Cyrus Takes Babylon: The Verse Account

The question what Nabonidus was doing in TemÃ- will probably remain unsolved for ever. From the following text, we may deduce that during his life time, there were strong rumors that the king suffered from a mental illness and proposed a religious reform (preferring the Moon god Sin to all other gods). These rumors were used by the author of theVerse account to explain Nabonidus' stay abroad: being mad, he ignored the supreme god Marduk and went away. We will discuss the truth of the allegations below. Nabonidus' devotion to the Moon is a historical fact, proven by an inscription found in Harran (in 1956). That he blasphemed against Marduk, however, must be an exaggeration.