” when Babylon fell (Dn 5:31),
whereas in the Cyropaedia, Cyrus appears to be about 28 years of
age when the Persian and Median forces under his command defeat
Lydia in 547 BC, making him about 36 at the fall of Babylon.
22
Even
more germane is a reference in a contemporaneous document,
the Dream Text of Nabonidus, which was produced by the
court of Cyrus, in which Cyrus is called a “young servant” of
Marduk at the time of the fall of Babylon.
23
e next section will present the many correlations between
Daniel’s Darius and the Median king Cyaxares II who is
featured prominently in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. Xenophon
presents Cyaxares II as the (maternal) uncle of Cyrus—a
detail that is in general agreement with Cyaxares/Darius being
about 62 and Cyrus being about 36 when their forces captured
Babylon. e identi cation of Darius with Cyaxares might
be called the classical identi cation of Darius the Mede. It
was advocated by Josephus in the rst century AD
24
and was
favored by Jerome in the third century.
25
Later famous scholars
who held this opinion were John Calvin in the 16th century,
James Ussher in the 17th, and Charles Rollin and William
Lowth in the 18th.
26
Nineteenth-century advocates included
Adam Clarke, omas Hartwell Horne, Wilhelm Gesenius,
Humphrey Prideaux, E. W. Hengstenberg, C. F. Keil in the
Bible and Spade 35.3, 4 (2022)
Keil and Delitzsch commentary, and Otto Zöckler in Lange’s
commentary.
27
When comparing the resemblances between
Darius and Cyaxares, shown just below, it is easy to see why so
many able commentators held to this identication.
•
Both were kings of Media (Cyr. 1.5.2; Dn 5:31, 6:28).
•
Both were on the throne when Babylon fell to the
combined forces of Media, Persia, and their allies in
October of 539 BC (Cyr. 8.5.17–20; Dn 5:31).
•
Both were the supreme authority over the Medes, Persians,
and Babylonians at the time of Babylon’s fall, even having
suzerainty over Cyrus, king of Persia (Cyr. 8.5.17–20; Dn
5:28, 5:31, 9:1). If Cyaxares II and Darius the Mede were
not identical as the same historical personage, then it
would be hard to understand why both the Cyropaedia
and the Bible indicate that, for a short period aer the
fall of Babylon, a Median king, and not Cyrus, was the
supreme ruler over Babylon. By far the best explanation
for this similarity between Xenophon’s Cyaxares and
Daniel’s Darius is that there was a real Median king,
Cyaxares II, who held supreme authority in 539 BC, and
that his throne name was Darius.
•
e book of Daniel indicates only a short reign for
Darius the Mede (Dn 5:31, 9:1, 10:1, 11:1). A note in the
Cyropaedia (8.7.1) suggests that Cyaxares died within two
years aer the fall of Babylon. A study by William H. Shea
supports this.
28
Shea documented 32 cuneiform contract
texts dating from the time of Cyrus’s entry into Babylon
Payam Jahangiri 2013/Wikimedia Commons
Right:
Below:
Bible and Spade 35.3, 4 (2022)
(October 29, 539 BC) to December 4, 538 BC. In only one
of these documents is Cyrus called “King of Babylon”; all
the others refer to him as “King of Lands.” Aer December
4 of 538 and until Cyrus’s death in 530, however, Cyrus is
generally given both titles. is information implies that
someone else held the important title “King of Babylon”
for a little over a year aer the capture of Babylon but
died in October or November of 537. is timing agrees
with both the Cyropaedia concerning Cyaxares and the
book of Daniel concerning Darius the Mede.
•
Cyaxares had a “violent and unreasonable” temper (Cyr.
4.5.9). Daniel’s Darius showed an unrestrained and
unreasonable anger when he commanded that not just
Daniel’s accusers but also their whole families be cast to
the lions aer Daniel’s night in the lions’ den (Dn 6:24).
•
Cyaxares was vainglorious, as was Daniel’s Darius.
Xenophon presents instances where Cyaxares put on
an ostentatious display or showed that he expected
adulation from his subjects.
29
Darius exhibited a similar
temperament when he signed a decree that no prayer
could be made to any god or king but to himself for 30
days (Dn 6:5–9), thus expecting an adoration that would
recognize him as the most exalted person in the land—
even temporarily more exalted than the traditional gods.
A further consideration of the Cyropaedia’s portrayal of
Cyaxares strengthens the case for his identication as Daniel’s
Darius. At various places in the Cyropaedia, Cyaxares exhibits
drastic mood swings—from euphoria to depression and then
back again. An example of this is when, aer the initial victory
of the Medes and Persians over the Babylonians, Cyaxares
was “busily engaged in making merry” rather than engaged
in planning to press the advantage (4.1.13). On the same day,
he consented to Cyrus’s request that any Median soldiers who
volunteered could accompany Cyrus’s troops to pursue the
Babylonian stragglers. e next day, when Cyaxares recovered
from his drunkenness and saw that most of his Medes had
accompanied Cyrus, his mood changed. “In keeping with
his reputation for being violent and unreasonable” (4.5.9),
he sent an emissary aer Cyrus, demanding that the Medes
with Cyrus come back. Cyrus delayed the emissary, and when
Cyaxares caught up with him and saw the army, which was now
augmented by the Hyrcanians and Armenians whom Cyrus, by
diplomacy and threats, had acquired, he again became morose
and jealous, so that he would not return Cyrus’s welcoming
kiss (5.5.6). By careful diplomatic speaking, Cyrus was able to
pacify him, and the next day Cyaxares “came out in gorgeous
attire and seated himself on a Median throne” (6.1.6), with a
clear expectation of the adulation of his Median and Persian
subjects.
No reader, ancient or modern, would think that every
action and every speech of Cyaxares as recounted in the
Cyropaedia is historically factual in all details. Greek literati
would have known that any lengthy speech in the Cyropaedia
was an opportunity for Xenophon to display his rhetorical
skills, a highly valued art at that time. ey would have been
more concerned with Xenophon’s rhetorical artistry than
with any consideration that exact words were being reported.
Nevertheless, the general picture that Xenophon gives of the
character of Cyaxares—this ruler’s propensity to switch from
euphoria to depression and then back again and his lack of
self-control—is quite consistent with a specic malady know
to modern medical science. As I previously put it in an article
on Cyaxares,
e mood swings of Cyaxares characterize what is called
in modern terms a bipolar behavioral disorder. No
ancient writer would have been aware of such a diagnosis.
is suggests that Xenophon’s informants in the time
of Artaxerxes II may have passed on a fairly true-to-life
portrait of an individual who suered from this aiction.
30
If this diagnosis is correct, it helps explain the irrational
behavior of Darius the Mede (a.k.a. Cyaxares) in Daniel 6. As
mentioned above, Darius was persuaded by his counselors to
issue a decree that in all the kingdoms under his control, no
one was to pray to any god or king but to him for 30 days.
The folly of this command is obvious: it would have caused
resentment among the common people who were accustomed
to making petitions to their favorite gods or goddesses, and
the priestly caste would have resented the usurpation of their
roles and authority. How could Darius be so shortsighted as to
comply with such a request? Apparently his counselors were
aware of a weakness in the character of their ruler: when it
came to his opinion of himself and his powers, he was prone
to delusional thoughts such as accompany, in modern terms,
bipolar disorder. The thought of temporarily exercising
the powers of the gods might appeal to someone afflicted
with this malady, so that Darius acceding to his counselors’
requests would put him in the manic state of the-god-who-
answers-prayers. The character of Cyaxares as portrayed in
the Cyropaedia therefore provides insight into why Cyaxares/
Darius agreed to the irrational and shortsighted decree.
These similarities of royal status (king of the Medes),
timing of reign over Babylon, and temperament between
Xenophon’s Cyaxares and Daniel’s Darius explain why
1,800 years of scholarship, from Josephus until the great
conservative commentators of the 19th century, identified
the Cyaxares of Xenophon with Daniel’s (and Berossus’s,
and Harpocration’s) Darius. These eminent writers were not
mindlessly quoting each other regarding this identification.
They had observed the similarity of circumstances, timing,
and personality for the two characters, prompting Keil to
write, “The account given by Xenophon regarding Cyaxares
so fully agrees with the narrative of Daniel regarding Darius
the Mede, that, as Hitzig confesses, ‘the identity of the two is
beyond a doubt.’”
31
Bible and Spade 35.3, 4 (2022)
e above information about Cyaxares is taken from
Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. Xenophon had spent time as a
mercenary in Persia, an experience related in his most famous
work, the Anabasis. During this time he would have learned
many of the traditions regarding the individuals involved in
the victory of the Medes and Persians over the Babylonians.
Xenophon relates that the king of the Medes at the time of
Babylon’s fall, Cyaxares (II), was the son of the Median king
Astyages and brother of Mandane, the mother of Cyrus the
Great (Cyr. 1.2.1). Astyages, in turn, was the son of Cyaxares I,
so that Xenophon’s Cyaxares was named aer his grandfather.
In a similar way, Cyrus the Great was named aer his
grandfather Cyrus I, and Cyrus the Great’s son Cambyses (II)
was named aer his grandfather, Cambyses I, king of Persia.
According to Xenophon, Cambyses I and his son Cyrus II
(the Great), kings of Persia, were both under the suzerainty
of the Median king Astyages, and, aer the death of Astyages,
under the suzerainty of Cyaxares II (Cyr. 1.5.2). Xenophon
relates that immediately aer the capture of Babylon, Cyrus
prepared a palace there for his uncle, Cyaxares II (Cyr. 8.5.17–
20). Cyaxares, in response, gave his daughter in marriage to
Cyrus, with the kingdom of Media being the dowry because
Cyaxares had no legitimate male heir. Xenophon’s portrayal of
the suzerainty of the Medes over the Persians explains why, in
the book of Daniel (5:28, 6:8, 6:12, 6:15), it is “the Medes and
(the) Persians,” whereas later, in the time of Esther, it is “the
Persians and the Medes” (Est 1:19). Xenophon’s hierarchy also
explains how Darius, in Daniel 6, could issue commands that
could only come from the highest authority in the empire.
All of this is rejected by the majority of current scholarship,
which instead prefers Herodotus’s narrative of the fall of the
Babylonian Empire. For Herodotus, there was no Cyaxares II;
Astyages had no male heir (Hist. 1.109.3). Whereas Xenophon
portrays nothing but warm aection between Cyrus the Great
and his maternal grandfather, Astyages, Herodotus has Cyrus
usurping the throne from him in 559 BC (Hist. 1.125.1–
1.130.1, 1.214.3), aer which Astyages was conned to his
palace and Cyrus made the Medes “slaves instead of masters
and the Persians, who were the slaves, are now the masters of
the Medes” (Hist. 1.129.4).
32
Regarding the lack of credibility
of Herodotus’s account of Cyrus’s early years and his relation
with Astyages, Edwin Yamauchi writes, “Herodotus knew of
four versions of Cyrus’s youth (1.107–30). ese legendary
accounts have been compared with the stories of the rise of
Sargon of Agade (twenty-third century B.C.) and with the
account of Romulus, the founder of Rome (eighth century
B.C.).”
33
In Herodotus, the princess Mandane marries a Persian
commoner named Cambyses, and when a child is about to be
born, the jealous Astyages, warned in a dream that his Persian
grandson would take over the kingdom, sends a hired man to
see that the child is killed (1.107–108). Cyrus is rescued from
this plot by the deception of the poor couple that had been
given the direct responsibility of killing the child (1.109–13).
Various ndings from archaeology contradict Herodotus’s
story. In cuneiform records, Cyrus stated that he was the son
of Cambyses (I), who was the son of Cyrus (I), son of Teispes—
all kings of Persia—whereas Herodotus relates that Cyrus the
Great’s father Cambyses was a commoner. e bas-reliefs of the
great staircase at Persepolis, a structure that Darius Hystaspes
began building and his son Xerxes completed, show Persian and
Median nobles dressed in their nery and conversing with each
other, with no apparent distinction of rank or status between
them. is cannot be reconciled with Herodotus’s statement
that, in the time of Cyrus (decades before Xerxes), the Persians
made slaves of the Medes. Additional information in favor of
Xenophon over Herodotus is that while Xenophon has quite a
bit to say about Gobryas, governor of Gutium, and his role in the
takeover of Babylon, Herodotus knows nothing of this important
gure, whose existence and whose activities in the events of
539 BC are veried by the Babylonian Chronicle. All these
considerations are consistent with 1,800 years of scholarship
that preferred Xenophon over Herodotus for reconstructing
the history of the Medes and Persians. All are consistent with
identifying Daniel’s Darius the Mede with the Cyaxares II who
gures so prominently in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia.
e reason why the modern consensus prefers Herodotus
over Xenophon, despite the ways just listed in which
Xenophon has proved to be more accurate than Herodotus,
is that various cuneiform records that were unearthed and
translated in the late 1800s make no mention of the supremacy
of the Medes over the Persians at the time of Babylon’s fall.
However, more recent scholarship has recognized that the
unearthed records (though not all of them, as will be shown
below) were the product of Persian propaganda, produced
aer the fall of Babylon with the motive of exalting the role
of Cyrus and the Persians while downplaying the role and
questioning the existence of the armies of Media and their
king. Some scholars are inclined to give new appreciation
for the historicity of much of the Cyropaedia, at the same
time recognizing the deviousness of the Persian propaganda.
ese scholars include Steven Hirsch and R. J. van der Spek.
34
Hirsch says, “e real Cyrus was a master of propaganda, as
can be seen from the Cyrus Cylinder, the Babylonian verse
chronicle of Nabonidus’ fall, and the stories of Cyrus’ merciful
treatment of conquered kings, all no doubt propagated with
Cyrus’ encouragement or active participation.”
35
Van der
Spek: “Cyrus was very successful in his propaganda and
modern historiography is still inuenced by it.”
36
Xenophon
himself provides a warning about Persian propaganda when
he has Cyrus’s father, Cambyses I, communicating to Cyrus
the necessity of a general (or statesman) to use deceit: “e
man who proposes to do that [overcome his enemies] must
be designing and cunning, wily and deceitful, a thief and a
robber” (Cyr. 1.6.27).
Bible and Spade 35.3, 4 (2022)
Van der Spek has an interesting insight into one aspect of
Cyrus’s duplicity when he writes, “One might ask why there is
no reference to any Persian god in the Cyrus Cylinder.… e
answer is that the Cyrus Cylinder was intended for Babylonian
usage and conformed to local religion and practices.”
37
i s
idea explains why, as recorded in 2 Chronicles 36:23 and Ezra
1:2, Cyrus practiced a similar accommodation to local belief
when he wrote, “ e L, the God of heaven, has given me
all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build
him a house at Jerusalem.” (Obviously, Cyrus was not a true
worshipper of the L, for in Isaiah 45:4, the L speaks of
Cyrus as follows: “I call you by your name…, though you do
not know me.”)
We have already seen the success of Persian propaganda
in the case of Belshazzar. For hundreds of years his existence
was denied and biblical events related to him were relegated
to pious ction. But even Hirsch and Van der Spek did not
realize the full extent of Persian revisionism. Neither author
recognized that the Persian narrative also erased from its
history the existence of Cyaxares II and, along with that, the
role that the Medes and their king played in the conquest of
Babylon. e task of bringing all this to light fell to Steven
D. Anderson, whose PhD dissertation at Dallas eological
Seminary (2014) researched the 1,800 years of scholarship
that identi ed Daniel’s Darius with Xenophon’s Cyaxares.
38
Anderson’s research has been used extensively in the present
article. Anderson provided the reason for the Persian erasure
of Cyaxares, similar to the erasure of Belshazzar that is now
admitted by historians: Cyaxares was erased because he was a
Median, and the Medes were regarded by the Babylonians as
the hated enemy. A er the conquest, Cyrus wanted to present
himself as a liberator, not as a conqueror—the same deception
practiced by many modern dictators. To accomplish this,
he downplayed the role of the Medes in the conquest, even
saying in the Cyrus Cylinder that “he made the Guti country
and all the Manda-hordes [Medes] bow in submission to his
(i.e. Cyrus’) feet.”
39
According to the Cyropaedia (4.6.1–11),
the land of Guti was not conquered by Cyrus; the governor of
the Gutians, Gobryas, voluntarily submitted to the Persians
because of the wrongs done to him by Belshazzar. Hirsch
suggests that the submission of the Medes to Cyrus was similar
and identi es their so-called “submission” as the incident
when a great part of the Median army volunteered to serve
under Cyrus in pursuit of the recently defeated Babylonians,
as described earlier.
40
Other cuneiform records, not from the Persian court, were
unearthed that relate to the end of the Babylonian Empire.
Although having their own propagandistic ends, these records
do not perpetrate the Persian misrepresentation of the relations
between the Medes and Persians and their kings. Most germane
in this regard is the Harran Stela. is stela is recognized as a
genuine text of Nabonidus, written, according to Beaulieu,
Above:
Bible and Spade 35.3, 4 (2022)
Rodger C. Young
in the latter part of his reign, probably in the 14th or 15th
year (i.e., 542–540 BC).
41
is was three years or less before
Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar would see their kingdom
fall to the Medes and Persians and their allies. In this text,
Nabonidus mentions in passing that his principal enemies at
the time were “the king of Egypt, the Medes and the land of
the Arabs.”
42
ere is no mention of a Persian king; Cyrus or
his father, Cambyses I, would have been included as part of the
Median enemy. Nabonidus, as ruler of the Babylonians, was
surely well informed about who his enemies were. In his view,
the Medes were the dominant force at the time, not the Persians.
If the Medes were over the Persians at that time, as Nabonidus
recognized, then there surely would have been a Median king
who ruled over both Medes and Persians. Xenophon provides
the given name of the Median king: Cyaxares; the book of
Daniel gives his throne name: Darius. e book of Daniel also
provides information about this Median king that is entirely
consistent, in both timing and personal characteristics, with the
picture of Cyaxares II that the Cyropaedia presents. e Harran
Stela therefore gives the coup de grâce to the Persian rewrite
of history, a false narrative that was followed by Herodotus
and that unfortunately is followed by the consensus of modern
historians, even Hirsch and Van der Spek, despite their
otherwise perceptive insights. When the Persian deceptions are
recognized, there emerges a picture of Median-Persian relations
in the latter half of the sixth century BC that is consistent with
both Xenophon and the book of Daniel. us, archaeologically-
based evidence shows that the biblical book was composed in
the sixth century BC by someone who was well acquainted with
the history of the time.
We are seeing the outworking of a drama that has extended
through 2,500 years of history. During that time, there were
(and are) two contending scenarios dening the power players
in events related to the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. For
much of that time (from Josephus in the rst century AD to
the great conservative commentators of the 19th century), the
outline of events found in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia was accepted
as reecting the true relations between Media, Persia, and
Babylon. Xenophon’s basic picture was found to be consistent
with information in the book of Daniel that portrays a Median
king who held the highest position of power, ruling over
Medes, Persians, and Babylonians for a short time aer the fall
of Babylon in 539 BC. It was only when Persian propaganda
texts were unearthed and deciphered that scholarly opinion
switched to favor the narrative found in Herodotus’s Histories,
where the Medes become slaves to the Persians several years
before Babylon’s fall. Such an understanding, based as it was on
texts that have more recently been recognized as being Persian
propaganda, was never able to explain the references in Berossus
and Harpocration that indicate a King Darius before Darius
Hystaspes. Nor could it explain why in various particulars
such as the parentage of Cyrus, Herodotus was clearly wrong
and Xenophon was right. Although some scholars (Hirsch and
Van der Spek were mentioned) began to realize that the Persian
cuneiform documents were state-sponsored propaganda
designed to minimize or even eliminate the role of the Medes in
the conquest of Babylon, the work of Anderson has provided the
true perspective, thus giving new credibility to the earlier view
that favored Xenophon over Herodotus. Anderson’s research
has already found an able defender in J. Paul Tanner, who, in
his comprehensive and well-researched commentary on Daniel,
summarizes Anderson’s conclusion as follows:
Scholars such as S. D. Anderson, having carefully reviewed
all the data, have concluded that the claim that Cyrus
overthrew Astyages and became king of Media-Persia well
before the fall of Babylon (as Herodotus maintained) is
inaccurate. Instead, Xenophon’s viewpoint is more reliable:
Cyrus did not conquer and rule the Medes prior to Babylon’s
fall but that the two powers combined their forces for
mutual benet and that the Medes were ruled by Astyages’
son, Cyaxares II. Once Babylon was conquered, the rule of
Babylon was entrusted to Cyaxares II,…known in Daniel as
“Darius the Mede.”
43
We should be under no delusion that commentators who a
priori rule out predictive prophecy will choose to abandon the
deception of the Persian propaganda. Forsaking that narrative
would be to admit that the ndings of archaeology and the
right interpretation of ancient texts have, once again, shown
the accuracy and integrity of the Bible in historical matters. To
admit that the historical accuracy of the book of Daniel shows
that it was written in the sixth century BC would undermine
the presupposition, held by many critics, that the Bible cannot
contain truly predictive prophecy. Rather than accept such
a consequence and the major revisions of worldview it might
require, many will take the easier route of continuing to prefer
the deceptions of Persian propaganda initiated by no less a
person than Cyrus the Great.
Bible and Spade 35.3, 4 (2022)
Notes
1
Rodger C. Young, “How Belshazzar Was Deleted from History and Who Did It,” Bible and Spade 35, no. 2
(Spring 2022): 21–28.
2 John J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, ed. Frank Moore Cross, Hermeneia—A Critical
and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 30.
3 Carol A. Newsom, Daniel: A Commentary, with Brennan W. Breed, The Old Testament Library (Louisville,
KY: Westminster John Knox, 2014), 191.
4 Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556–539 B.C., Yale Near Eastern Researches 10
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 88; Gerald P. Verbrugghe and John M. Wickersham, Berossos and
Manetho, Introduced and Translated: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 1996), 15–24.
5 Or 1.20 in Whiston’s translation (William Whiston, trans., Josephus: The Complete Works [Nashville: Thomas
Nelson, 1998], 936–37).
6 H. St. John Thackeray, trans., The Life, Against Apion, vol. 1 of Josephus, 8 vols., Loeb Classical Library (New
York: Putnam, 1926), 223.
7 Josef Karst, Die Chronik: Aus dem Armenischen übersetzt mit textkritischem Commentar, vol. 5 of Eusebius
Werke, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte 20 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1911), 246.
8 Beaulieu, Reign of Nabonidus, 231. Rowley also tentatively held this position (H. H. Rowley, Darius the Mede
and the Four World Empires in the Book of Daniel: A Historical Study of Contemporary Theories [Cardiff:
University of Wales Press Board, 1935], 46).
9 Edwin M. Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible, with a forward by Donald J. Wiseman (Grand Rapids: Baker Book
House, 1990), 138, citing A. T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1948), 107.
10 Raymond Philip Dougherty, Nabonidus and Belshazzar: A Study of the Closing Events of the Neo-Babylonian
Empire, Yale Oriental Series, Researches 15 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1929), 32–33.
11 Valerius Harpocration, Harpocration: Lexeis of the Ten Orators, ed. John J. Keaney (Amsterdam: Hakkert,
1991), Δ 5, Δαρεικός, as translated in Steven D. Anderson, “Darius the Mede: A Reappraisal” (PhD Dissertation,
Dallas Theological Seminary, 2014), 157, https://www.academia.edu/9787699/Darius_the_Mede_A_Reappraisal.
1
2 E. W. Hengstenberg, Dissertations on the Genuineness of Daniel and the Integrity of Zechariah, trans. B. P.
Pratten, and A Dissertation on the History and Prophecies of Balaam, trans. J. E. Ryland (Edinburgh: T & T Clark,
1848), 42.
1
3 C. F. Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Daniel, trans. M. G. Easton, from German, vol. 3 in Ezekiel,
Daniel: Three Volumes in One, by C. F. Keil, vol. 9 of Commentary on the Old Testament: In Ten Volumes, by C. F.
Keil and F. Delitzsch (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 199–200 n. 2.
1
4 Steven D. Anderson and Rodger C. Young, “The Remembrance of Daniel’s Darius the Mede in Berossus and
Harpocration,” Bibliotheca Sacra 173 (July–September 2016): 323, http://www.rcyoung.org/articles/darius.html.
15 All quotations of the Cyropaedia in this article are from Xenophon, Cyropaedia, trans. Walter Miller, 2 vols.,
Loeb Classical Library 51 and 52 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914). For online full texts, see
https://ryanfb.github.io/loebolus-data/L051.pdf and https://ryanfb.github.io/loebolus-data/L052.pdf.
16 The Nabonidus Chronicle, from James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old
Testament, third edition with supplement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 306b. Hereafter ANET.
17 Both Babylonia and Persia used accession reckoning for the reigns of their kings, so that “year one,” or the first
year of a king, did not begin until the Nisan 1 following the king’s taking office at some time in the preceding year.
Endnotes for How Darius the Mede
Was Deleted from History and Who
Did It
Summer/Fall 2022 Bible and Spade
18 John C. Whitcomb Jr., Darius the Mede: A Study in Historical Identification (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959),
5ff.
19 Andrew E. Steinmann, Daniel, Concordia Commentary (Saint Louis: Concordia, 2008), 292 n. 5. Whitcomb
(Darius the Mede, 15) cites the Nabonidus Chronicle, Column III, line 20 (ANET, 306b) as identifying this governor
as active in the days immediately following the fall of Babylon, but the “Gubaru” at this place in the text is probably
just an alternate spelling for the Ugbaru mentioned five lines earlier and two lines later, since the cuneiform signs
for “ug” and “gu” are similar.
20 Cyrus began to reign on the death of Darius in late 538 BC, so that his “year one,” according to the Persian
custom of measuring years, began in Nisan of 537 and his fourth year began in Nisan of 535. See my explanatory
box in the previous issue of Bible and Spade: “When Were Cyrus’s Years One and Three?,” Bible and Spade 35, no.
2 (Spring 2022): 20.
21 D. J. Wiseman, “Some Historical Problems in the Book of Daniel,” in Notes on Some Problems in the Book of
Daniel, ed. D. J. Wiseman (London: Tyndale, 1965), 12–18.
22 For an examination of how the Cyropaedia supports Cyrus’s age as about 28 in 547 BC and 36 in 539 BC, see
Rodger C. Young, “Xenophon’s Cyaxares: Uncle of Cyrus, Friend of Daniel,” Journal of the Evangelical
Theological Society 64, no. 2 (2021): 272–73, http://www.rcyoung.org/articles/Cyaxares.html.
23 Beaulieu, Reign of Nabonidus, 108.
24 Antiquities 10.248 (or 10.11.4 in Whiston’s translation): “Darius, who with his relative Cyrus put an end to the
Babylonian sovereignty, was in his sixty-second year when he took Babylon; he was a son of Astyages but was
called by another name among the Greeks” (Ralph Marcus, trans., Jewish Antiquities, Books IX–XI, vol. 6 of
Josephus, 9 vols., Loeb Classical Library [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958], 295). The only Greek
historian who is known to explicitly refer to a son of Astyages is Xenophon, so the “other name” that Josephus did
not supply was very likely Cyaxares. Had Josephus filled in the name, it would have done much to lessen the
assurance of those who confidently assert that both Darius the Mede and Cyaxares II are fictitious characters.
25 Jerome, S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Opera: Pars I: Opera Exegetica 5: Commentariorum in Danielem Libri III
<IV>, Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina, vol. 75A (Turnholti: Typographi Brepols Editores Pontificii, 1964),
820–21, 829.
26 John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Daniel, trans. Thomas Meyers, 2 vols., vols. 24–25 of
Calvin’s Commentaries, 45 vols. (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1852–53; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1948), 1:347–48; James Ussher, The Annals of the World, revised and updated by Larry Pierce and Marion Pierce
(Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2003), 117a (originally published in 1658 in London); Charles Rollin, Ancient
History, 2 vols. (Cincinnati: Applegate, 1858), 1.179b (originally published in French in 12 volumes, 1730–38);
William Lowth, A Commentary upon the Prophecy of Daniel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets, 2 vols. (London,
1726), 1:52.
27 Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments, vol. 4, Isaiah to Malachi (New York,
1843), 588; Thomas Hartwell Horne, An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures,
8th ed., 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1839; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1970), 4:213; Wilhelm Gesenius, Thesaurus
Philologicus Criticus Linguae Hebraeae et Chaldaeae Veteris Testamenti, vol. 1 of 3, א – ט, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1835),
349–50; Humphrey Prideaux, An Historical Connection of the Old and New Testaments: Comprising the History of
the Jews and Neighboring Nations, from the Decline of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel to the Time of Christ, 3rd
ed., with notes, analyses, and introductory review by J. Talboys Wheeler, 2 vols. (London: Tegg, 1877), 1:106–12;
Hengstenberg, Dissertations, 40–43; Keil, Book of Daniel, 192–200; Otto Zöckler, The Book of the Prophet Daniel:
Theologically and Homiletically Expounded, trans. and ed. James Strong, in Ezekiel, Daniel and the Minor
Prophets, vol. 7 of John Peter Lange, Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal and Homiletical, ed.
and trans. Philip Schaff, 12 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1960), 35–36.
28 William H. Shea, “An Unrecognized Vassal King of Babylon in the Early Achaemenid Period,” pt. 3, Andrews
University Seminary Studies 10, no. 1 (1972): 112–13. Shea’s whole article is available online at https://digital
commons.andrews.edu/auss/vol10/iss1/4.
29 Cyr. 2.4.1–5, 5.5.6–10, 6.1.1, 6. Henry Dakyns’s translation of the Cyropaedia is available online at https://
www.gutenberg.org/files/2085/2085-h/2085-h.htm.
30 Young, “Xenophon’s Cyaxares,” 274–75.
31 Keil, Book of Daniel, 198. Keil references Ferdinand Hitzig, author of Das Buch Daniel (Leipzig, 1850).
32 A. D. Godley, trans., Herodotus, vol. 1 of 4, Books I and II, Loeb Classical Library (New York: Putnam, 1920),
169, http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=olbp71364.
33 Persia and the Bible, 80.
34 Steven W. Hirsch, “1001 Iranian Nights: History and Fiction in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia” in The Greek
Historians: Literature and History; Papers Presented to A.E. Raubitschek, ed. Michael Jameson (Saratoga, CA:
ANMA Libri, 1985), 65–85; Steven W. Hirsch, The Friendship of the Barbarians: Xenophon and the Persian
Empire (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1985); R. J. van der Spek, “Cyrus the Great, Exiles, and
Foreign Gods: A Comparison of Assyrian and Persian Policies on Subject Nations” in Extraction & Control: Studies
in Honor of Matthew W. Stolper, ed. Michael Kozuh et al., Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 68 (Chicago:
Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2014), 233–64.
35 Friendship of the Barbarians, 177 n. 69. Hirsch is summarizing Max Mallowan, “Cyrus the Great (558–529
B.C.),” Iran (British Institute of Persian Studies) 10 (1972): 10–11.
36 “Cyrus the Great,” 260.
37 254.
38 “Darius the Mede: A Reappraisal.” The dissertation was expanded by Anderson into a self-published book,
available at Amazon.com.
39 ANET 315b.
40 Friendship of the Barbarians, 81.
41 Beaulieu, Reign of Nabonidus, 32.
42 ANET, 526b.
43 J. Paul Tanner, Daniel, Evangelical Exegetical Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2020), 57–58.
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