Does this tiny tablet prove that the Old Testament is historically accurate? No, it doesn't.
"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.But this doesn't mean that "the whole of the narrative [of Jeremiah] takes on a new kind of power" at all. All it means is that there is a teeny tiny bit more likelihood that some of the historical narrative in the Old Testament is correct. It means little more than that.
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...
Evidence from non-Biblical sources of people named in the Bible is not unknown, but Nabu-sharrussu-ukin would have been a relatively insignificant figure." (The Telegraph)
All fiction needs to be based on fact, after all. Take the book Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown - that has plenty of "facts" in it, yet it is also a complete work of fiction. The same goes for all historical novels - plenty of fact, but a work of fiction nevertheless.
That facts are included in the Old Testament does not mean that it is correct. Least of all facts as simple as a name. Facts can very easily be twisted, or ignored, to support the argument that the writer wishes to make. What this discovery does do is add a few more grains of sand in support of the Old Testament being a true historical narrative - but there is still an entire beach on the other side of the scales.
Source: The Telegraph
