The Madness Of King Nebuchadnezzar

This study of Nebuchadnezzar's madness in Daniel 4 demonstrates how the elements which the biblical author borrowed from Ancient Near Eastern myth commanded the attention of early Jewish and Christian exegetes.

The untold story of King Nebuchadnezzar's daughter For seven years the Babylonian princess Tiamat has waited for the mad king Nebuchadnezzar to return to his family and to his kingdom. Driven from his throne to live as a beast, he prowls his luxurious Hanging Gardens, secreted away from the world. Since her treaty marriage at a young age, Tia has lived an opulent yet oppressive life in the palace. But her husband has since died and she relishes her newfound independence. When a nobleman is found murdered in the palace, Tia must discover who is responsible for the macabre death, even if her own freedom is threatened. As the queen plans to wed Tia to yet another prince, the powerful mage Shadir plots to expose the family's secret and set his own man on the throne. Tia enlists the help of a reluctant Jewish captive, her late husband's brother Pedaiah, who challenges her notions of the gods even as he opens her heart to both truth and love. In a time when few gave their hearts to Yahweh, Tia must decide if she is willing to risk everything--her possessions, her gods, and her very life--for the Israelites' one God. Madness, sorcery, and sinister plots mingle like an alchemist's deadly potion as Tia chooses whether to risk all to save the kingdom--and her family. "The biblical story of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar's seven years as a madman, found in the Old Testament Book of Daniel, deepens and broadens thanks to veteran author Higley's historical research and vivid imagination . . . Readers will find much to enjoy here: fine writing, suspense, mystery, faith, love, and a new look at an old story." --Publishers Weekly "Higley gives readers a dose of biblical history set in King Nebuchadnezzar's palatial gardens and a character like no other in Tiamat, devoted daughter of a king gone mad. The author's insights into a woman's inner strength as she searches for the one true God will leave readers rejoicing."--Romantic Times TOP PICK "Her story will appeal not just to readers of historical fiction but also to those with an interest in biblical history." --Booklist

The untold story of King Nebuchadnezzar’s daughter For seven years the Babylonian princess Tiamat has waited for the mad king Nebuchadnezzar to return to his family and to his kingdom. Driven from his throne to live as a beast, he prowls his luxurious Hanging Gardens, secreted away from the world. Since her treaty marriage at a young age, Tia has lived an opulent yet oppressive life in the palace. But her husband has since died and she relishes her newfound independence. When a nobleman is found murdered in the palace, Tia must discover who is responsible for the macabre death, even if her own freedom is threatened. As the queen plans to wed Tia to yet another prince, the powerful mage Shadir plots to expose the family’s secret and set his own man on the throne. Tia enlists the help of a reluctant Jewish captive, her late husband’s brother Pedaiah, who challenges her notions of the gods even as he opens her heart to both truth and love. In a time when few gave their hearts to Yahweh, Tia must decide if she is willing to risk everything—her possessions, her gods, and her very life—for the Israelites’ one God. Madness, sorcery, and sinister plots mingle like an alchemist’s deadly potion as Tia chooses whether to risk all to save the kingdom—and her family. “The biblical story of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar’s seven years as a madman, found in the Old Testament Book of Daniel, deepens and broadens thanks to veteran author Higley’s historical research and vivid imagination . . . Readers will find much to enjoy here: fine writing, suspense, mystery, faith, love, and a new look at an old story.” —Publishers Weekly “Higley gives readers a dose of biblical history set in King Nebuchadnezzar’s palatial gardens and a character like no other in Tiamat, devoted daughter of a king gone mad. The author’s insights into a woman’s inner strength as she searches for the one true God will leave readers rejoicing.”—Romantic Times TOP PICK "Her story will appeal not just to readers of historical fiction but also to those with an interest in biblical history." —Booklist

The untold story of King Nebuchadnezzar's daughter.

In 1099, the soldiers of the First Crusade took Jerusalem. As the news of this victory spread throughout Medieval Europe, it felt nothing less than miraculous and dream-like, to such an extent that many believed history itself had been fundamentally altered by the event and that the Rapture was at hand. As a result of military conquest, Christians could see themselves as agents of rather than mere actors in their own salvation. The capture of Jerusalem changed everything. A loosely defined geographic backwater, comprised of petty kingdoms and shifting alliances, Medieval Europe began now to imagine itself as the center of the world. The West had overtaken the East not just on the world's stage but in God's plans. To justify this, its writers and thinkers turned to ancient prophecies, and specifically to one of the most enigmatic passages in the Bible the dream King Nebuchadnezzar has in the Book of Daniel, of a statue with a golden head and feet of clay. Conventional interpretation of the dream transformed the state into a series of kingdoms, each less glorious than the last, leading inexorably to the end of all earthly realms-- in short, to the Apocalypse. The First Crusade signified to Christians that the dream of Nebuchadnezzar would be fulfilled on their terms. Such heady reconceptions continued until the disaster of the Second Crusade and with it, the collapse of any dreams of unification or salvation-any notion that conquering the Holy Land and defeating the Infidel could absolve sin. In Nebuchadnezzar's Dream, Jay Rubenstein boldly maps out the steps by which these social, political, economic, and intellectual shifts occurred throughout the 12th century, drawing on those who guided and explained them. The Crusades raised the possibility of imagining the Apocalypse as more than prophecy but actual event. Rubenstein examines how those who confronted the conflict between prophecy and reality transformed the meaning and memory of the Crusades as well as their place in history.

Cut off from a mother's love and facing his father's rejection, legendary King Nebuchadnezzar II struggles through waves of conflict to eventually reign over the great Empire known as Babylon. Fiction based on biblical and historical fact, The PRIDE OF BABYLON chronicles "Nebuk's" birth, struggles to please his father, finding and marrying Mara (the love of his life) then through military successes, to the throne and finally seven years of madness. While military success makes him popular with the people, it does not exempt him from conflict. fending off members of his own family who plot to kill him or at least deny his right to rule by stealing the throne from him. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed Nego, faithful Judean eunuch slaves play key roles in the development of the Babylonian Empire and personally to this great king who shaped the history of the world.

Early Assyriologists were lured to Babylonian studies by the light which cuneiform text shed on ancient history and the Bible, and for later scholars this is still the attraction. The Age of Discovery is not past, and one can still read literature that has been unseen by the eyes of man for millennia. There are myriads of tablets lying in the ancient ruins of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey, waiting for the excavator's spade; in museums there are quantities of inscriptions that have not yet been made public.

This anthology brought together the most important historical, legal, mythological, liturgical, and secular texts of the ancient Near East, with the purpose of providing a rich contextual base for understanding the people, cultures, and literature of the Old Testament. A scholar of religious thought and biblical archaeology, James Pritchard recruited the foremost linguists, historians, and archaeologists to select and translate the texts. The goal, in his words, was "a better understanding of the likenesses and differences which existed between Israel and the surrounding cultures." Before the publication of these volumes, students of the Old Testament found themselves having to search out scattered books and journals in various languages. This anthology brought these invaluable documents together, in one place and in one language, thereby expanding the meaning and significance of the Bible for generations of students and readers. As one reviewer put it, "This great volume is one of the most notable to have appeared in the field of Old Testament scholarship this century." Princeton published a follow-up companion volume, The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (1954), and later a one-volume abridgment of the two, The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures (1958). The continued popularity of this work in its various forms demonstrates that anthologies have a very important role to play in education--and in the mission of a university press.