"The Script of God" - Daniel 5:25 in the Light of Mesopotamian Omen Literature

Esztári, Réka and Vér, Ádám (2020) "The Script of God" - Daniel 5:25 in the Light of Mesopotamian Omen Literature. In: Aramaic Science in Qumran. Ancient Cultures of Sciences and Knowledge (ASK) . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen. (In Press)

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Abstract

We will examine the reception of the motif and the concrete text of the famous “Writing on the Wall”, the story of which constitutes the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel. This writing, consisted of four enigmatic words, appeared―according to the story―on the wall of the palace of the last Babylonian ruler, and was actually a riddle which no one could solve, no one, but the Jewish Daniel, who thereby foretold the future of the king and his kingdom. However, during the last one and a half century, several scholars suggested that the original meaning of this four words differed from the one offered by Daniel according to the story, so assumed that the riddle still has to be solved. Since the writing has long been considered as one of the numerous motifs of the Book which have a general Mesopotamian background or origin, several attempts were made to find the concrete antitype of its actual text, however, this could not been convincingly defined thus far within the frames of the Mesopotamian cultural and textual tradition. Instead of seeking for concrete antitypes, the present paper rather aims to focus on the characteristic interpretative methods of Mesopotamian scholars, as well as on their so to say technical terminology, the joint use of which may enable us to find a new possible solution to this age-old riddle.

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